After the Fall…the Revolution

Michael Hedges November 11, 2009 - Follow on Twitter

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall small fissures in the media landscape grew bigger. Reunification of Germany was only one set of changes. Even as German media followed a unique path, Central and Eastern Europe media would follow.

The Federal German Republic government began working through a series of changes to its media laws two years before the Berlin Wall fell. At the beginning it did not anticipate the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) – East Germany. Two years after reunification German media looked and sounded very different.

East German media had long been a propaganda voice, controlled by the Communist Party, dull and gray. Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF) held the line, barely, under popular pressure. East Germans were ‘discouraged’ from watching Western television but it was a futile effort. Only in the remote north-east and south-east were Western TV broadcasts hard to find. Entertainment programs were produced and, eventually, news programming changed.

The DDR Chamber of Deputies declared DFF politically independent in February 1990. Even earlier East German broadcasters, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, pushed for new openness. Perhaps they were thinking about future job prospects. Indeed, several East German broadcasters successfully integrated into the reunited media.

In October 1989 interviewers on a DFF news program openly questioned Party officials, apparently with encouragement from Party officials. By the end of October the regularly scheduled Schwarz Kanal program, meant to counter Western news broadcasting – ended 30 years of broadcasting.

From the early 1980’s on – some point to the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games – East Germans along with viewers and listeners in most of Central and Eastern Europe became aware of, if not attached to, more Western media. Newspapers from the West were still hard to find but television and radio signals, including satellite broadcasts, skipped lightly over borders with pictures and sounds. The music, soap-operas and, not insignificantly, advertising from the West were in sharp contrast to State propaganda. 

From the mid-1980’s the West German government faced several pressures on the media front, mostly unrelated to East Germany. Public broadcasting underwent reorganization, allowing national television networks while preserving, mostly, Länder control of regional broadcasting.

Legal frameworks for private sector broadcasting were, reluctantly, put in place under pressure from big German publishers. RTL plus began broadcasting from Luxembourg, neighboring Germany, in 1984 and moved studios to Cologne in 1988. ProSieben began broadcasting in January 1989.

Several private radio stations were launched, most financed by big publishers - including Axel Springer, DuMont Schauberg, Bertelsmann and Bauer Media - and a few by brave individuals.

Radio Schleswig-Holstein (Kiel) became the first licensed 24-hour privately owned radio station in 1986. Local Berlin stations Hundert,6 and Radio 100 went on the air in 1987 with private sector owners.  Both drew large audiences as alternatives to public channels RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) and youth oriented channel RIAS 2. 

German reunification in 1990 brought more legal shuffling.  States (Länder) in East Germany were reconstituted. GDR television broadcasting was merged into the German public networks ARD and ZDF. DFF, which enjoyed a brief respite, ceased to exist at the end of 1991.

The East German radio services of Rundfunk der DDR were folded into two new public broadcasters Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB) and Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) and existing public broadcasters Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Sender Freies Berlin (SFB). Eventually, ORB and SFB were merged into Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg (RBB). Local Berlin channel was privatized in 1990. East German youth channel DT64, which gained fame as an alternative rock station, became MDR Sputnik. RIAS was taken over by SFB and RIAS 2 privatized as rs2.

Over the course of the next 20 years, media in Germany has become the richest in Europe and highly competitive. German public broadcasting is well funded and highly respected. Private sector media based in Germany has a global footprint. Still, the imprint of the divide remains.

See also in ftm Knowledge

The Curtain Falls - Media Rises

The series of five articles focused on the fall of the Iron Curtain; Germany in 1989, new media rules, State broadcasting becomes public broadcasting, international broadcasting refocuses and the rise of commercial broadcasting. PDF (November 2009)

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Media in Germany

Home to Europe's biggest broadcasters and publishers, Germany is a highly competitive media market. Transition to digital television was easy, other media not so simple, unsuprising with Germany's complex regulation and business structures. This Knowledge file reports on media leaders and followers. Includes Resources 119 pages PDF (July 2010)

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Bertelsmann - Europe's Biggest

Few media groups have the scale and dynamics of Bertelsmann. From austere beginnings as a hymnal publisher, it has become the dominant European publisher and broadcaster through subsidiaries RTL and Gruner + Jahr. And it's arms reach around the world. ftm explores Bertelsmann and RTL. 30 pages. PDF (April 2010)

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