Television in Germany began in Berlin on 22 March 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. Nowadays, 95% of German households have at least one television receiver. All the main German TV channels are free-to-air.
Most-viewed channels
| Position | Channel | Owner | Share of total viewing (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Das Erste | ARD | 13.4 |
| 2 | RTL Television | RTL Group | 12.4 |
| 3 | ZDF | ZDF | 12.1 |
| 4 | SAT.1 | ProSiebenSat.1 Media | 10.2 |
| 5 | ProSieben | ProSiebenSat.1 Media | 6.3 |
| 6 | VOX | RTL Group | 5.6 |
| 7 | kabel eins | ProSiebenSat.1 Media | 5.5 |
| 8 | RTL II | RTL2 Fernsehen | 4.0 |
Public broadcasters
Main articles: ARD (broadcaster) and ZDF
As stated above, the ARD was the first German broadcasting station. It has a federally orientated structure. At present, nine regional TV stations 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 State Broadcasting - Bavaria
Reception
| Technology | Total households | Relative households |
|---|---|---|
| Satellite | 17,779,000 | 46.1% |
| Cable (digital) | 11,229,000 | 29.1% |
| Cable (analogue) | 6,630,000 | 17.2% |
| 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 available in Germany since 1996. Prior to May 2012, most of the 30+ TV 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 TV 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 TV 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).
Neither HD+ or Sky Deutschland are available via DVB-T or DVB-C (as of May 2012).
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
Prior to 30 April 2012 there were eight free-to-air HDTV channels originating in Germany broadcast via satellite: Das Erste HD, ZDF HD, Arte HD, Anixe HD, EinsFestival HD, Sonnenklar.TV HD, QVC HD and HSE24 HD. After 30 April 2012, when all analogue satellite broadcasts ceased, ten additional FTA HD channels became available (all of which are public service channels): Phoenix HD, NDR HD, WDR HD, BR HD, SWR HD, ZDFneo HD, ZDFinfo HD, ZDFkultur HD, 3sat HD and KiKa HD.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 Berlin 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 on 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 [Media Broadcast]. ARD stations also use their own transmitters.
Subscription channels
Germany's sole subscription channel Premiere had its heyday around the millennium. Premiere offered telecasts of the German football league - the Bundesliga. 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. It is trying to get viewers back by purchasing new international shows and then introducing them to German viewers (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 offers a combination of multiple channels featuring Animal Planet, the Discovery Channel and the Disney Channel; plus several themed channels for music, crime and sport.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.