German television
Encyclopedia
Television in Germany began in Berlin
on March 22, 1935, broadcasting for 90 minutes three times a week. The German television market had approximately 36.5 million television households in 2000, making it the largest television market in Europe
. All important German TV channels are free-to-air.
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 April 1, 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 August 25, 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-German 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.
In terms of total TV viewing market share Germany's market leaders in 2009 were again the two biggest PBS channels (ARD with 12,7% and ZDF with 12,5%) and the two leading commercial channels (RTL with 12,5% and Sat.1 with 10,4%). The leading pay TV provider was Premiere, which was renamed into Sky Germany in early 2010 (see below). The biggest teleshopping providers in Germany are QVC and HSE24.
With 19.8 million TV households cable still is the dominant TV infrastructure in Germany, followed by satellite (15.7 million TV households) and terrestrial (4.2 million TV households). In a 2010 survey half of German television viewers said they often found nothing to watch on television.
and Brandenburg
was switched off in 2003 and replaced by DVB-T
, in 2005, about two-third of Germany's states began to replace analogue transmission. By 2006, all metropolitan and most rural areas had moved to digital transmission. Today, only foreign army bases and some local TV stations still broadcast analogue.
While the public broadcasters ARD
and ZDF
transmit throughout Germany, commercial stations are only available within metropolitan areas, so the number of available channels varies between about 10 and 30. All channels are free-to-air
and the broadcasters rent transmission services directly from a transmitter operator, usually Deutsche Telekom
. ARD stations also use their own transmitters.
As stated above, the ARD was the first German broadcasting station. It has a federally oriented structure. At present, nine regional TV stations cooperate to produce programs for the TV network known as Das Erste (The First):
Some small regions, such as Bremen and the Saarland, have their own broadcasting stations, mainly for historical reasons. They only contribute to the nationwide TV program Das Erste and have limited regional TV programs.
), got into serious fiscal trouble due to its early and proprietary (Betacrypt, d-box
) enforcement of DTV. Later it was reformed and renamed to Sky, now being owned by News Corporation.
German channel group ProSieben showed a BBC
documentary and a self produced TV movie in the autumn/fall of 2004, and the Hollywood films Spider-Man
and Men in Black II
in March 2005 using 1080i
, MPEG-2
and DVB-S
. These were intended to be a test for future commercial HD services.
Regular programming of the HD versions of ProSieben and Sat.1
, both free to air, began on October 26, 2005. Most programming is upscaled SD material. Unlike the test broadcasts, DVB-S2
and MPEG-4 AVC is now used. This is what the major pay TV service Premiere announced it was using.
Premiere itself, after several delays, finally started broadcasting three HD channels — one each dedicated to film
s, sport
s and documentaries
— in November 2005, although there were virtually no suitable, certified receivers available on the market. The content is sparse and thus often repeated. Sky (formerly Premiere) reuses its proprietary digital rights management
system embedded into its content scrambling system (Nagravision
) from SD broadcasts to block analogue output of the movie channel from the receiving set-top box
altogether, only allowing HDCP-secured transmissions; the other channels are less restricted.
For the time being, neither of the services is available via DVB-T
nor DVB-C
.
German producers and hardware companies hoped for a breakthrough of HDTV sales just before the FIFA World Cup 2006 was broadcast in HDTV on Premiere, and via cable
. Much canvassing was carried out at the International Funkaustellung (IFA) 2005
in Berlin. However, sales of flat-screen TVs did not pick up as much as anticipated.
As of 2011, Free-To-Air HDTV is broadcast via Cable and Satellite on 4 channels, Das Erste HD, ZDF HD, Arte HD and Anixe HD. ProSiebenHD and Sat1HD have stopped unencrypted broadcasting in 2008; however, broadcasting resumed in HD (now encrypted) nunder the [HD+] brand, along with the other private channels: Kabel 1, Sixx, RTL, RTL II, Vox and Sport 1. All channels are broadcast using the h.264 codec; most material as of April 2011 remains upscaled SD material.
Most-viewed channels=
The channels with the largest viewing share in 2010 are:
The rather late changeover to DVB was caused both by the long process of selling the infrastructure of former monopolist Deutsche Telekom
to others and the fact that the cable network ends at the curb or property, with the in-house cable in large apartment buildings being operated by a different company. Due to this, the new owners of Deutsche Telekom's cable network were in many cases not able to offer new products directly to the viewer.
By 2006, there were three major cable operators, Unity Media in Hesse
and North Rhine-Westphalia
, Kabel BW in Baden-Württemberg
and by far the largest, Kabel Deutschland
in the other 13 states. Today, all companies offer about 200 TV channels by DVB-C, which includes some 70 channels at no extra charge as well as a number of pay-per-view
offers and subscription-based packages. In addition to that pay TV broadcasters Premiere
(various genres) and, in some networks, Arena
(offering Germany's premiere soccer league
) are available.
In some very large apartment complexes a number of local and national companies operate an in-house cable network which is fed solely by its own satellite antenna on the building, not the local cable operator. The satellite channels are either transcoded into analogue transmission, receivable by any TV set without extra equipment, or into DVB-C.
. The "Bundesliga" was Premiere's cash-cow, 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 re-gained some ground with its new manager Georg Kofler and now tries to get viewers back by purchasing new international shows from overseas and introducing them to the German audience (ABC
's Lost
was first shown on Premiere). Kofler and Kirch bought international movies from American film studios in advance so they could broadcast them one year after their release. Normally, American movies are shown on non-subscription (free-TV) channels three years after their release. Premiere highlights a combination of multiple channels featuring Animal Planet, the Discovery Channel and the Disney Channel
; plus several themed channels for music, crime and sport.
Several German cable companies created a new challenger to Premiere in 2005 - called 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 Bundesliga is regarded as lucrative on the German television market, so previous rights holders Premiere suffered a wounding blow to their concept of broadcasting. Arena held the rights from 2006 to 2008. Further negotiations were due in 2008 for the broadcasting of the Bundesliga.
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
on March 22, 1935, broadcasting for 90 minutes three times a week. The German television market had approximately 36.5 million television households in 2000, making it the largest television market in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. All important German TV channels are free-to-air.
History
In 1948 the British occupation forces allowed NWDR to broadcast television programs 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, based on the Soviet model.A regular schedule began through the cooperation of all ARD
ARD (broadcaster)
ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...
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 April 1, 1963, the long-promised second TV network, the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
(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 August 25, 1967, at 9:30 a.m. on both ARD and ZDF, vice chancellor Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm , was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1964–1987....
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-German 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
RTL Television
Rtl.de' redirects here. For other uses, see RTL.RTL Television , or simply RTL, is a German commercial television station distributed via cable and satellite along with DVB-T , in larger population centres...
(short for Radio Television Luxemburg) and SAT 1
Sat.1
Sat.1 is a privately owned German television broadcasting station. Sat.1 was the first privately owned television broadcasting station in Germany, having started one day before RTL Television....
, started their programming in West Germany in 1984. (Previously RTL broadcast from Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
but was only received in parts of Southwestern Germany).
After reunification, the TV stations of the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
were dissolved and the remnants were used to found new regional networks, e.g. the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk
Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk
Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk is the public broadcaster for the federal states of Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt...
(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 ad 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 2009 were again the two biggest PBS channels (ARD with 12,7% and ZDF with 12,5%) and the two leading commercial channels (RTL with 12,5% and Sat.1 with 10,4%). The leading pay TV provider was Premiere, which was renamed into Sky Germany in early 2010 (see below). The biggest teleshopping providers in Germany are QVC and HSE24.
With 19.8 million TV households cable still is the dominant TV infrastructure in Germany, followed by satellite (15.7 million TV households) and terrestrial (4.2 million TV households). In a 2010 survey half of German television viewers said they often found nothing to watch on television.
Terrestrial
Terrestrial reception had lost most of its users by the 1990s due to extensive cable and satellite coverage. In a two step process analogue terrestrial TV broadcasting in the states of BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Brandenburg
Brandenburg
Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
was switched off in 2003 and replaced by DVB-T
DVB-T
DVB-T is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial; it is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in the UK in 1998...
, in 2005, about two-third of Germany's states began to replace analogue transmission. By 2006, all metropolitan and most rural areas had moved to digital transmission. Today, only foreign army bases and some local TV stations still broadcast analogue.
While the public broadcasters ARD
ARD (broadcaster)
ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...
and ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
transmit throughout Germany, commercial stations are only available within metropolitan areas, so the number of available channels varies between about 10 and 30. All channels are free-to-air
Free-to-air
Free-to-air describes television and radio services broadcast in clear form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscription or one-off fee...
and the broadcasters rent transmission services directly from a transmitter operator, usually Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....
. ARD stations also use their own transmitters.
ARD network
As stated above, the ARD was the first German broadcasting station. It has a federally oriented structure. At present, nine regional TV stations cooperate to produce programs for the TV network known as Das Erste (The First):
- Norddeutscher RundfunkNorddeutscher RundfunkNorddeutscher Rundfunk is a public radio and television broadcaster, based in Hamburg. In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR transmits for the German states of Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein...
- North German Broadcasting - HamburgHamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Lower SaxonyLower SaxonyLower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
, Schleswig-HolsteinSchleswig-HolsteinSchleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - Radio BremenRadio BremenRadio Bremen , Germany's smallest public radio and television broadcaster, is the legally mandated broadcaster for the city-state of Bremen...
- also a television broadcaster - BremenBremen (state)The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is the smallest of Germany's 16 states. A more informal name, but used in some official contexts, is Land Bremen .-Geography:... - Rundfunk Berlin-BrandenburgRundfunk Berlin-BrandenburgRundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg is an institution under public law for the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, situated in Berlin and Potsdam...
- Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting - BerlinBerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and BrandenburgBrandenburgBrandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam... - Mitteldeutscher RundfunkMitteldeutscher RundfunkMitteldeutscher Rundfunk is the public broadcaster for the federal states of Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt...
- Central German Broadcasting - SaxonySaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
, Saxony-AnhaltSaxony-AnhaltSaxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...
and ThuringiaThuringiaThe Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states.... - Westdeutscher RundfunkWestdeutscher RundfunkWestdeutscher Rundfunk is a German public-broadcasting institution based in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia with its main office in Cologne. WDR is a constituent member of the consortium of German public-broadcasting institutions, ARD...
- West German Broadcasting - North-Rhine-Westphalia - Hessischer RundfunkHessischer RundfunkHessischer Rundfunk is the public broadcaster for the German state of Hesse. The main offices of HR are in Frankfurt am Main. HR is a member of the ARD.- Studios :...
- Hessian Broadcasting - HesseHesseHesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state... - SüdwestrundfunkSüdwestrundfunkThe Südwestrundfunk is a public broadcasting company for the southwest of Germany, specifically the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The company has main offices in three cities: Stuttgart, Baden-Baden and Mainz, with the director's office being in Stuttgart. It is an...
- South Western Broadcasting - Baden-WürttembergBaden-WürttembergBaden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
and Rhineland-PalatinateRhineland-PalatinateRhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz .... - Saarländischer RundfunkSaarländischer RundfunkSaarländischer Rundfunk is a public radio and television broadcaster for the German Bundesland of Saarland, with its headquarters in the Broadcasting House Halberg in Saarbrücken. SR is a member of the ARD.- Finances :...
- Saar-land Broadcasting - SaarlandSaarlandSaarland is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states... - Bayerischer RundfunkBayerischer RundfunkBayerischer Rundfunk [Bavarian Broadcasting] is the public broadcasting authority for the German Freistaat of Bavaria, with its main offices located in Munich. BR is a member of ARD.- Legal foundation :...
- Bavarian State Broadcasting - BavariaBavariaBavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
Some small regions, such as Bremen and the Saarland, have their own broadcasting stations, mainly for historical reasons. They only contribute to the nationwide TV program Das Erste and have limited regional TV programs.
Satellite
Digital satellite television has been available in Germany since 1996. Most of the 30+ TV stations broadcast their satellite signal in both analogue and digital (DVB-S) forms. There is currently a single Pay TV satellite operator in Germany - Sky. Prior to being known as Sky, it was named Premiere. It, (with its former owner Leo KirchLeo Kirch
Leo Kirch was a German media entrepreneur who founded the Kirch Group.-Life:Kirch was born in Volkach, Bavaria, but shortly afterward his family moved to the nearby town of Würzburg. After completing High school he studied marketing and management as well as mathematics at the University of...
), got into serious fiscal trouble due to its early and proprietary (Betacrypt, d-box
D-Box
D-BOX Technologies is a Canadian company that produces motion simulation systems and control devices that work with supporting movie and game titles to provide motion to viewers...
) enforcement of DTV. Later it was reformed and renamed to Sky, now being owned by News Corporation.
German channel group ProSieben showed a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary and a self produced TV movie in the autumn/fall of 2004, and the Hollywood films Spider-Man
Spider-Man (film)
Spider-Man is a 2002 American superhero film, the first in the Spider-Man film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It was directed by Sam Raimi and written by David Koepp...
and Men in Black II
Men in Black II
Men in Black II is a 2002 science fiction action comedy starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The film also stars Lara Flynn Boyle, Johnny Knoxville, Rosario Dawson and Rip Torn...
in March 2005 using 1080i
1080i
1080i is the shorthand name for a high-definition television mode. The i means interlaced video; 1080i differs from 1080p, in which the p stands for progressive scan. The term 1080i assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, implying a frame size of 1920×1080 pixels...
, MPEG-2
MPEG-2
MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
and DVB-S
DVB-S
DVB-S is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Satellite; it is the original Digital Video Broadcasting forward error coding and demodulation standard for satellite television and dates from 1994, in its first release, while development lasted from 1993 to 1997...
. These were intended to be a test for future commercial HD services.
Regular programming of the HD versions of ProSieben and Sat.1
Sat.1
Sat.1 is a privately owned German television broadcasting station. Sat.1 was the first privately owned television broadcasting station in Germany, having started one day before RTL Television....
, both free to air, began on October 26, 2005. Most programming is upscaled SD material. Unlike the test broadcasts, DVB-S2
DVB-S2
Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite - Second Generation is a digital television broadcast standard that has been designed as a successor for the popular DVB-S system. It was developed in 2003 by the , an international industry consortium, and ratified by ETSI in March 2005...
and MPEG-4 AVC is now used. This is what the major pay TV service Premiere announced it was using.
Premiere itself, after several delays, finally started broadcasting three HD channels — one each dedicated to film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s, sport
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
s and documentaries
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
— in November 2005, although there were virtually no suitable, certified receivers available on the market. The content is sparse and thus often repeated. Sky (formerly Premiere) reuses its proprietary digital rights management
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
system embedded into its content scrambling system (Nagravision
Nagravision
Nagravision is a company of the Kudelski Group that develops conditional access systems for cable and satellite television. The name is also used for their main products, the Nagravision encryption systems.-Digital systems:...
) from SD broadcasts to block analogue output of the movie channel from the receiving set-top box
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
altogether, only allowing HDCP-secured transmissions; the other channels are less restricted.
For the time being, neither of the services is available via DVB-T
DVB-T
DVB-T is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial; it is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in the UK in 1998...
nor DVB-C
DVB-C
DVB-C stands for Digital Video Broadcasting - Cable and it is the DVB European consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital television over cable...
.
German producers and hardware companies hoped for a breakthrough of HDTV sales just before the FIFA World Cup 2006 was broadcast in HDTV on Premiere, and via cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
. Much canvassing was carried out at the International Funkaustellung (IFA) 2005
Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin
The IFA or Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin is one of the oldest industrial exhibitions in Germany. Between 1924 and 1939 it was an annual event, but as from 1950 it was organized on a two yearly basis until 2005. Since then it has become an annual event again, held in September...
in Berlin. However, sales of flat-screen TVs did not pick up as much as anticipated.
As of 2011, Free-To-Air HDTV is broadcast via Cable and Satellite on 4 channels, Das Erste HD, ZDF HD, Arte HD and Anixe HD. ProSiebenHD and Sat1HD have stopped unencrypted broadcasting in 2008; however, broadcasting resumed in HD (now encrypted) nunder the [HD+] brand, along with the other private channels: Kabel 1, Sixx, RTL, RTL II, Vox and Sport 1. All channels are broadcast using the h.264 codec; most material as of April 2011 remains upscaled SD material.
Most-viewed channels=
The channels with the largest viewing share in 2010 are:
| Position | Channel | Owner | Share of total viewing (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | RTL Television RTL Television Rtl.de' redirects here. For other uses, see RTL.RTL Television , or simply RTL, is a German commercial television station distributed via cable and satellite along with DVB-T , in larger population centres... |
RTL Group RTL Group RTL Group is Europe's largest TV, radio and production company, and is majority-owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. It has 45 television and 32 radio stations in 11 countries... |
13.6 |
| 2 | Das Erste Das Erste Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen , marketed as Das Erste , is the principal publicly owned television channel in Germany... |
ARD ARD (broadcaster) ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters... |
13.2 |
| 3 | Third programmes (7 channels, up to 40 opt-outs) | misc. members of ARD ARD (broadcaster) ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters... |
13.0 |
| 4 | ZDF ZDF Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues... |
ZDF ZDF Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues... |
12.7 |
| 5 | SAT.1 Sat.1 Sat.1 is a privately owned German television broadcasting station. Sat.1 was the first privately owned television broadcasting station in Germany, having started one day before RTL Television.... |
ProSiebenSat.1 Media ProSiebenSat.1 Media ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG is a European media conglomerate, operating commercial television, premium pay channels, radio stations and related print businesses. It was formed on October 2, 2000 by merger of German TV broadcasters ProSieben Media AG and Sat.1 SatellitenFernsehen GmbH... |
10.1 |
| 6 | Pro7 | ProSiebenSat.1 Media ProSiebenSat.1 Media ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG is a European media conglomerate, operating commercial television, premium pay channels, radio stations and related print businesses. It was formed on October 2, 2000 by merger of German TV broadcasters ProSieben Media AG and Sat.1 SatellitenFernsehen GmbH... |
6.3 |
| 7 | VOX | RTL Group RTL Group RTL Group is Europe's largest TV, radio and production company, and is majority-owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. It has 45 television and 32 radio stations in 11 countries... |
5.6 |
| 8 | Kabel 1 Kabel 1 kabel eins is a commercial television channel in Germany. It started business on 29 February 1992, as the Kabelkanal and belongs to the ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG. The channel is largely known for showing classic American films as well as series and documentaries... |
ProSiebenSat.1 Media ProSiebenSat.1 Media ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG is a European media conglomerate, operating commercial television, premium pay channels, radio stations and related print businesses. It was formed on October 2, 2000 by merger of German TV broadcasters ProSieben Media AG and Sat.1 SatellitenFernsehen GmbH... |
3.9 |
| 9 | RTL II RTL II RTL II is a privately owned, commercial, general-interest German television channel.It was founded as a second-generation commercial broadcaster in 1993. It quickly became infamous for its perceived "trash programming", comprising lots of soft porn as well as shows such as Peep and many... |
RTL Group RTL Group RTL Group is Europe's largest TV, radio and production company, and is majority-owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. It has 45 television and 32 radio stations in 11 countries... |
3.8 |
Cable
Cable transmission is still mostly analog with usually about 30 available channels. DVB-C transmission started in 2004 with pay TV Premiere and digital versions of the analogue channels.The rather late changeover to DVB was caused both by the long process of selling the infrastructure of former monopolist Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....
to others and the fact that the cable network ends at the curb or property, with the in-house cable in large apartment buildings being operated by a different company. Due to this, the new owners of Deutsche Telekom's cable network were in many cases not able to offer new products directly to the viewer.
By 2006, there were three major cable operators, Unity Media in Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
and North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...
, Kabel BW in Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
and by far the largest, Kabel Deutschland
Kabel Deutschland
-Company:Kabel Deutschland operates in 13 of the 16 states . In 2006, of the 15.4 million households passed by their cable the company served 9.6 million, however only one third of these are direct customers of Kabel Deutschland, since especially in large apartment complexes the in-house cable...
in the other 13 states. Today, all companies offer about 200 TV channels by DVB-C, which includes some 70 channels at no extra charge as well as a number of pay-per-view
Pay-per-view
Pay-per-view provides a service by which a television audience can purchase events to view via private telecast. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it...
offers and subscription-based packages. In addition to that pay TV broadcasters Premiere
Premiere (pay television network)
Sky Deutschland AG, branded as Sky, is a German media company which operates the first pay television platform in Germany and Austria, offering several channels of digital content via satellite and cable....
(various genres) and, in some networks, Arena
Arena (pay television network)
Arena was a German pay television company that secured the broadcast rights for German "Fußball Bundesliga 2006/2007" . They offer their paid services via satellite....
(offering Germany's premiere soccer league
Fußball-Bundesliga
The Fußball-Bundesliga is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of Germany's football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. It is contested by 18 teams and operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the 2. Bundesliga...
) are available.
In some very large apartment complexes a number of local and national companies operate an in-house cable network which is fed solely by its own satellite antenna on the building, not the local cable operator. The satellite channels are either transcoded into analogue transmission, receivable by any TV set without extra equipment, or into DVB-C.
Subscription channels
The heyday of Germany's sole subscription channel Premiere was about the time of the millennium. Premiere offered telecasts of Germany's soccer BundesligaFußball-Bundesliga
The Fußball-Bundesliga is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of Germany's football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. It is contested by 18 teams and operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the 2. Bundesliga...
. The "Bundesliga" was Premiere's cash-cow, but they lost the broadcasting rights in 2006 to a newly formed competitor - Arena
Arena (pay television network)
Arena was a German pay television company that secured the broadcast rights for German "Fußball Bundesliga 2006/2007" . They offer their paid services via satellite....
. Premiere was the brainchild of the former television czar, Leo Kirch
Leo Kirch
Leo Kirch was a German media entrepreneur who founded the Kirch Group.-Life:Kirch was born in Volkach, Bavaria, but shortly afterward his family moved to the nearby town of Würzburg. After completing High school he studied marketing and management as well as mathematics at the University of...
. He went into insolvency after a decade of losing viewers from his subscription channel, DF1 (Digital TV 1). The company re-gained some ground with its new manager Georg Kofler and now tries to get viewers back by purchasing new international shows from overseas and introducing them to the German audience (ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
was first shown on Premiere). Kofler and Kirch bought international movies from American film studios in advance so they could broadcast them one year after their release. Normally, American movies are shown on non-subscription (free-TV) channels three years after their release. Premiere highlights a combination of multiple channels featuring Animal Planet, the Discovery Channel and the Disney Channel
Disney Channel (Germany)
Disney Channel Germany, Austria & Switzerland is a German cable television network. It launched on October 16, 1999.- Shows & Films on Disney Channel:*Blue's Clues*JoJo's Circus*Almost Naked Animals*Regular Show*Higglytown Heroes*Fraggle Rock...
; plus several themed channels for music, crime and sport.
Several German cable companies created a new challenger to Premiere in 2005 - called 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
DFL
The initialism DFL can stand for the following:*Danmarks Lærerforening, the Danish Union of Teachers*Degree of Financial Leverage Leverage *David Florida Laboratory, a Canadian aerospace laboratory...
. The Bundesliga is regarded as lucrative on the German television market, so previous rights holders Premiere suffered a wounding blow to their concept of broadcasting. Arena held the rights from 2006 to 2008. Further negotiations were due in 2008 for the broadcasting of the Bundesliga.
See also
- List of television stations in Germany
- List of German language television channels
- German television comedyGerman television comedyGermany has a long tradition of television comedy stretching as far back as the 1950s, and with its origins in cabaret and radio.-1960s:*1963: Der 90. Geburtstag is a comedy sketch recorded on July 8, 1963 at Theater am Besenbinderhof in front of a real audience by Norddeutscher Rundfunk...