German television programming

I watched german television for the first time in several months but only because the missus wanted to watch something. I now know why I decided to get a dish set up to receive UK TV. I got the impression that just about everything on german television is meant to give you a severe bout of depression. Everything was about doom, gloom and how dangerous everything in this world is.
Anyway after about 2 hours of this I decided to go and lay down on the rail tracks but the train was late so I came home again.

dont say that...got to catch the train to the airport this afternoon...the last time i did that someone decided to jump in front of it...

Yeah, but if it's not serious discussion, it's the dreaded Volksmusik! All those Bavarian mountain scenes, with badly-dressed characters 'singing' about how big their hearts are and how clean the air is. The Mullet haircuts are still out in force on these shows - it's like the '80's never ended Now, where's that railway line...

I don't want to argue, I am just wondering

When you have a dish and receive only the free programs, what is so much better then compared to german tv?

I have a much simpler solution. I turn the effing thing off.

Well, OK, I do turn it on to watch a DVD or play a bit of PS2. But I can't remember the last time I actually watched TV. Even then it was to catch the news on BBC World.

My wife sometimes watches a movie on the tube -- she's developed a thing for Bollywood.

Nowadays I get my news from the Web, and most of my entertainment as well. So rather than sitting in front of the boob tube and passively turning my brain into Jell-O, I am sitting in front my computer actively turning my brain into Jell-O.

I havn´t watched Germany TV in years,thank God my Wife is in the US army and we are exempt the GEZ ,can t imagne paying for Hours of talk shows and
it getsa worse in Feb when they actually televise the Carnival in Köln,all that hand clapping drives me nuts.
They can copy though, I heard they have "who wants to be a Millionaire" there own version of American idol,and even a take on "the office" still where is their imagination.The only good stuff is imported from the UK or US,so its DVDs and Playstation for me too i´m afraid

I recently got cable which allows me to get Sky News, BBC Prime and a whole host of American news and sports channels - I have to say I'm rapidly getting hooked on a bit of Jay Leno before bedtime and good old natural science programmes on the Beeb on a Sunday night!


You havent read a Daily Mail lately then, have you. Doommmmmm, Gloooooooommmmmmmm, class revolution etc etc

talkshows are mostly at day times, while I am at work so I don't mind really. And again...what is so much better on the free channels over satellite, if you dont have PayTV?

Id rather have Volksmusk than Jay Leno! (and thats saying something).. all that shouting and ego tripping.

There is some really dreadful stuff on German TV. Volksmusik(truly truly awful), carnival, talk-shows (the British ones are probably just as bad) and Endemol productions of any type to just name a few.

There is some good stuff though, most of it imported. I love the Autopsie type of program, the CSI/Medical investigation types etc. Schillerstrasse is sometimes a laugh and...now I'm getting stuck and reaching for the remote for BBC Prime etc...

we don't get BBC Prime with just the satellite for free.

German Tele is indeed truly awful. I never watch it, which can only be a good thing.

what do you watch then on the english free channels which is so much better?

Can't just anyone name a few shows or magazines or whatever, which is so much better than on shitty german telly?

Little Britain

yeah ok, I have to admit, it makes me laugh really loud sometimes. But this ugly fat guy also makes me almost puke sometimes. Its a bit to much for my taste sometimes

There's crap on TV everywhere, but it does seem to be particularly bad here.

The only things watchable on German TV are foreign productions. There is literally nothing domestically produced that I can stand to watch. Some people will mention some of the comedy shows, and fine, but I disagree. I'll concede that Tatort can be good sometimes, too, to be fair.

So for the most part the only decent thing on are American series with German dubbed over. Lovely.

The best german production I ever saw was the Schwarzwaldklinik on English TV. It had been so badly synchronised that it was just superb! The best laugh I'd had for ages!

Hannah UK TV is world reknowned.There is just too much to list,some great educational shows, like "Time Team",

another brilliant show even if you are not into cars is TOP GEAR (can you imagine Christian Slater or some other world superstar coming onto "Auto motor sport magazine" to drive cars around a track?).

In fact UK TV is so good it has its own channel in America called BBC AMERICA the best of British TV on one channel. They have tons of shows about going round peoples houses and completely re-decorationg rooms or gardens for them,like house swap,how about "Super Nanny",tons of reality TV shows;I know Germany is getting some of these shows now but they are just blatent copies.

Then there is SKY TV,a different leaugue from "Premiere" with all its discovery channels etc.
Talk shows are rare,and then only very late at night.We also invented
TOP OF THE POPS, long long before MTV or VIVA.

I never saw that but I did see the synchronised version of the legendary German TV series 'Derrick' on UK late night TV in the late 80s or so. It was just so so bad.

You can watch Top Gear on BBC World in Germany, too. Well, you could but its recently been replaced with The Spirit of Yachting.

They'll bring it back in a few months, though.

Have just watched the series The Virgin Queen on BBC before that I watched Rome, nothing on German TV can compare with British drama productions.

Like it! With the exception of the Board naturally.

I agree, before I had the cable tv with the English package, I just watched BBC world rather than German TV or I'd buy DVDs of tv series, I just HATE to watch a good American or British serie with the German dubbing as it is distracting when you are use to the original voices.

Most of the stuff they show nowadays are copies of American or British programs, and bad ones too, even if the originals weren't that good to start with at least there was the originality but I don't get why they have to copy and rehash EVERYTHING here?
For example programs like these: Wife swap, The Weakest Link, Cutting it, Footballers Wives, Pop Idol, Strictly Come Dancing, the Super Nanny, Changing Rooms, Ali G, The office, Top of the pops, The X-Factor...

They all can be currently found in their German versions

I stick to BBC Prime, BBC World, Sky News, CNBC to watch Jay Leno, National Geographic, TCM or MGM for classic movies, Premiere cinema for new films and American series like 'Desperate Housewives', 'Lost', 'Medium', 'Rome', 'Nip/Tuck'.
Boomerang for classic cartoons, E! Entertaintment for showbiz and sometimes Deutsche Welle's English news or Journals for more 'local' news.

I just wanted to say how much we enjoy Deutsche Welle. We watch both the German and English versions. I especially like the international content of their presenters but love to hear the Australian newsreaders!

It has to be said though that some of the series you mentioned here are not British either but were sold as a 'job lot' by Dutch programme development company Endemol to different national TV companies around Europe. Wife Swap, Pop Idol, Super Nanny, X-Factor at least.

That shouldn't take away from your main point though that a lot of the best TV is still made in the UK although the 'quality' of that is going down as a result of digital TV because the BBC and ITV have to know before they make something that they can sell it abroad.

anyone seen that program Titty Bang Bang? I dont know what to make f it, i think its a rip off from Little Britain.

as I said, if you have a package where you pay for, there might be a difference but this would be the same as if you buy a premiere package. I was talking of FREE tv and of course for somebody who doesnt talk german, german telly is crap cuz its all original language or dubbed.
But c'mon...don't tell me, that the british jungle show thing with your celebrities is any better than the german version. If you are not into this kind of entertainment, they are just all bullshit. No matter if the british, german, australian or US version.

again, it might be different if you get all of this channels, the only one we get from them is Sky News. British FREE tv does not seem any better to me since the german one. And when we go to Liverpool, my bf's Dad only has the "basic" thing. 5 programs I think? I can't say, that it's really entertaining to me

I just want to point out that my husband is German and he never watches German tv, for news he prefers BBC world or SKY news and for comedy anything from the BBC or American stuff.
German comedy/entertaintment programs make him cringe!

Your husband sounds like a good bloke.

He got 'spoilt' after so many years living in London so he knows better...

Speaking of TV, I rent a house and have a German sat on the roof as we are too remote for cable.I cant get line of sight for SKY ( too many trees)
Anyway I used to Get BBC World,MTV,VIVA and Eurosport.I went away for 3 weeks and just those 4 channels had gone.
I still have a signal though.

I aaint worried about VIVA as that Crazy Frog was fory our häääändy was driving me insane, but I miss BBC world,anyone have any idea how I would get them back? Did they become pay TV or something?

Thanks for any info

It's strange. I can think of dozens of british TV productions that outclass anything I have seen here - The Office, Little Britain, Wallace and Grommit, the latest Doctor Who, anything by David Attenborough, Film on 4 etc etc, but whenever I go back I often find there's bugger all on that I want to watch.

Having said that I don't think British TV has anything that is quite so dire as 'Wetten Das', and 7 Tage 7 Köpfe is embarrassingly poor when you compare it to 'Have I got news for you'

I do think Günther Jauch is better than Chris Tarrant, though.

It's one of life's mysteries why Wetten Das is so popular.

I do think Günther Jauch, but i was watching Millionair on Monday and almost went crazy. After 25 minutes there had still only been ONE question!

I don't know how it is in Britain, but compared to the US the show is awful. Firstly, the Germans never risk anything. I've seen people go through all three life-lines and then go home with 4,000 Euro on a question they where only 80% sure of the answer. And then it really annoys me when Jauch start helping the contestants. If they don't know the answer, get them off the show and put a better contestant on.

Have you ever noticed that Gallieo always has reports on how germans make sausages?

No offence Ami,but I was in the US in January and got watching the American "millionaire" show and was shocked at how easy the qustions were compared to the UK show.

This one bloke was anwering the $250,000 questions and it was as easy as a $1,000 question in the UK!!Even my American Wife admitted the questions were much easier than the ones she had seen in the UK show. I know the qustions are orientated towards the country in question..but still Im a Brit and I found them very easy.

I think I need to get on the American show.quick $1,000,000 me thinks

but the thing is the contestant never knows whether he is helping them or not. Recently a contestant had used the 50-50 and still had no idea. He was going to go for the wrong one, until Jauch manipulated him into thinking of choosing the other (correct) option. Having got him so far Jauch then came out with the 'Why are you changing your mind' routine and the poor sucker ended up choosing the wrong answer after all and was out. Brilliant! It makes me cringe sometimes, but it's what makes German millionaire more than a run of the mill quz show.

I agree. They actually made the questions easier after the first season because nobody would watch if there weren't big winners.

Verliebt in Berlin...It's the best show in Germany

???!!!

And i thought tonights programme was about the womens prison in Frankfurt. Might be worth watching to see what they do with 'em afterwards though,eh?!?

I think British TV is the best in the world, and the BBC excels in its comedy.

On BBC Prime this week: Only Fools and Horses, Red Dwarf, The Kumars, Little Britain, Absolutely Fabulous

Jay Leno on CNBC and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (on CNN of all places) are great too.

And did anyone catch the Top Gear Winter Olympics on BBC World yesterday:
"The team fetch up in Norway where they attempt Olympic events - in cars. In a world first, a rocket-powered Mini is fired off a ski jump, Jeremy and James tackle the biathlon with 4x4s, Richard stages car ice hockey and the Jaguar SK races a speed skater."

(Although I wish the British film industry was doing better after watching the BAFTAs last night. but Stephen Fry was entertaining)

The oddest program I ever saw when I lived in UK was called "Was Hitler gay?" on BBC!!!

I enjoyed that programme a couple of years ago with the city family being sent to live in the Black Forest farmhouse as it was 100 years ago.

The problem with most German documentaries is that particularly earnest, almost reverent voice the presenters use. They all must go to a special school, & all sound the same whether its about "cooking", the German Baltic coast, wild boar etc

Well.. [cough, cough] There have been one or [cough] two Brits [cough, cough, cough] who were well prepared [cough] to risk everything [cough, cough]

Major Fraud

Yeah, Germans always play it too safe... plus they always get a little help if they are on an easy question...
Shame really, would love to see something like this happening on the German show...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIQLq1ftvN0

Wetten das...

must surely be the most bizarre show on German TV? What is the point? I've never, ever, ever been able to understand the appeal of it. Seems to be only about getting big stars on ie Gottschalk showing off who's he's best mates with back in the USA where he lives...

Well said Hannah... British primetime TV is awful these days IMHO...

Have I missed something ??
Since when has british TV had a primetime ??
The best stuff is always on so late ...