Television in Germany began in Berlin on 22 March 1935, broadcasting for 90 minutes three times a week. It was home to the first regular television service 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 public-service German television 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 television 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 television in West Germany by pressing a symbolic launch button at the International Radio and Television 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 television 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 television 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 television stations opened, becoming available through cable, satellite and in some cases, over the airwaves.
Market
Today, with almost 40 million television households, 365 television channels licensed in Germany and a total market volume of €9,615 million in 2008, Germany represents one of the biggest and most diversified television 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).German TV Market Report 2009 International Television Expert Group This dominant market position of public and advertisement funded free television channels in Germany explains why the German pay television segment is significantly underperforming in an international comparison.Global TV Market Report 2009 International Television Expert Group
In terms of total television viewing market share, Germany's market leaders in 2024 were again the two biggest public-service channels (ZDF with 15.3% and Das Erste with 13.0%) and the two leading commercial channels (RTL with 8.1% and Sat.1 with 4.5%). The leading pay TV provider was Sky Deutschland (see below). The biggest teleshopping providers in Germany are QVC and HSE24.
With 18.1 million television households satellite is the dominant television infrastructure in Germany, followed by cable (17.9 million television households) and terrestrial (3.8 million television households). In a 2010 survey half of German television viewers said they often found nothing to watch on television.Operators need an EPG+ strategy for content discovery
The Germanophone sphere is the largest market for dubbing in Europe. Foreign television 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 2024 are:
Position Channel Owner Share oftotal viewing (%)in 2024 Share oftotal viewing (%)in 2011 Comparison2024/2011 1 ZDF ZDF 15.3 12.1 (3.2) 2 Das Erste ARD 13.0 12.4 (0.6) 3 RTL RTL Group 8.1 14.1 (6.0) 4 Sat.1 ProSiebenSat.1 Media 4.5 10.1 (5.6) 5 Vox RTL Group 4.3 5.6 (1.3) 6 Kabel Eins ProSiebenSat.1 Media 2.8 4.1 (1.3) ProSieben ProSiebenSat.1 Media 2.8 6.2 (3.4) ZDFneo ZDF 2.8 0.4 (2.4) 7 NDR Fernsehen NDR/RB 2.6 2.5 (0.1) The combined share of ARD's so called Third Programmes (regional broadcasters WDR, NDR, SWR, etc.) was 13.6% in 2024
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 television 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-television 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 television 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 television 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 television 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 television 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 Television schedule 333 On air now 600 Advertising, chats, phone sex (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.
Reception
Technology Total households Relative households Satellite 17,779,000 46.1% Cable (digital) 11,229,000 29.1% Cable (analogue) 6,630,000 9.9% DVB-T 3,865,000 10.0% DSL-TV 1,899,000 4.9% All 38,557,000 100%
Satellite
Digital satellite television has been officially available in Germany since 1996. Prior to May 2012, most of the 30+ television stations broadcast their satellite signal using both analogue and digital (DVB-S); however, all analogue satellite broadcasts ceased on 30 April 2012.
There is currently a single pay television satellite operator in Germany - Sky Deutschland. Prior to being known as Sky, the service was named Premiere; it (along with its former owner Leo Kirch) got into serious financial trouble due to its early and proprietary usage of encryption (Betacrypt, D-box). Subsequently, Premiere was bought by News Corporation and renamed Sky, in keeping with their satellite services elsewhere in Europe (Sky (UK and Ireland) and Sky Italia).
HDTV via satellite
In late 2004 German channel group ProSieben showed a BBC documentary and a self-produced television movie in 1080i via MPEG-2 DVB-S, followed by the Hollywood films Spider-Man and Men in Black II in March 2005. These were intended to be a test for future commercial HD services.
Regular free to air broadcast of the HD versions of ProSieben and Sat.1 began on 26 October 2005. Unlike the test broadcasts, DVB-S2 and MPEG-4 AVC were used. Both ProSieben HD and Sat.1 HD ceased their unencrypted broadcasts in 2008; encrypted HD broadcasting of both channels resumed under the HD+ brand (which also included other commercial channels; see below) in January 2010.
Premiere, after several delays, started broadcasting three HD channels — one each dedicated to films, sports and documentaries — in November 2005, although there were virtually no suitable, certified receivers available on the market. The content was also 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.
On 1 November 2009, the premium HD+ service launched with two channels, RTL HD and Vox HD, with Sat.1 HD, ProSieben HD and Kabel eins HD joining the service in January 2010. DSF HD (now called Sport1 HD) began test broadcasts in August 2010 and launched fully on HD+ on 1 November 2010, followed by Sixx HD and RTL2 HD on 1 December 2010. In June 2011, Comedy Central HD, Nickelodeon HD and N24 HD joined service, bringing the number of channels offered to 11. In April 2011, HD+ became available to Sky Deutschland subscribers without the need for an HD+ CAM and viewing card (although an additional subscription is still required).
Currently (as of May 2012) all satellite HDTV channels are broadcast using the h.264 codec. As of July 2014, most material is upscaled SD content.
Free-to-air HDTV via satellite