Germany forum < English TV in Germany

  • Dora Böhm

    English language TV in Germany

    posted by  Dora Böhm in Germany forum 

    Your new apartment or house may already be wired with cable or a satellite receiver. In some cases, cable television fees are included with your apartment’s monthly maintenance fee. If not, call your local cable company and they will let you know if your building is wired. The cable television companies in Germany offer a number of non-German channels, including CNN, CNBC, BBC World and French TV5.

    If you have to buy and install your own satellite receiver, they are available at many retail outlets and will allow you to receive all of the major German cable channels, plus numerous other foreign stations. If you get reception from the Astra and Hotbird satellites, you can receive the following “free” English-language stations: Cartoon Network, CNBC, CNN, Eurosport, QVC, Sky News and BBC World. One of the most popular ways to view English-language television services in Germany is to subscribe to Sky TV – Rupert Murdoch’s pay TV network for the UK, which offers subscribers more than 160 channels in English. Due to the licensing arrangements, Sky is only officially available by subscription to residents of the UK and Ireland. However, there are a number of companies that can provide everything you need to receive Sky TV – including the digital receiver and the "smart card." There are a myriad of packages available, depending on your viewing interest. There is usually a one-time set-up fee plus a monthly subscription charge. To find out more about these services, go to www.bavaria-satellite.de.

    Since 2003, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been broadcasting "free-to-air" (i.e. not scrambled) over digital satellite and were joined by ITV in 2005 and Channel 4 in 2008. Provided you have a digital satellite system, you can receive four BBC television stations, four ITV stations and four Channel 4 stations. But because BBC & ITV are broadcast over Astra 2D satellite network, you will need a 90-120 cm dish to receive it - which is larger than the normal dish found at most electronic shops in Germany. You should consult with a satellite technician who can measure your reception quality. The total setup (with dish, receiver and installation) should cost about 400 euros.

    The US military station AFN also has a single terrestrial television program, but you must live quite close to an American base in order to “eavesdrop.” The signals are weak and you need a UHF antenna, as well as an NTSC/multisystem television, to receive AFN. More recently, AFN set up a multi-channel satellite service but to receive it you will need an AFN decoder and this is only available to authorized personnel.

    If you are mainly interested in sports and movies in English, you may want to consider the Premiere digital satellite network in Germany. Premiere offers a range of international sports programming and most movies are offered in two languages – German and English. There is a range of subscriptions available and Premiere can also be received over the digital cable TV network – not just by satellite. For more information, contact Premiere at www.premiere.de or 0180-580 580 4.

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