German TV successes abroad
German TV miniseries are a hit on the global TV market.
A new window on the world opened at the 8th Berlin IFA (Consumer Electronics) trade fair in 1931. The scientist Manfred von Ardenne presented to the world’s public a fully electronic television set at the exhibition stand of the German manufacturer Loewe for the first time – and even made it onto the front page of the New York Times. Also referred to as the ‘telecinema’ in the 1930s, this device has long-since become a mass medium.
Reason enough for the United Nations to dedicate a special day to the ‘box’: since 1997, World Television Day has been celebrated every year on 21 November in memory of the first World Television Forum organized by the United Nations in 1996, where representatives of the media industry discussed the importance of television. According to its organizers, World Television Day is therefore not so much a celebration of the device itself, but of the philosophy it represents: TV as a symbol of communication and globalization.
The TV market itself has been globalized for many years. In the past, German TV export successes have included the Derrick thrillers (featuring Horst Tappert), Alarm for Cobra 11, and the telenovela That’s Life (Verliebt in Berlin). At Mipcom, the world’s biggest TV and entertainment trade show in Cannes, German productions attracted abiding interest in autumn 2013, despite a reduction in the number of programme slots for longer movies. For example, a three-part miniseries telling the fate of a group of young Germans during the Second World War called ‘Our Mothers – Our Fathers’ has been sold to 82 countries, according to Beta Film. Similarly, the family saga Hotel Adlon has convinced buyers in Italy, France and Spain.
Television in Germany reaches about 75 percent of the population every day; the average viewing time is currently 223 minutes a day and growing. 92 percent of households have a TV set.
World Television Day on 21 November
