After technically immature beginnings under the Nazi dictatorship, television established itself as a mass medium in Germany in the 1960s. In 1952 there were already 15 million Americans watching television but only around 300 Germans, their number growing to 1 million in 1957. After more than three decades, the 1984 cable pilot project in Ludwigshafen heralded the end of the public broadcasting monopoly by granting private providers entry to the German broadcasting system for the first time. Around ten years later the development of a dual system with country-wide reception was complete, with RTL, Sat.1 and ProSieben among the commercial, advertising-funded broadcasters.

Regardless of increasing competition from the Internet, television is still considered the key medium: in 2012 Germans watched an average of 222 minutes’ television every day. Despite the continued existence of classic news bulletins like Tagesschau and long-standing entertainment shows like Wetten, dass?, increasing programming diversity in recent years has prompted channels to orient themselves increasingly toward specific target groups. Like other media, the history of television is also characterised by fashions in formats: in the 1990s talk shows and court shows were particularly popular, followed by Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Big Brother and later game shows and reality programmes. Recently the boom in casting shows like Deutschland sucht den Superstar (Germany Looks for a Superstar) and Germany’s Next Topmodel appear to have peaked. The future of television as a key medium in the face of online services independent of programme schedules appears undecided: the younger generation is increasingly finding its stars online.