German Tele 5 And TV 50 Plus Launch On Astra

Germany’s highly competitive free-to-air TV market will soon gain two new entrants: Tele 5 and TV 50 plus. While the latter is a new channel, Tele 5 is the revival of a commercial general interest channel that was closed down in 1992. The Munich-based channel is backed by Herbert Kloiber, managing director of media group Tele Munchen Gruppe, and Jochen Krohne, the former programme director of the original Tele 5. The relaunch will take place on April 29 with a trial programme to be shown from April 15. Tele 5’s schedule consists of children’s programmes, entertainment magazines, music videos and movies. The channel, which is to be based on Bavaria Film’s premises in Grunwald, near Munich, will broadcast on the analogue transponder 23 (11.553 GHz H) on Astra (19.2 degrees East).

Analogue cable carriage has already been secured in Bavaria with other regional states to follow. By profiting from the large analogue DTH base and the Bavarian cable channel, Tele 5 will reach 50 percent of German TV homes from day one. The channel aims to finance through income from advertisements and sponsoring. “Our main target is to reach as many viewers as quickly as possible. I hope that we will boost competition with our new channel and gain effective support in the regional states regarding cable carriage,” Krohne said in Munich.

Tele 5 uses the licence issued by Bavarian media authority Bayerische Landeszentrale fur neue Medien to Tele Munchen’s planned action channel TM-TV. Another channel which targets the more than 12 million-strong analogue Astra DTH homes base in Germany is TV 50 plus. The Leipzig-based channel, which will offer a schedule of information and entertainment programmes tailored for viewers aged 50 years and older, received the green light from the media authorities last week. TV 50 plus aims to launch next year.

–Jorn Krieger