Vater 1st der Beste

Reaching upward everywhere--from new apartment buildings in once-devastated Cologne, from the hunting lodges of the Harz Mountains as well as the malty rathskellers of Bavaria--the television aerials of West Germany pull down programs with a standard of excellence unparalleled in the world. They reflect the variety of the national interest rather than its lowest common denominator--and until this month all this was achieved on a single channel operating just five hours a day. Now a second, supplementary channel has been introduced, and every night last week announcers on both channels were generously falling all over themselves telling viewers what they were missing on the other side of the dial.

Although German TV has sometimes been plagued by bureaucratic squabbling, it is locally run and self-regulated, might well serve as a model of what American television could be if its potential strength were not sapped away by lampreys, leeches and narrow-lapel orchids.

Control of Content. Historically, Germany was among the first television nations (a working set was demonstrated there in 1929), but the young industry got off on the wrong foot--Hitler's. As the first big-time TV executive, der Fuehrer had thrice-weekly programs on the air by 1935, and public viewing rooms were set up throughout the nation, including sets with 180-in. screens. By 1938 home sets were ready for production. Hitler, foaming with estimates of the mass audiences he would reach, became the approximate father of viewer ratings. But with war needs, TV disappeared in Germany until 1951. In 1954 the TV stations in the various West German states formed a voluntary association (Deutsches Fernsehen) with stations large and small taking proportionate turns providing material for all. Most significantly, the money behind the programing did not come from Loewenbraeu, Mercedes-Benz or Krupp. It came from the viewer himself in a monthly fee (5 DM, or $1.25) collected by the post office.

In the beginning, there were so few viewers that the screen would often be filled by the hands of a clock, dipped in recorded music. A principle, however, was being established: the Germans were getting what they paid for. Nothing at all seemed vastly preferable to a new sort of Fuehrer in sponsor's clothing. Slowly, the number of sets increased; more money from viewers became available. (Now, one out of three West German homes has a TV set, Germans are buying 25,000 more sets a week, and this year's programing budget is more than $100 million.) In contrast to U.S. television, the people who actually produce and perform can use their own judgment. Deutsches Fernsehen has no neurotic need to take the public pulse. Instead, sensible self-imposed rules, still in effect, were drawn up to establish a balance in programing: 18.9% news and documentary programs, 15.6% sports, 15.6% light entertainment, 13.1% opera and drama, 4.6% movies, 16.7% children's and women's programs, 1.2% religious programs, 8.9% miscellaneous live programs, 5.4% station breaks, announcements and commercials. With the network firmly in control of content, commercials have even been introduced ($5,000 a minute), but they are not interstitial. They are entirely lumped into one 13-minute segment each evening.

Sexy Purr. Deciding what it wants to say to the German public. Deutsches Fernsehen has said it with force. Last fall, for example, when the country was preoccupied with its own failure to face up to its recent past, the network began a 14-part series called The Third Reich, starting with Hitler's boyhood and ending with Russian films of the collapse of Nazi Germany. When the Eichmann trial opened in April, the network presented a horrifyingly detailed documentary called On the Trail of the Hangman.

German TV's light entertainment is imitative--Sag die Wahrheit is Tell the Truth (or Will the Real Rumpelstiltskin Please Stand Up?); Was Bin Ich is What's My Line? Some is merely purchased outright: Perry Como (singing undubbed ); Richard Diamond, Privat Detektiv; Vater 1st der Beste (Father Knows Best). But it is balanced with an equal amount of solid theater (Kafka, Goethe) and a preponderance of translated American plays --everything from O'Neill to Williams, Poe to Wilder. One surprising success last month was Kuess Mich Kaetchen (Kiss Me, Kate) with a wonderful version of Brush Up Your Shakespeare (Schlag Nach Bei Shakespeare). A week or so ago, Puccini's Tosca was broadcast live from Stuttgart, with George London and Renata Tebaldi. This week: an operatic version of Franz Kafka's The Trial by Composer Gottfried von Einem. The Second Channel, which so far broadcasts only 2 1/2 to three hours a day, made its debut this month with a brilliant performance of Franz Lehar's Paganini, followed a few days later by a little-known Tennessee Williams' play, The Last of My Solid Gold Watches. By 1962 a third West German channel will be in operation.

So far, few German TV stars have emerged, except for the female announcers who have developed the subtle art of saying, for example, "Please stand by for Vater 1st der Beste" with a sexy purr, as Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Munich and Stuttgart vie with one another to offer the best-looking girls to TV.

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