When did German TV decline?

[bytex 25]

Don't say German TV was always bad as back in the mid 90s when we had a satellite dish from all of the countries I found RTL, RTL II, Pro 7, Das Erste the most watchable, followed by Italian RAI 1,2,3 tied with RTP (Portuguese national channel) at close second. Spanish TV was as bad then as it is now.

 

Anyway, especially the German children programmes were so cool like Käpt'n Blaubär, The Show with the mouse, or Vampy where I watched animes dubbed in German. That helped me pick up some phrases and words. They also had nice own-produced talkshows like Arabella hosted by Arabella Kiesbauer. She looked so cutting-edge to me! German TV back then felt almost like US TV (lots of dubbed US shows/sitcoms). I guess reality TV helped diminish its quality? When did you notice the decline?

[Krieg 14,502]

It was bad in the 00s and maybe in the early 10s, but in the past years it has been improving a lot.   But you are barking at the wrong tree, here most people will tell you German TV is bad and British TV is good.  But most do not really watch German TV, maybe due to being in German.

[john g. 36,400]

1 hour ago, bytex said:

Don't say German TV was always bad as back in the mid 90s when we had a satellite dish from all of the countries I found RTL, RTL II, Pro 7, Das Erste the most watchable, followed by Italian RAI 1,2,3 tied with RTP (Portuguese national channel) at close second. Spanish TV was as bad then as it is now.

 

Anyway, especially the German children programmes were so cool like Käpt'n Blaubär, The Show with the mouse, or Vampy where I watched animes dubbed in German. That helped me pick up some phrases and words. They also had nice own-produced talkshows like Arabella hosted by Arabella Kiesbauer. She looked so cutting-edge to me! German TV back then felt almost like US TV (lots of dubbed US shows/sitcoms). I guess reality TV helped diminish its quality? When did you notice the decline?

I don't watch TV. Many years ago in Hamburg, I had a cat ( Hemingway ) who knocked over my then mini- TV off its position on top of an empty case of wine. I laughed. And then- who cares?

 

But when I arrived in Germany at the beginning, I spent a few days at a friend's place and she had a TV. I found out they had the dubbed version of Fawlty Towers ( " das verrückte Hotel ") and I knew almost off by heart all the series in English. So it was a great way to learn German!

No idea how German telly is these days...

[El Jeffo 41,853]

I don't have anything to contribute to the subject except a cat story, but I'll post anyway, just because.

 

FFS

[theGman 3,458]

Germans can make great TV shows but, for me, make terrible TV. Dark is incredible, Deutschland 83, How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast), Stromberg to name but a few. But you have to know where to find them. The browsing TV experience is what I find poor. Soo much crap, all starting at 20:15 and lasting for 2-3 hours at a time. And for the record breaking money that ARD gets, they should be producing knockout after knockout.

[jeba 4,167]

There pretty good public channels like e.g. Arte, ZDF Info, Phoenix, alpha. It's not all crap.

[warsteiner70 254]

I don't think it's just German TV. Ever since the casting shows, reality tv, etc. came along in the late 90's/early 00's TV in general has gone massively downhill and that will be the same in most countries. Pretty much the same TV programs are shown on TV in Germany and the UK, just in a different language and while you get the odd decent program here and there in both countries, you really need to search through a lot of rubbish to find anything decent.

 

I normally stick to the documentary type channels (ZDF Info, Phoenix, etc.) on German TV with a smattering of the odd English/US TV show and one or two series from Netflx/Amazon.

[alderhill 1,088]

I barely watch TV, except for news or a docu or (passively) little kid cartoons. Most of what I want I find on youtube, when I have time. Yes, there is loads of crap on YT, but also plenty of high-quality niche programming... outdoors stuff, DIY, travel, science, etc. I have found it a lot more rewarding and informative than the paint-by-numbers watered down versions of everything on the classic 'terrestrial' broadcasters. Even on my actual TV screen, I 90% of the time watch youtube channels. 

 

There are a few gems from German producers now and then, and I also liked Deutschland '83 (though I think it followed in the coat tails of The Americans). But German TV never does anything out of the mold IMO, it's only ever following the main trends. I know that is an accusation that all advertisement-pushing mainstream broadcasters can take, but with German TV, it's especially so IMO. 

[black1 1,694]

It gets used only when my daughter wants to watch the World Cup/UEFA or Germany's Next Top Model. Other that that it stays firmly off in favour of Amazon/Netflix or dvds/blu rays.

[bramble 9,442]

4 hours ago, warsteiner70 said:

I don't think it's just German TV. Ever since the casting shows, reality tv, etc. came along in the late 90's/early 00's TV in general has gone massively downhill and that will be the same in most countries. Pretty much the same TV programs are shown on TV in Germany and the UK, just in a different language and while you get the odd decent program here and there in both countries, you really need to search through a lot of rubbish to find anything decent.

 

As a previous viewer of UK TV channels and since the 80's a longtime viewer of German TV channels I agree 100 % your observation. 

[kiplette 8,306]

5 hours ago, El Jeffo said:

I don't have anything to contribute to the subject except a cat story, but I'll post anyway, just because.

 

 

'I don't have anything to contribute top the subject except to pick on another member, so I'll crack on and do just that'.

 

Nice.

[El Jeffo 41,853]

17 minutes ago, kiplette said:

 

 

'I don't have anything to contribute top the subject except to pick on another member, so I'll crack on and do just that'.

 

Nice.

 

In case you haven't noticed, he does that on Every. Single. Thread.

[john g. 36,400]

I doubt German TV is better than it used to be.

A good TV programme would be about Jeffo's bullying and his sidekick Alex gleefully greening in the background- both control freaks and would have been the first to denounce people who are a bit unconventional to the Stasi.👍

 

People will soon have to watch German TV again because so many people have quit this forum in despair at the bullying!😒

[RenegadeFurther 2,370]

7 hours ago, El Jeffo said:

I don't have anything to contribute to the subject except a cat story, but I'll post anyway, just because.

 

FFS

 

Why don`t you just ask the mods to ban him?

 

If that doesn`t work maybe you could try asking for your admin job back.

 

Then you can go ban crazy.

[El Jeffo 41,853]

If I had the power to ban people, do you really think you'd still be around, cupcake?

 

#JEFFOanon

[RenegadeFurther 2,370]

13 minutes ago, El Jeffo said:

If I had the power to ban people, do you really think you'd still be around, cupcake?

 

#JEFFOanon

 

Well I have been on multiple timeouts.

 

You seem to attack whoever you please, mob whoever you please and the mods seem sh*t scared to do anything.

 

Why is that Jeff?

 

Because you are a funny guy and TT needs your humour?

 

[emkay 9,685]

I watched German TV when I regularly visited my grandparents when I was a kid.  Children’s TV seemed fine. Since moving to Germany 10 years ago with reasonably good German, I really struggled to watch English/American films dubbed into German. I often just couldn’t understand much at all.  After a while, we came up with a theory that maybe, because German words are often much longer than English, fitting dubbing in well might make dialogue much quicker, hence, harder to understand.  Don’t know, just a daft theory.

 

I do like some nicey nicey German series though don’t like to watch on main TV channels.  The ad breaks are so long and frequent, it’s sometimes easy to forget what you were watching!

 

I don’t think many German productions are of a quality that they are translated into other languages. Not even on Amazon prime or Netflix. I just don’t understand why so many English/American TV is dubbed into German with weird offset of both languages….horrible. Even new stuff like Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime.  Worth watching…very funny and interesting.

 

I was surprised however how strangely well Little Britain was translated into German….properly and still funny!. Hmm, let me think if I can add a cat story into this….must be one somewhere!

[john g. 36,400]

Danger alert, emkay!😂

Cats and other stories not welcome by certain posters! They might be happy memories or unhappy memories.. frowned upon by the control freaks. How dare you have memories?😂

[Magmax 321]

Its not all bbd therre arre good tv series  Kudam 56 Deutcland 83" 86 andd otherrrs- ans a progrrram ONee ujse to e Eins broaddcasts a lot of BBC and ITv dddhows een n original sound on satellitw Astra. Junh reality shows like Big Brrothe arre bad

[Magmax 321]

Hi John