Friday Night Fernsehen

It’s Friday night, your child is tucked up in bed and you have had your dinner. You can’t hit the town, because you have no babysitter, you can’t drink because you are pregnant. It’s either go to bed (except that it’s only 9.15pm – early even by your standards), or turn on the TV or "der Fernseher".

We pay the GEZ (Gebühreneinzugszentrale) – basically German TV licensing – 53,94 EUR every 3 months, so you kind of feel like you ought be watching a certain amount on the box. In Germany, you pay for every TV or radio you have - per radio per month is 5,76 EUR, for one TV and one radio per month, 17,98 EUR. This is changing in January 2013 when they are introducing a system like we have in the UK: a fixed rate per household.  To be honest you are better off saving yourself the fees, joining the library or reading “Der Spiegel”. TV in Germany is not that great if you are used to the variety of choice offered in the UK, for example. My advice is to get yourself a VPN, so that you can watch UK, Spanish, whatever, TV on the Internet.

Anyway, the TV is on. You start to flick. It’s a bit late for the programmes that you usually like watching – “Das perfekte Dinner”, “Mieten, Kaufen, Wohnen”, “Goodbye Deutschland”, amongst others. You are basically left with a few 8.15pm films (all dubbed of course), a few crime series (Germans love CSI, Cobra 11, Criminal Minds, etc.), or watching the news on CNN or BBC News. You should have gone to bed after all.

The biggest channels in Germany are ARD, ZDF, RTL, Pro7, Sat1, etc., and you can also get French, Spanish, even Arabic channels as well as CNN and BBC News. Popular shows are “Tatort”, “Wetten Dass..”, “Deutschland sucht den Superstar”, anything to do with Stefan Raab and David Hasselhof is extremely popular. Say no more.

Personally, I enjoy a bit of Gunter Jauch presenting “Wer wird Millionär”. Oh, not to forget the televised Saturday night festivals of German folk music – anyone come up with a better way to spend a Saturday night than singing, dancing and clapping to German “Schlager” music and watching all the Dirndls and Lederhosen?  And if that still doesn’t float your boat, there is always the post-midnight selection of TV shows. On that note; goodnight, schlaf gut!