How To: Watch German Television in the US

Television plays a central role for information and especially entertainment in the US media sector. Americans watch an average of 4.5 hours of television a day, Germans 3 hours. Approximately 1,793 television stations and about 11,100 cable networks supply more than 109 million households with television programs in the US, approx. 60 percent of households have cable. Satellite television keeps becoming more and more important. And if you are staying in the US, you may even watch German television. It is not possible to directly receive the European satellite channels in the US, but ProsiebenSat1-Welt offers a German channel via DISH (www.dishnetwork.com) and via numerous cable networks. The channel airs programs of German channels Sat1, ProSieben, Kabel Eins and N24. Program planning and execution are handled in Unterfoehring near Munich. By now, ProsiebenSat1-Welt has more than 12,000 subscribers in the US. At first only via satellite, the program may now also be received via cable thanks to a cooperation with International Networks LLC.

German-TV was not successful
German-TV, a project by the German channels ARD, ZDF and Deutsche Welle (DW), aired since April 2002, was cancelled in 2005 due to the slow increase in subscribers that didn't cover the costs of the project. The public channels are currently looking for another way of reaching a German audience. One possibility could be German television via internet, so that German visitors wouldn't have to go without their regular program. Numerous televisions networks already broadcast worldwide via the IPTV (Internet Protocol TV). Currently, more than 200 dedicated theme channels in German are available online and can be watched with any computer with internet access and sufficient processing power. Among those are information channels of large companies such as brand manufacturers and travel agencies. However, several special interest channels of a high journalistic quality already exist. So far, those channels are only available via internet. And the implementation of worldwide television is not yet in sight, since IPTV has not been designed to reach vast audiences. Anyone who has ADSL internet access in the US, however, may watch German television with a special software, but without TV card or miles of cable. Find software on www.blitzbox.de/cat/list.php?subcat=461&tr1=bb_DE_PP_GO_itmm