User:OberMegaTrans/19

Headline
ORIGINAL: Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen ("First German Television"), marketed as Das Erste ("The First"), is the principal publicly owned television channel in Germany. It is a joint production of Germany's regional public broadcasters acting through, and coordinated by the ARD consortium. OUR TEXT: The channel is also colloquially called "Erstes Programm" or "ARD".

Member broadcasting organizations
ORIGINAL: All nine of Germany's regional public-broadcasting organizations contribute to the output of Das Erste and broadcast its programming in a common schedule. OUR TEXT: Its headquarters are located at the regional public TV channel Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich. Since 2008 Volker Herres has been director of programming. The legal basis of "Das Erste" is a contract called "ARD-Staatsvertrag".

Time assigned
ORIGINAL: Each regional member of ARD contributes programming to the channel's schedule in proportion to the population of the area it serves. The current (February 2006) time allocations as percentage shares of total broadcast hours are:

OUR TEXT: The program of Das Erste has been supervised by a board of program advisors called „Programmbeirat für das Erste Deutsche Fernsehen“. The board of program advisors had their first official meeting on March 26, 1956. It consists of the broadcasting counselors of each of the public broadcasting agencies who elect their president from their own ranks. The tasks of the ARD board of program advisors was last modified in September 2006 due to changes in the TV contract: “The advisory service and monitoring function of ARD program advisors include structuring of the program according to the ´basic principles of collaboration of ARD’s collective program Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen with other collaborative TV channels and services'. This includes taking into account the protection of minors when designing the program."

History
The beginnings of the program go back to test broadcastings aired from Hamburg. These started on July 12, 1950 as "NWDR-Fernsehen" (Northwest German Broadcasting) with the broadcast of a test picture. This test picture was the first television image to be broadcasted after The Second World War. On August 5, 1950, the constitutive meeting of the ARD took place. At that time, the contributing broadcasting corporations were: BR (Bavarian Broadcasting), HR (Hessian Broadcasting), NWDR (Northwest German Broadcasting), RB, SDR and SWF.

The "Fernseh-Filmbericht" which consisted of contributions by the "Neue Deutsche Wochenschau" was broadcast for the first time on January 4, 1952. In August 1952, it was renamed Tagesschau. On October 26, 1952, the groundbreaking for the new television building in Hamburg-Lokstedt took place. During this ceremony, a casket filled with certificates was immured. The top of the casket was ornamented with the NWDR’s emblem and decorative leaves.

On December 25 1952 the NWDR-television officially started regular service. The program was put together by the then-Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk. It was broadcasted out of the bunkers on Heiligengeistfeld in Hamburg. On December 26, the Tagesschau officially went live. In 1952 the very first Christmas speech was delivered and has been part of the program´s tradition ever since. The speech was held by Bundespräsident Theodor Heuss who declared “… also with regard to the most sophisticated inventions, the Germans are back on track. And now the hardly graspable sorcery of television will enter our consciousness.”

On New Year´s Eve the first New Year´s speech followed, which was also delivered by Theodor Heuss. The first cooking show, hosted by Clemens Wilmenrod, started on Feburary 20 1953. This show became one of the best known formats. In order to reach other parts of West Germany as well, radio towers for television were gradually constructed. In 1953 a broadcasting station was installed on the Feldberg (Taunus). Approximately 4 million people lived in its transmission range. Shortly afterwards, a broadcasting station in Gimmeldingen, Pfalz was put into service for the Southwest of Germany. On October 23 1953, the NWDR- television moved into its new studio in Hamburg-Lokstedt which was the first studio in Europe to be specifically established for television. On Whitsunday 1954 the broadcast of the Eurovison Song Contest premiered. The number of registered televiewers increased from 3.000 in the summer of 1953 to 40.000 in August 1954. Beginning November 1st 1954, the program has been organized in a collaborative effort by all of the broadcasting companies existing at that time. The TV station was thereby the first to broadcast as a collaborative program of the ARD and became the Deutsches Fernsehen.

The "Saarländischer Rundfunk", which joined the ARD on January 1, 1957, also contributed to the collaborative program. One of the first TV events that could be followed everywhere in the broadcasting area was the first flight on the polar route by the SAS.

From the very beginning, part of the program´s target audience were also people of East Germany so that the program was broadcast in West Germany by many strong transmitters. Among them for example, the Ochsenkopf or the Sender Torfhaus/Harz/NDR which could also be received beyond the Iron Curtain as "Westfernsehen". The daily broadcasting of the "Tagesschau" (the most important German news program) started on October 1, 1956. On March 2,1959, the "Tagesschau" was read out by a speaker for the first time. The morning programme of the ARD, which was exclusively for the sovjet, started on September 4,1961, which was later operated with the ZDF. Color television started on August 25, 1967, which was the first day of the 25th radiocommunication exhibition in Berlin. Shows broadcasted in color television were introduced by a special colored trailer. The late-news show "Tagesschau" started on January 2, 1978. Since January 2, 1981, the the joint morning programme is broadcast nationwide.

After the founding of the radio stations MDR and ORB in former East Germany in 1992, these two stations also joined the ARD and contributed to the co-production. Due to the fusion of SDR and SWF to SWR in 1998 and ORB and SFB to RBB in 2003 respectively, the co-production is now produced by nine stations.

The broadcasting of the ARD-Morgenmagazin began in 1993. Since January 1, 1995, there has no longer been a sign-off and the ARD broadcasts now around the clock.

After the ZDF stopped contributing to the joint teletext, the “Videotext”, the ARD-Text was introduced on New Year's Day 2000.

Since February 20, 2005, Das Erste was broadcast from a centralized location called ARD-Stern, on the premises of the HR, in Frankfurt am Main. This is the place where all the fiber-optic communication run together.

A new design for the channel was introduced on November 30, 2008, which replaced the previous blue and light-blue design which had circular shapes by a dark-blue one. It is crossed by light-blue lines (a wave-shaped guilloche) and is contrasted with white elements. It is complemented with subtle platinum-colored elements. The stylized One, with a circle around it, is visible during all programs and broadcasts, used as a Trademark, evoking the image of the ®. Their fonts of choice belong to the Thesis group, TheSans being used for time and date and TheSerif for titles and headlines. Some of the features of the design are previews being shown in fullscreen and are not overlapped with graphical elements. Furthermore, the title of the program is no longer shown in the preview once the emblem of the program can already be seen, for example during studio broadcast. This is supposed to add to the credibility of the station and increase the recognizability of its trademark programs. The design was developed by the DMC Group.

On February 12, 2010, the HD-variant of the program (Das Erste HD) was broadcast.

Technical implementation
The technical assembly of Das Erste is made in the ARD broadcasting center (ARD-Stern) in Frankfurt (am Main) on the premises of “Hessischer Rundfunk”. From there, signals are distributed through the fiber optic network HYBNET to the different companies all over Germany.

Before February 2005, each specific ARD-center that contributed a show to the national program (regardless of whether it was live or pre-recorded), had to open a line to the ARD-Stern from where the signal was passed on to all the other ARD-stations for terrestrial distribution.

After the new system of Central-Broadcasting-Processing (ZSAW) was put into operation in February 2005, for the first time, all broadcasts except live programs (such as movies, soaps, documentaries, etc.) were aired directly from the servers in Frankfurt. The system makes it possible for each ARD-station to show regional advertisement during the early evening program as it is designed to broadcast up to nine programs (and thereby nine advertisement slots) simultaneously. If watched abroad or via satellite, DVB-C and IPTV, WDR becomes the default region. The uplink-antenna for the DVB-S broadcasting is also located on the premises of “Hessischer Runfunk”, in close proximity to the ARD broadcasting center.

Terrestrial
Until 1990 Das Erste was aired in West Germany only. To this end, the ARD installed its own equipment on radio towers all over the country. The ZDF and regional stations, however, broadcasted their program almost exclusively through transmitters of the Deutsche Bundespost, as a consequence of a court decision regarding the freedom of broadcasting in Germany. On December 15, 1990, following the German reunification, Das Erste assumed control over the first channel of the Deutscher Fernsehfunk (the former GDR pendant to the ARD), which was being aired through transmitters of the Deutsche Post of East Germany. Shortly after, the GDR's transmitters were signed over to the Deutsche Bundespost, which merged the organization of their East German transmitting stations with their network in West Germany. The entire transmitting network of the Bundespost was then transferred to the Deutsche Telekom in 1995, and later to T-Systems.

Between 2002 and 2008, transmitters in Germany were successively converted from the analog PAL standard to the new digital DVB-T standard. Numerous spare channels for Das Erste were shut down without replacement during the conversion, which is why Das Erste cannot be received in all areas of Germany anymore.

Nowadays Das Erste is distributed in Germany in 10 different bouquets over 157 transmitters in the digital television standard DVB-T, including two Austrian sites close to the border. In Italy (South Tyrol, Rundfunk Anstalt Südtirol), Switzerland (Graubünden, Swisscom) and Denmark Das Erste is also distributed in the DVB-T-Standard.

Cable
Das Erste is transmitted in almost every cable network both analog and digital (DVB-C) all over Germany. The feed of the HD version Das Erste HD is also digitally provided in several cable networks. Das Erste is also available in numerous European cable networks.

Satellite
"Das Erste" is distributed all over Europe via satellite since the IFA in 1993. The digital satellite transmission DVB-S began in 1997. Right now the Astra 1 satellite (19,2° east]] is being used. Due to cost management reasons the distribution via Hot Bird (13° east) was discontinued on June 8th 2010.

In the course of the next year the distribution via Hot Bird was used in an on-and-off manner until it was finally reestablished on April 6, 2011. German soldiers in Afghanistan, but also numerous tourists, hotels, diplomats, as well as the correspondants of "Das Erste" not covered by the Astra 1 satellite benefit the most from the distribution via Hot Bird, especially in the Middle East, Cyprus and Turkey.

The analog distribution via satellite was discontinued on April 30, 2012.

IPTV
"Das Erste" is also distributed via IPTV in Germany through Deutsche Telekom, Arcor, O2 and others. All branches of "Das Erste" can be received via the streaming platform Zattoo since April 1, 2008. Additionally the most programs can be viewed online on its own streaming platform "Das Erste Mediathek".

Programmes
OUR TEXT: The newscast Tagesschau is shown several times throughout the day on Das Erste. The most important edition of the Tagesschau aires daily at 8pm. Late in the evening, the newsmagazine Tagesthemen is shown followed by the Nachtmagazin after midnight. Occasionally, Das Erste shows its special broadcast Brennpunkt, Tagesschau Extra and Tagesthemen Extra, on current affairs.

On workdays, the channel broadcasts the programmes Morgenmagazinin the morning and Mittagsmagazin at noon, which are co-produced by ARD and ZDF on an alternating basis. Numerous reruns and the service-program ARD-Buffet are also shown in the mornings and around noon. The afternoon schedule includes the telenovelas Rote Rosen and Sturm der Liebe, followed by documentaries about various German zoos and the boulevard-magazine Brisant. During the early hours of the evening, the soap Verbotene Liebe is shown. This is followed by the series Großstadtrevier on Mondays and by Quizshows and Wissen vor 8 (“Knowledge before 8pm”) on Tuesdays to Fridays. Just before 8pm, Börse im Ersten and Das Wetter im Ersten are broadcast.

On weekend mornings the children's program is broadcast.

ORIGINAL:
 * Beat-Club (cancelled)
 * Berlin, Berlin (SFB, cancelled)
 * Ein Herz und eine Seele (NDR, cancelled)
 * Die Kommissarin
 * Harald Schmidt (WDR)
 * Lindenstraße (WDR)
 * Menschen bei Maischberger (RBB)
 * Marienhof
 * Musikladen (cancelled)
 * Polylux (cancelled)
 * Raumpatrouille (cancelled)
 * Sandmännchen (RBB)
 * Sesamstraße (NDR)
 * Die Sendung mit der Maus (WDR)
 * Tagesschau (ARD Aktuell, NDR)
 * Tagesthemen (ARD Aktuell, NDR)
 * Tatort (all regional stations)
 * Verbotene Liebe (WDR)
 * Wochenspiegel (ARD Aktuell, NDR)

Advertisement
On workdays, advertisements are generally allowed to be broadcast between 2 and 8 pm. On Sundays and public holidays they are not permitted. However, this restriction is loosened by lotteries which are rich of advertisements and appear in programs such as football broadcasts after 8 pm. This issue is referred to as product placement by critics. Additionally, programs after 8 pm are often supported by certain sponsors. Due to gradually progressing avoidance of the advertising ban, many viewers of the publicly owned national television ask themselves whether the high fees of the Gebühreneinzugszentrale are justified. After the product placement scandal of the ARD, Fritz Pleitgen, who was a WDR-intendant at that time, espoused banning the sponsoring of non-sport shows after 8 pm since he considered sponsoring to be nothing other than advertising.

Commercial breaks approximately last one to three minutes. It is very unusual that programs are interrupted by commercial breaks. In total, no more than 20 minutes of advertisement per weekday is allowed.