Television in Germany facts for kids
Television in Germany began in Berlin on 22 March 1935, broadcasting for 90 minutes three times a week. It was home to the first public television station in the world, named Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow.
In 2000, the German television market had approximately 36.5 million television households, making it the largest television market in Europe. Nowadays, 95% of German households have at least one television receiver. All the main German TV channels are free-to-air.
History
In 1948 the British occupation forces allowed NWDR to broadcast television programmes for the British zone. Other regional networks also started to launch television in their own areas. Meanwhile, the GDR was launching its own television service, Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF), based on the Soviet model.
A regular schedule began through the cooperation of all ARD members in 1954. Basic principles in the central areas of entertainment, information and enlightenment were established and television plays developed as the medium's own specific art form. Improvements in technology and programming, as well as reduced prices, led to a steady increase in licence holders, and the number of licenses passed the 1-million mark in October 1957.
On 1 April 1963, the long-promised second TV network, the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (Second German Television) started. Unlike ARD, which was regionalized and had its roots in radio, ZDF was a centrally organized channel devoted solely to television. On 25 August 1967, at 9:30 a.m. on both ARD and ZDF, vice chancellor Willy Brandt started the era of colour TV in West Germany by pressing a symbolic launch button at the International Radio and TV Fair in West Berlin.
East Germany started DFF2 in 1969, and introduced colour programming on both channels. In 1972, the DFF was renamed, dropping the pretense of being an all-Germany service and becoming Fernsehen der DDR (GDR Television) or DDR-FS. Its two channels became known as DDR1 and DDR2.
The first two privately financed TV networks, RTL plus (short for Radio Television Luxemburg) and SAT 1, started their programming in West Germany in 1984. (Previously RTL broadcast from Luxembourg but was only received in parts of Southwestern Germany).
After reunification, the TV stations of the German Democratic Republic were dissolved and the remnants were used to found new regional networks, e.g. the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (Central German Broadcasting), as part of the ARD. In addition, more private TV stations opened, becoming available through cable, satellite and in some cases, over the airwaves.
Market
Today, with almost 40 million TV households, 365 TV channels licensed in Germany and a total market volume of €9,615 million in 2008, Germany represents one of the biggest and most diversified TV markets in the world. The strongest revenue segment in Germany is public funding (€4,430 million in 2008), followed by advertising (€4,035 million) and subscription (1,150 € million). This dominant market position of public and advertisement funded free TV channels in Germany explains why the German pay TV segment is significantly underperforming in an international comparison.
In terms of total TV viewing market share Germany's market leaders in 2022 were again the two biggest public-service channels (ZDF with 14.5% and Das Erste with 12.2%) and the two leading commercial channels (RTL with 7.4% and Sat.1 with 5.1%). The leading pay TV provider was Sky Deutschland (see below). The biggest teleshopping providers in Germany are QVC and HSE24.
With 18.1 million TV households satellite is the dominant TV infrastructure in Germany, followed by cable (17.9 million TV households) and terrestrial (3.8 million TV households). In a 2010 survey half of German television viewers said they often found nothing to watch on television.
The Germanophone sphere is the largest market for dubbing in Europe. Foreign TV shows and other formats are often dubbed into German, while subtitled formats with the original language are also becoming more popular.
Channels
The channels with the largest viewing share in 2022 are:
| Position | Channel | Owner | Share of total viewing (%) in 2022 |
Share of total viewing (%) in 2011 |
Comparison 2022/2011 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ZDF | ZDF | 14.5 | 12.1 |  (2.4) |
| 2 | Das Erste | ARD | 12.2 | 12.4 |  (0.2) |
| 3 | RTL | RTL Group | 7.4 | 14.1 | (6.7) |
| 4 | Sat.1 | ProSiebenSat.1 Media | 5.1 | 10.1 | (5.0) |
| 5 | Vox | RTL Group | 4.7 | 5.6 | (0.9) |
| 6 | ProSieben | ProSiebenSat.1 Media | 3.7 | 6.2 | (2.5) |
| 7 | Kabel Eins | ProSiebenSat.1 Media | 3.0 | 4.1 | (1.1) |
| 8 | ZDFneo | ZDF | 2.6 | 0.4 | (2.2) |
| NDR Fernsehen | NDR/RB | 2.6 | 2.5 | (0.1) |
|
| RTL Zwei | RTL Group | 2.6 | 3.6 | (1.0) |
|
| 9 | WDR Fernsehen | WDR | 2.3 | 2.5 | (0.2) |
The combined share of ARD's so called Third Programmes (regional broadcasters WDR, NDR, SWR, etc.) was 13.4% in 2022
Subscription channels
Germany's sole subscription channel Premiere had its heyday around the millennium. Premiere offered telecasts of the German football league – the Bundesliga, but they lost the broadcasting rights in 2006 to a newly formed competitor – Arena. Premiere was the brainchild of the former television czar, Leo Kirch. He went into insolvency after a decade of losing viewers from his subscription channel, DF1 (Digital TV 1). The company regained some ground with its new manager Georg Kofler.
In 2005, several German cable companies created a new challenger to Premiere - ARENA. The participating companies are iesy (Hesse) and ish (TV) (North Rhine-Westphalia) through their combined partnership called "Unity Media". Arena, a rather small company, wanted to buy the pay-TV rights to the German Bundesliga and won by a decision of the marketing directorate of the DFL. The rights to broadcast the Bundesliga is regarded as lucrative in the German television market, so previous rights holders Premiere suffered a wounding blow to their business model. Arena held the rights from 2006 to 2008. Further negotiations were due in 2008 for the broadcasting of the Bundesliga.
Public broadcasters
As stated above, the ARD was the first German broadcasting station. It has a federally orientated structure. At present, nine regional public broadcasters cooperate to produce programs for the TV network known as Das Erste (The First):
- Norddeutscher Rundfunk – North German Broadcasting – Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
- Radio Bremen – also a television broadcaster – Bremen
- Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg – Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting – Berlin and Brandenburg
- Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk – Central German Broadcasting – Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia
- Westdeutscher Rundfunk – West German Broadcasting – North Rhine-Westphalia
- Hessischer Rundfunk – Hessian Broadcasting – Hesse
- Südwestrundfunk – South Western Broadcasting – Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate
- Saarländischer Rundfunk – Saarland Broadcasting – Saarland
- Bayerischer Rundfunk – Bavarian Broadcasting – Bavaria
Seven of these broadcasters run their own regional TV programs (The Third), most of them use several frequencies and show local opt-outs. While multi-state-broadcasters NDR, RBB, MDR and SWR have state versions (e.g. RBB Berlin, MDR Sachsen, NDR Hamburg and SWR Baden-Württemberg), BR and WDR have regional opt-outs below state level (BR: North and South, WDR: 11 versions). Two small regions, Bremen (RB) and the Saarland (SR), have their own broadcasting stations, mainly for historical reasons. They only contribute to the national TV channel Das Erste and produce a state opt-out for their neighbour broadcaster (SR Fernsehen on SWR, Radio Bremen TV on NDR).
Teletext
Germany has run a regular Teletext service (often called Videotext) since 1 June 1980 on the public broadcasting channels. Almost all German TV stations have teletext. Even with the advent of digital television, teletext is still widely used.
Teletext pages are selected via a three-digit number, ranging from 100 to 899. While every station is free to organize their teletext pages in any way, most adhere to the following de facto standard:
- 100 Main page
- 110 News
- 120 News / Weather
- 200 Sports / Soccer
- 300 TV schedule
- 333 On air now
- 600 Advertising, chats (commercial channels only)
The teletext system is also used to transmit subtitles on a special, transparent page (usually 149, 150 or 777), so that both text and the normal picture are visible. With the advent of digital television however, a few stations discarded teletext subtitles and are now using the subtitles feature of the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) system.
Series
Almost all fictional programs on German television are regular TV series. While the public broadcaster(s) predominantly own(s) the productions that are broadcast, the private stations/networks often put on series licensed from abroad, mainly the United States. Peaking in the 1990s, the private channels had aired self-produced series such as Der Clown (1996–2000), Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei (Alarm for Cobra 11 - The Motorway Police) (since 1996), The Sentinel (1994–1996), Alpha Team - The Lifesaver in OP (1996–2005) or Wolff's Turf (mainly from 1992 to 2006) with great success. Since the late 2000s, the amount of original series on the private broadcasters has markedly declined.
The highest-rated series is the crime drama Tatort, which airs almost every Sunday on public broadcaster ARD. It has run since 1970 and has featured several casts, that are not related to each other.
See also
- Telecommunications in Germany
- List of television stations in Germany
- List of German language television channels
- List of German television series
- German television comedy
- Media of Germany
- Dubbing (filmmaking) § Germany, Austria and Switzerland
