Media in Germany

Television

In Germany there are two types of TV channels – the public broadcasting channels and the private channels. The public include channels like ARD and ZDF. You can see the awesome crime series „Tatort“. It’s legendary in Germany.

On the public channels you can see blockbusters, American and German too, and some shows like “Who wants to be a millionaire?” and “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” (it’s the German version of American Idol)

The Channels:

ARD: There you can watch much information about “germany and the world”(Tagesthemen) , and a lot of german crime and love series (Tatort, Sturm der Liebe)

ZDF: look at ARD

NDR: look at ARD

Kika: You can see children information shows, Fairy Tales ( Brothers Grimm) and many cartoon films

Pro Sieben: There you can watch a lot of American series and blockbusters but also German comedy- and quizshows

Sat Eins: They send a lot of police and judgment series

Kabel eins: You can see old and new American series (the wild 70’ / charmed, ghost whisperer) and a famous series: Two and a half men

RTL: They send many series about German families and their problems and also police shows and they send the famous casting show Deutschland sucht den Superstar

RTL2: it’s a bit like RTL but they send also a famous youth series: Berlin Day & Night
VOX: There you can watch a lot of crime series and series about German families
Viva: Cartoon series, Comedy series and a lot of music

20.15: Usually you can watch at all channels movies.

Top Series:

Here are a few famous series in Germany: Tatort, Scrubs, Two and a half men, How I met your mother, gossip girl, Grey’s anatomy, Lost, The Simpsons, Supernatural, Stromberg, Heidi
You see: We looooove American series.

In Germany the Television stations are allowed to show ads, but there some acts about it.

The acts, which aren’t private are always able to show ads. And they also do it, cause they earn their money with it.

The public stations also send some advertisements. 12 minutes per hour and 20 minutes per day is the maximum. Also only on Monday to Saturday before the clock strikes 8 p.m. But their program is funded by a licence fee too.

Another topic are porn’s on TV. Pornographic contents aren’t allowed to be sent by the stations till it’s 23.30. But naked persons without sexual contents can be shown the holy day.   

Movies

I want to present you a typically, famous German film. It´s called „Die Welle“, the English title is „The Wave“. I think the film represents the German National Socialism.

The famous German actor Jürgen Vogel is playing a teacher in a school. He leads an experiment that shows the students, how the National Socialism functioned. In the film you can see how easy it is to control people in a mass. They’re able to do things they would never do normally. The project runs out of control and we can see what can happen if you’re enough. The story is really well made, because the film is extreme realistic. The Movie has got a deep content, and I just want to recommend it.

Prizes and film awards

The German Film Award (known as Deutscher Filmpreis) is the highest movie award you can get in Germany. Movies in different categories like “Best Film”, “Best Actor/Actress” or “Best Score” are nominated every year. There is a cash prize of three million euros.
But there’s a second award, the Bambi, it’s almost the same like the German Film Award, it’s just a little smaller with a cash prize of 400.000 euros.

Games in Germany

Some well-known videogames were produced in Germany. For example „Gothic“, it’s a famous role-playing game series and it was made by the German developing team „Piranha Bytes“

But also, the “Crysis” games were completely made in Germany. They’re well established first-person shooter games in the videogame industry. Many people around the whole world love these games and with over 1 million sold exemplars of the first game it reached “platinum” status. Crysis 2 got even more sales with over 3 million games.