Talk:Broadcasting in East Germany
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
An entry from Broadcasting in East Germany appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 22 February 2006. |
 |
Contents |
[edit] Categories, Merging and Translating
Hi User:Redvers I put the category:censorship on this article.. I know you will decide if it is appropriate or not.. I am impressed with the quality of article and time it took from first day on Wiki.. Can you do a translation and merge of the en and de versions of Apartheid? , in DE and EN ?
Cheers Gregorydavid 06:33, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] West Germany
ARD/ZDF had a large audience share in the GDR but how widely was DFF viewed in West Germany ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.113.5.105 (talk • contribs).
- It was available across the eastern half of the FRG, but was in Secam colour rather than PAL, and the programming was terrible compared to the west. Therefore, you could say it was available to perhaps 20 or 30 million people in the FRG, but watched by a tiny fraction (it wasn't as good as ARD, it wasn't in colour and it wasn't on cable - three reasons to reduce the audience to a tiny interested minority). I think the article makes reference to this. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 19:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
-
- 30 million seems far too much. Due to geography, many major population centres of West Germany were not able to watch it (reverse situation from East Germany). Watching East German telly was most common in West Berlin. Anorak2 10:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Use of SECAM colour
It is often stated that the use of SECAM colour in most Eastern bloc countries (including the GDR) was to discourage people from viewing Western programmes (which being in PAL would have appeared in Black and White on a SECAM set) even though colour TV's were scarce (and presumably expensive). However various Wikipedia articles mention that many people had converters or adapted TV sets to enable them to view the Western broadcasts in colour. How were these obtained given that one would assume that (state owned/controlled) shops in the East wouldnt have sold them and smuggling from the west was practically impossible ?
One would imagine that even for electronics enthusiasts a DIY convertor would have been difficult to produce given the difficulty in obtaining components (and books explaining the workings of PAL)
So how did they do it ? 87.112.88.106 15:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
- Actually state-owned shops in East Germany did sell dual standard PAL/SECAM sets starting about mid-1970s, both domestic as well as (very rarely) Western produced ones.
- East Germans could also legally buy dual standard sets from the West through Intershops or through a dedicated mail order service, provided they had Western currency. Finally they could receive them as presents from western relatives. No need to smuggle.
- DIY conversion of SECAM-only sets may have existed, obtaining the hardware was of course an obstacle but certainly doable if you had the currency. I know about DIY satellite reception who had similar obstacles.
- I'm not aware of "outboard" PAL->SECAM converters from pre-1990. There are some from after 1990 targeted at owners of SECAM-only sets after all the transmitters in East Germany had been converted to PAL.
- You can safely assume that in the late 1980s single standards SECAM sets were rare in East Germany, because almost anyone who owned a colour set at all would have made sure it could receive PAL.
- The remark about discouraging people from watching Western programmes is perfectly valid, but only for a specific period (50s/60s). In later years western reception was increasingly tolerated, as the domestic production of PAL/SECAM TV sets demonstrates. The state-operated cable TV systems which started to emerge in the 80s even carried Western programmes in many places. (The ones built by private initiatives did anyway).
- Incidentally, black&white sets sold at approx 2,000 Marks (East) as late as 1989, domestic colour sets approx 6,000 Marks. An imported Sony colour set I once saw was 8,000 Marks.
- Hope this answers your question. Anorak2 12:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] POV
By the way, some of the wording of the current article sounds quite biased. Apart from some information lacking, that needs to be fixed. Anorak2 10:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
