German Television

Does anybody watch German television, be it via the internet or whatever?

What I would like to find out is the following:

- Is German television (on the whole) more a part of a global market (for example, "Deutschland such den Superstar" - Germany's equivalent of American Idol, or is it more nationally specific, for example "Live at the Bundestag!" ?

- (for the Germans or people who live in Germany..) Do more people watch satelite television in Germany, or do more people stick to the terrestrial programs such as ARD, ZDF and so on?

- Can you give examples for either answer?

I am trying to gather information that I can use in an essay that I have at the moment, and thought that you guys may be able to provide me with some useful information.

Thanks in advance!

Reply 1

Ziggy Stardust

OP

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Get the hell out of my thread.

Reply 2

hobnob

14

Ziggy Stardust

Does anybody watch German television, be it via the internet or whatever?

What I would like to find out is the following:

- Is German television (on the whole) more a part of a global market (for example, "Deutschland such den Superstar" - Germany's equivalent of American Idol, or is it more nationally specific, for example "Live at the Bundestag!" ?
It's quite difficult to give you a clear answer on that one, because it depends on the type of programme you're looking at. The most successful quiz and game shows etc. are nearly always the German version of some global format (i.e. Big Brother, Deal or No Deal, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, etc. Although there's one peculiarly German show-type thing - it's really a bit of a strange format - called Wetten Daß?, which has been successful in German-speaking countries for decades, but hasn't been successful anywhere else. It must strike a particularly German nerve, I suppose (don't ask me what it is, though; I find it incredibly tedious). Soaps and comedy shows are usually German productions, crime series are mostly American (not counting Tatort). Talk shows often try to imitate an American format, but obviously their content isn't. Political programmes are "nationally specific" as you call it, but that's to be expected, really.
It also depends on which channels you include in your definition of "German television on the whole", because there's different categories of channels that aim for different audiences and consequently have different types of programmes. The main categories are:
"öffentlich-rechtliche": ARD, ZDF plus all the regional "dritte Programme" (SWR, N3, Bayern 3, RBB, MDR, etc.): All very down-to-earth stuff: "serious" news programmes (Tagesschau, Heute), political programmes (Weltspiegel, Berlin Direkt), a handful of soaps that have been around for ages (like Lindenstraße), history programmes (Sphinx), Tatort, the odd trashy made-for-tv production of Rosamund Pilcher short stories (don't ask me why, but Germans seem to be crazy about them or they wouldn't keep making those dreadful films), some good old children's programmes (like Die Sendung mit der Maus and Sesamstraße - the latter originally was a German version of Sesame Street, but it's been around for so long it has pretty much lost any resemblance to the original), a bit of cultural stuff (like Das Literarische Quartett, which stopped a few years ago, though). Films, but none that are very recent. One political talk show (Sabine Christiansen). The regional channels have more local news and weather forecasts (but they also broadcast the ARD news, soaps set in that particular region of Germany, with characters speaking mild dialect, BBC Nature productions, documentaries about railways in Siberia or some ancient trade that used to be widespread in Lower Saxony and now no longer is, which is a shame, and which is basically why they made the programme. They show fewer advertisements than the other channels, because they're publically funded through the money people pay for their tv licences.
"private" (Sat1, RTL, RTL2, Pro7, Vox, plus a few more whose name I don't know): trashier stuff, aiming for a younger audience and always desperately trying to appear trendy. This is where you'd find programmes about celebrity gossip and "lifestyle", news programmes that only have very brief snippets of news and are much more sensationalist in tone (as a rule of thumb, if two dozen children were killed in a suicide attack on an orphanage, Tagesschau will usually just tell you and perhaps show the faces of a few shocked bystanders and the damage the explosion did; Sat1 News will try to make bloody well sure to show dead bodies), American-style talk shows featuring people revealing more about their sad private lives than you'd care to know, more recent films and German "comedy", which usually isn't very funny. (The latter is mainly a domain of Sat1 and RTL).
special interest: channels dedicated to news (N24), sports (DSF, Eurosport), music (MTV, Viva), arte (a German/French cooperation, which is mainly dedicated to more highbrow culture - this is where you'd find obscure black-and-white silent films of immense artistic value which you might be able to appreciate a bit more if it didn't have Bulgarian subtitles; arte also broadcasts classical concerts, opera or ballet), Kinderkanal (mainly cartoons, most of which aren't originally German), one or two "gaming" channels, teleshopping channels, travel channels, etc.
"pay-tv": I've got no personal experience of that, but I'd assume it's pretty much the same thing as Sky.

- (for the Germans or people who live in Germany..) Do more people watch satelite television in Germany, or do more people stick to the terrestrial programs such as ARD, ZDF and so on?

Well, nowadays increasingly few people ONLY have ARD, ZDF plus the relevant "drittes Programm". I'd say the majority watch both types of channels and choose depending on the programme. Tagesschau remains the most popular news programme, for example. That's one of the reasons why films usually start at 8.15pm except when they're very long or sure to attract a large audience: Tagesschau is broadcast between 8 and 8.15, and for decades it was the virtually the only programme people would watch at that time. It's slowly changing, though.

Whew. Hope this helps a bit. If you need more specific answers, though, you'll need to ask more specific questions, I'm afraid. :smile:

German Television

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