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Communist-Era Television |
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#151 |
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Quote:
That's interesting, thanks. So AFN TV and BFBS TV didn't reach the eastern part of Berlin. Ulbricht and Honecker must have been relieved.
![]() However, AFN & BFBS radio were widely available in Greater Berlin on FM. AFN and BFBS radio would have been of more interest anyway because they played all the western pop hits. I bet Radio Luxembourg was popular behind the wall as well. |
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#152 |
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Interesting!
Since we were talking about Albania, here are bits and pieces of Communist-era Albanian TV (inlcuding the news), recorded in 1986: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=332&v=nO3Zbr5jftw https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=359&v=ZriPzkQ0mv0 This clip includes a weather forecast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UQN4aPPoMw And here's Albanian TV news in the years after the fall of Communism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frnyi9rYGWs |
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#153 |
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To be fair AFN and BFBS were never intended to be 'border blasters'- apart from anything else they would obviously have been in English and I *think* AFN would have been in NTSC, which even dual standard TVs wouldn't have been able to decode. I'm not even sure they would have got a black and white picture.
BTW, here are 1980s promotional films about BFBS Television: Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJemXKSEIvY Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzkVz07eNU4 ... and AFN Europe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6xyRIT-98Q |
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#154 |
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Goodbye Lenin, what a great film that is. I grew up in communist Yugoslavia, and we had a decent TV programmes at the time. TV in Yugoslavia was more liberal than in some other Eastern European countries with lots of foreign imports, Dallas, Dynasty, Crime stories, Miami Vice, Poirot etc. I used to love watching Survival documentaries as a child which was part of the school programme schedule in the morning.
We had lots of Walt Disney cartoons and Bugs Bunny. On a Sunday afternoon, we would have a popular cartoon series aired before the central news, cartoons like The Smurfs, He-Man and Hero Turtles. We only had two main channels of the public TV in every federal republic, and in the late 80's we got the third channel and some commercial networks in the early 90's. |
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#155 |
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I was in Germany during the late 70's a a member of the British Army of the Rhine and I have to say that the East German channels (DDr1 & DDR2) were far better than the West German channels.
They were often far more rude too with lots of nudity and on screen sex. |
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#156 |
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Goodbye Lenin, what a great film that is. I grew up in communist Yugoslavia, and we had a decent TV programmes at the time. TV in Yugoslavia was more liberal than in some other Eastern European countries with lots of foreign imports, Dallas, Dynasty, Crime stories, Miami Vice, Poirot etc. I used to love watching Survival documentaries as a child which was part of the school programme schedule in the morning.
We had lots of Walt Disney cartoons and Bugs Bunny. On a Sunday afternoon, we would have a popular cartoon series aired before the central news, cartoons like The Smurfs, He-Man and Hero Turtles. We only had two main channels of the public TV in every federal republic, and in the late 80's we got the third channel and some commercial networks in the early 90's. http://postimg.org/image/8rbt66l6r http://postimg.org/image/6a4ncnqo3 http://postimg.org/image/5zx4tbc1v http://postimg.org/image/kk0lzj4wf The letters in parenthesis indicate the originating broadcaster: (zg) = TV Zagreb (bg) = TV Belgrade (sa) = TV Sarajevo (lj) = TV Ljubljana (also see page #3 for TV Ljubljana's separate, Slovenian-language output) (sk) = TV Skopje (ns) = TV Novi Sad (pr) = TV Pristina samo = only shown on a particular broadcaster And from 1976, here are Slovenian TV listings from the Ljubljana-based magazine Stop: http://postimg.org/image/dl5hdmeqz/ http://postimg.org/image/f2qxp6jhn/ |
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#157 |
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Very interesting to see listings for Super Channel, Sky Channel, RTLplus, and SAT.1 in a Yugoslav magazine from 1989! Were privately owned satellite dishes already common in Yugoslavia back then?
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#158 |
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These are the listings pages for Friday, 18th February 1983, from the West Berlin edition of HÖRZU, which was the most popular West German listings magazine until the early 90s:
http://www.bilder-hochladen.tv/pic/9...B6rzu_Berlin_1 (afternoon) http://www.bilder-hochladen.tv/pic/V...B6rzu_Berlin_2 (afternoon, plus DDR, AFN, TF1) http://www.bilder-hochladen.tv/pic/n...B6rzu_Berlin_3 (evening) http://www.bilder-hochladen.tv/pic/w...B6rzu_Berlin_4 (evening) http://www.bilder-hochladen.tv/pic/V...B6rzu_Berlin_5 (radio) http://www.bilder-hochladen.tv/pic/k...B6rzu_Berlin_6 (radio, including DDR, AFN, BBC, BFBS) Hörzu was published by the conservative Springer Verlag (who also own the notorious Bild tabloid). The company refused to acknowledge the GDR as an independent state, and "DDR" was always written in quotation marks in their newspapers and magazines. In the GDR, there was a only a single listings magazine called FF dabei. It was hard to get hold of: Popular demand was higher than the supply. The magazine only printed listings for domestic TV channels and radio stations. No Czech or Polish channels. And of course no western channels either - until November 1989. In early 1990, western magazines became officially available in the GDR, and Springer Verlag quickly published a tailor-made edition of Hörzu for the East German market. This is how the listings looked like on 28th April 1990: http://www.bilder-hochladen.tv/pic/E...C2%B6rzu_DDR_1 (DFF 1 & DFF 2) http://www.bilder-hochladen.tv/pic/J...C2%B6rzu_DDR_2 (ARD & ZDF) http://www.bilder-hochladen.tv/pic/i...C2%B6rzu_DDR_3 (regional & satellite channels) http://www.bilder-hochladen.tv/pic/Y...C2%B6rzu_DDR_4 (RTLplus & SAT.1) (The name of the East German TV station had been changed back from DDR-Fernsehen to Deutscher Fernsehfunk in March 1990. And the quotation marks in Hörzu were gone.) |
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#159 |
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Goodbye Lenin is one of my favourite films, must watch it again. Quote:
I was in Germany during the late 70's a a member of the British Army of the Rhine and I have to say that the East German channels (DDr1 & DDR2) were far better than the West German channels.
They were often far more rude too with lots of nudity and on screen sex. |
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#160 |
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Quote:
Very interesting to see listings for Super Channel, Sky Channel, RTLplus, and SAT.1 in a Yugoslav magazine from 1989! Were privately owned satellite dishes already common in Yugoslavia back then?
BTW, Studio in Croatia and Stop in Slovenia has extensive satellite listings in 1989, TVen in Bosnia-Herzegovina had brief highlights, while RTV Revija and TV Novosti in Serbia didn't carry any satellite TV information at the time (at least at the beginning of the year). I don't know about Macedonia's Ekran because I've never seen it. |
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#161 |
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Quote:
That's interesting, thanks. So AFN TV and BFBS TV didn't reach the eastern part of Berlin. Ulbricht and Honecker must have been relieved.
![]() However, AFN & BFBS radio were widely available in Greater Berlin on FM. |
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#162 |
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Goodbye Lenin is one of my favourite films, must watch it again.
Although most of what we hear regarding GDR is about the stasi they did seem sexually somewhat liberal, I dunno if true but I heard on gay issues in the 80s the government opened a gay bar and decriminalised homosexuality before West Germany. |
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#163 |
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#164 |
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Educational programmes on East German TV: English & Russian language courses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drBAmq4F-kI This version of "English for you" was from the 60s. They also produced another 52-episode version in the late 1970s which was repeated over and over again until the GDR collapsed. The programme was meant to supplement the official schoolbooks that were also named "English for you". http://www.amazon.de/English-you-Eng.../dp/B0053AXFWM I remember watching these programmes as a child. It was always on at 14:25 CET when our West German channels were off-air. They always managed to flavour the language course with some propaganda, e.g. the exploited English car mechanic had to work long hours, while his boss sat in an armchair beside his swimming pool, sipping a cocktail. ![]() ![]() Excuse me, how can I get to Alexanderplatz? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfHLEdp37RM |
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#165 |
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Only three products in almost five minutes. And the "walkman" is as big as a lexicon. ![]() I also liked this one: 30 Second Vegetarian Nightmare - Chicken Minced Meat - (Retro Soviet Ad from 1986) ![]() https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6LAVk1sHW8 |
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#166 |
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Here are five scanned pages from Timothy Green's excellent 1972 book The Universal Eye: World Television in the Seventies. They answer some of the questions about the reception and impact of Western television in Eastern Europe:
Page 215: http://s15.postimg.org/r1ifhjn8r/green_215a.jpg Page 216: http://s15.postimg.org/hn7wk0hnv/green_216a.jpg Page 217: http://s15.postimg.org/8uqxwbwiz/green_217a.jpg Page 218: http://s15.postimg.org/e4vwnmgrv/green_218a.jpg Page 219: http://s15.postimg.org/brikacrqj/green_219a.jpg |
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#167 |
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That's fascinating historical stuff, thanks. I like how the guy from Czech TV blackmailed the minister concerning the football matches: "I shall announce to our audience that we cannot show the game as we are not given the foreign exchange. You know that every Czech will then watch it on Austrian TV".
![]() And the story about the West German team that filmed footage from East Germany off the screen from Danish television: "'Occasionally the East German broadcaster's lawyer writes and accuses us of piracy,' admitted an Ost-West editor in Hamburg, 'but we just write back and say: You do the same thing.'" ![]() By the way, could you also post page 214 and maybe 213?
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#168 |
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My pleasure, KarlHyde! I'm on the road until late next week, but I'll gladly do it when I get back. Since the book is long out of print, I hope we won't anger the Copyright Gods too much.
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#169 |
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I'm back! Here is the first part of Green's chapter titled "Television Jumps the Wall":
Page 208: http://s1.postimg.org/ii3bp2xi7/green_208a.jpg Page 209: http://s1.postimg.org/rsffsm87z/green_209a.jpg Page 210: http://s1.postimg.org/p263vfbj3/green_210a.jpg Page 211: http://s1.postimg.org/n93773qcf/green_211a.jpg Page 212: http://s1.postimg.org/5506mgsnz/green_212a.jpg Page 213: http://s1.postimg.org/tpc5x6yvz/green_213a.jpg Page 214: http://s1.postimg.org/hh32zygin/green_214a.jpg |
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#170 |
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East German TV news ("Aktuelle Kamera") from 1963, beginning with a report on the Soviet Vostok space mission:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRjPERMeGGY |
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#171 |
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I'm back! Here is the first part of Green's chapter titled "Television Jumps the Wall":
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#172 |
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From the book: Quote:
When the building of the Berlin wall in August 1961 so abrubtly cut off East Berliners from half of their city, SFB responded at once with a special transmission of three and a half hours of programmes every morning to help them keep in touch. This early session, aimed entirely at the east, is supported by both the German networks, ARD and ZDF. [...] A German Wikipedia article has some more details about that morning session (Vormittagsprogramm): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeins...on_ARD_und_ZDFTo ensure that every possible home in East Germany can watch this morning session, it is also relayed by transmitters of other ARD stations in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich, who are nearer the border to achieve blanket coverage. East German television already had regular morning programming (for shift workers). The Western counterpart (by SFB/ARD) started on 4th September 1961, ZDF joined in 1966. In the late 70s, I sometimes watched the morning session in my holidays. I remember that our listings magazine said it was only broadcast by selected transmitters - and I wondered why. I thought maybe the other transmitters didn't have enough money. ![]() From January 1981, the morning session was broadcast throughout Western Germany from 10:00 to 13:15. In 1989, it was expanded from 9:00 to 14:00. And in 1992, a live breakfast show from 6:00 to 9:00 was added. The East German morning session on DDR 1 (in the 80s) could start as early as 7:50 with educational programmes, but regular programming started at 9:15 with 10 minutes of gymnastics, followed by a short news bulletin and the repeat of last evening's main news. From 10.00 to 12.45, various programmes were repeated, often followed by another educational programme (e.g. "English for you"). Afternoon programming started somewhere between 15:00 and 16:50 on weekdays. Here's the startup of DDR 1 on 25th June 1983. This was a Saturday, with non-stop programming from 9:25 to 2:35. The closedown was unusually late, due to live coverage of an athletics competition (USA vs. GDR) from Los Angeles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMMoJEyLOSs (TV & radio listings start at 5:40. According to the uploader, this was recorded in Sweden, hence the shaky reception.) |
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#173 |
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That's fascinating historical stuff, thanks. I like how the guy from Czech TV blackmailed the minister concerning the football matches: "I shall announce to our audience that we cannot show the game as we are not given the foreign exchange. You know that every Czech will then watch it on Austrian TV".
![]() And the story about the West German team that filmed footage from East Germany off the screen from Danish television: "'Occasionally the East German broadcaster's lawyer writes and accuses us of piracy,' admitted an Ost-West editor in Hamburg, 'but we just write back and say: You do the same thing.'" ![]() By the way, could you also post page 214 and maybe 213? ![]() |
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#174 |
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Interesting! There was one TV station that functioned as a "border blaster" during -- but it was broadcast from the East for viewers in the West! Here is its unusual story: http://www.transdiffusion.org/2006/0...he_olive_grove ***** Quote:
A German Wikipedia article has some more details about that morning session (Vormittagsprogramm): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeins...on_ARD_und_ZDF
East German television already had regular morning programming (for shift workers). The Western counterpart (by SFB/ARD) started on 4th September 1961, ZDF joined in 1966. In the late 70s, I sometimes watched the morning session in my holidays. I remember that our listings magazine said it was only broadcast by selected transmitters - and I wondered why. I thought maybe the other transmitters didn't have enough money. ![]() From January 1981, the morning session was broadcast throughout Western Germany from 10:00 to 13:15. |
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#175 |
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If you wanted to spend the money, this was the choice just over the border from Bratislava in Vienna http://www.scheida.at/scheida/TV_SEI...sebeitrag1.jpg (note pictures from (former) Yugoslavia).
![]() He told me that the first Russian channel (broadcast from Bratislava) could also be recieved in Vienna with a good aerial. http://forum.digitalfernsehen.de/for...ml#post6839292 |
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