I think I’ll blog a lot about TV stuff in the future and as I’m living in Germany it’ll be about German TV. So this post is meant to explain the German TV landscape to all non-Germans. I’ll give a brief explanation about the basis of German TV and outline the most important channels.

A very important thing to know about German television is that there are two groups of TV broadcasters: public-sector and privately owned, commercial ones. The public ones recieve money via the GEZ: Every household with a television set or a radio or a computer has to pay almost 20 € every month. So, the public stations are independent from advertisment (they don’t have any ads in the primetime) and can broadcast programs only few and/or non-target-group people want to watch (e.g. educational programs).

On the other hand there are the privately owned broadcasters which air what the masses wanna watch. That’s why many people are annoyed: They have to pay much money for programs they aren’t really interested in while they get the content they indeed want to watch for free. And now, here’s the dilemma: The public-sector broadcaster relent and air more and more entertainment programs, but therefore receive again hard criticism, because if public stations broadcast the stuff commercial stations are usually broadcasting – financed by ads and distributed for free – why should anyone pay anymore for the public stations!?

So, now you have some insights into the very basis of Germany’s TV landscape. Let’s now get on to the several stations:

some German TV stations - I don't own these pictures; Copyright by the single stations; no Copyright infringement

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  ARD

  ARD aka “das Erste” (“the first one”): Public-service network. It was Germany’s first broadcaster (therefore the “1″ in its logo). The average ARD-viewer is 59 years old and so is their program: quite boring, conservative and irrelevant for youngsters. Their two flagship programs are: 1. The “Tagesschau”, Germany’s oldest television news. It airs for 57 years by now, every day at 8 o’clock pm and ends a quarter-hour later at 20:15. That’s why the German prime-time begins at 20:15, because in the past every TV viewer watched the “Tagesschau” and afterwards switched to other channels. If these other channels were starting to air their prime-time program before 20:15, everybody would have  missed the beginning, so they always started at 20:15. (Read more about this) 2. The “Tatort”: A crime television series set in various parts of Germany and Austria. I don’t like it, that’s why I don’t really watch it . So I can’t say much about it.

  Other channels that belong to the ARD network: BR, HR, MDR, NDR, radiobremen, rbb, SR, SWR, WDR, arte, Phoenix, 3sat, Ki.Ka, Deutschland Funk, DW

  daserste.de

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  ZDF

  ZDF abbr. of “Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen” (“Second German Television”): Public-service network. Germany’s second broadcaster (that’s why the “Z” in the circle is shaped like a “2″, very clever, ay?). The average ZDF-viewer is 60 years old, although the program is actually a bit younger than ARD’s one. ZDF’s flagship program is “Wetten Dass…?”: A huge show (the most successful television show in Europe), hosted by “Thomas Gottschalk” (who is known for often overrunning the scheduled airtime) in which he talks with big celebrity guests. Each of the guests has to bet: Candidates (ordinary people) try to accomplish some unusual, mostly weird tasks. The task is explained to the guest before the candidate performs it. The guest must bet on the outcome of the performance  and offer a wager, an activity he/she carries out if he/she loses. In between musical acts perform (also huge ones: in the latest show among others Duffy and Oasis).
  Back to the ZDF: Another noticeable thing is that they air huge Blockbusters like “Harry Potter” as the free-TV premiere always at the end of a year. Probably to increase the year’s average rating.

  Other channels which belong to this network: ZDF infokanal, ZDF dokukanal, ZDF theaterkanal, arte, 3sat, Phoenix, Ki.Ka, Deutschlandfunk (channels like Phoenix belong to ZDF as well as to ARD)

  zdf.de

   

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  RTL

  RTL: commercial TV network. Germany’s largest TV broadcaster in the target-group of 14-49-year-olds. It’s known for its shows like “Wer wird Millionär” (“Who will become a millionair”, Germany’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionair”), “Deutschland such den Superstar” (“Germany seeks the Superstar”, Germany’s “Pop Idol”), “Ich bin ein Star – Holt mich hier raus!” (Germany’s “I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out Of Here!”), “Das Supertalent” (“The Supertalent”, Germany’s “America’s Got Talent”), “Bauer sucht Frau” (“Farmer seeks Wife”, Germany’s “Farmer Wants a Wife”) and for it’s Tuesday-evening series “CSI: Miami” and “Dr.House” (both have a market share of over 30%!). So, you see: Actually all their big programs are American or British ones. Apart from these programs, RTL has also sportscast in their schedule. The most remarkable one is the “Formula One”, because it has a market share of up to 42%! Nevertheless their viewer’s age is at the lower end of the target-group: RTL’s average viewer is 45 years old. 

  Oh, if you wonder why you haven’t heard anything about a German Kelly Clarkson: The German Pop-Idol-winners are actually quite amateurish, not on the level of Kelly Clarkson. The show’s producers rather want emotional, cameraworthy candidates during their show – talent is secondary.

  Other channels belonging to this network: VOX, Super RTL, RTL Crime, RTL Living, Passion, n-tv, RTL2

  rtl.de

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  ProSieben

  ProSieben: commercial TV channel. Belongs to the ProSiebenSat.1 Media network. ProSieben is a made-up word from Programm (in this case “channel”) and Sieben (“Seven”). ProSieben’s Slogan is “We Love to Entertain You”. It has the youngest audience (apart from children’s programs): The average ProSieben-viewer is 36 years old. ProSieben is known for its Blockbusters and Premium-series (such as “Desperate Housewives”, “Lost” or “Pushing Daisies”), because it has contracts with almost every big Hollywood studio: Disney, Sony Pictures, Paramount, Warner Bros, MGM, Lucasfilm, Dreamworks, Constantin, Tobis, Kinowelt, Disney-ABC International and CBS International. Nevertheless they don’t have as many viewers as RTL. Series like “Pushing Daisies”, “Samantha Who?”, “Lost” etc. are unfortunately totally failing here in Germany. There are actually only two remarkably successful shows on ProSieben: “Popstars” and “Germany’s next Topmodel – by Heidi Klum” (it’s like “America’s Next Top Model”, but hosted by Heidi Klum). Every now and then they have Celebrity-Docusoaps like “Sarah and Marc in Love” (Sarah Connor is a star here in Germany and she married Marc Terenzi; the wedding arrangements and the wedding itself were accompanied by ProSieben), “Sarah and Marc crazy in Love” (the… “sequel” – what their Life looked like after the wedding), “Gülcans Traumhochzeit” (“Gülcan’s dream wedding”; Gülcan is a host on a Music Channel; her wedding was also accompanied by ProSieben. Dude, so many weddings..!).

  One important person on ProSieben is Stefan Raab. He hosts his own show “TV Total” since 1999 which is aired four times a week. But he is also responsible for many special-event shows like “Wok WM” (sport spoof: celebrities use woks to run down a bobsled run), “TV Total Turmspringen”, “Bundesvision Song Contest” and “Schlag den Raab” (“Beat The Raab”), the most successful show in ProSieben’s latest history. A candidate has to compete with Raab in several tasks to win half a million Euros. Neither the candidate nor Raab know what the tasks will be before the show airs. If the candidate loses and Raab wins, the money is saved for the next show, so that there is a whole million to win the next time. This goes on till a candidate wins. That’s why one candidate already won 2.5 million Euros! The show was so successful that it was sold under the name “Beat Your Host” to Great Britain, Italy, Sweden, Finland, the USA, France, Spain, Belgium and Rumania. ProSieben now produces a spin-off show called “Schlag den Star” (“Beat The Star”) hosted by Raab in which candidates compete with different celebrities.

  ProSiebenSat.1 Media were taken over by money-grubbing investors who fused ProSiebenSat.1 with another Media company called “SBS Broadcasting”. Since then ProSiebenSat.1 Media is one of the biggest European Media companies (or even the biggest one?!) with channels in Austria, Swiss, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Hungary. The fusion however has costed three billion Euros (!) and plunged the company into immense debts.

  Other German channels of ProSiebenSat.1 Media: Sat.1, N24, Kabel Eins, ProSiebenSat.1Welt, Kabel Eins Classics, Sat.1 Comedy

  ProSieben.de

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  Sat.1

  Sat.1: commercial TV channel. Belongs to the ProSiebenSat.1 Media network. “Sat.1″ is made-up from the words Satellit (because it was aired via satellite in the beginning) and 1 (uhm, I think because it was Germany’s first commercial TV channel). The average Sat.1 viewer is getting older and older and is already too old for the target-group: 51 years old! That’s why Sat.1′s market shares in the target-group are decreasing since 2006 and are now below 10%! The program directors desperately try out new series, shows, movies,… but aren’t very successful with it. In comparison to ProSieben – where the contents are mostly American and even the few German productions have English titles – Sat.1 is very German. It has many German-produced series and German-produced Event-movies. It’s known for its Comedy-shows and series like “Schillerstraße” (an improv show in which German comedians have to improvise together and get stage directions via in-ear headphones), “Die dreisten Drei”, “Sechser Pack”, “Pastewka”, “Ladykracher” etc. During the daytime they broadcast trashy television court shows, talk shows and pseudo-docus. Sat.1′s successful times seems to be over however. They have had their highest market share in 1994.

  Other German channels of ProSiebenSat.1 Media: Sat.1, N24, Kabel Eins, ProSiebenSat.1Welt, Kabel Eins Classics, Sat.1 Comedy

  Sat1.de