Germany

Co-authored by Amanda D. Lotz and Kristina Brüning

Updated December 2022

Market brief

The German market is similar to the French in unsurprising ways. The ad-supported and publicly funded services (ARD/ZDF Mediathek) have been more aggressively adopted among domestic services. US-based services Netflix and Prime Video dominate.

The German market has been experiencing structural shift; Ampere Analysis reported in 2021 that the cable industry’s share of German pay-TV had declined from nearly 90 percent in 2010 to 63 percent in 2020 as satellite, IPTV, and terrestrial service have all grown share. Pay-TV subscriptions have remained steady at roughly 60 percent of the market, and 54 percent of homes had SVOD by 2021 as well. The German market also has high levels of publicly funded video (ARD/ZDF) including ad-free, on-demand services used by 48 percent of Germans, the highest of any service.

There are domestic services, unsurprisingly most are from legacy industry companies. But the market for domestic services remains less established with major acquisitions and service changes continuing through 2022.

The leading non-US-based service is from RTL Group, which owns private broadcasters such as RTL and VOX. The company launched the service in 2007 as a free, catch-up service but it has expanded, rebranded and added a premium tier in the years since. The service most comparable to SVOD (although SAVOD with typically one ad before every program) is now called RTL+ and is valued in the market for offering popular original reality shows. There is an additional premium option: RTL+ Max, an SVOD option that allows for concurrent streaming on two devices, no ads, offers select content in its original language version (uncommon in the market), and access to the new music streaming service RTL+ Musik in addition to the features of RTL+ premium. Currently, RTL+ has a 3-tier system: a free AVOD catch-up service, an SAVOD service for €4,99/month, and an SVOD service for €12,99/month.

The second major service is offered by ProSiebenSat.1, a German mass media and digital company that owns production company/distributor Red Arrow Studios and controls private broadcast channels ProSieben, Sat.1 and Kabel Eins among many other holdings. ProSiebenSat.1 offered its own service but recently acquired full ownership of Joyn, a service that ProSiebenSat.1 had held jointly with Discovery. Joyn is ad-funded and includes access to linear TV, Joyn Originals, and the option to watch select episodes a week before their linear TV air date. The SAVOD version Joyn Plus became available in 2019 at €6,99/month and incorporated the now-folded SVOD Maxdome (founded in 2006). In addition to (mostly) ad-free streaming (all content that is also available on the free version will play with ads; only content that is exclusively available on Joyn Plus is ad-free), Joyn Plus offers access to linear TV and thus follows an aggregative strategy.

Surveys of use indicate that 20 and 22 percent of Germans used the streaming offerings of RTL and ProSiebenSat.1 (prior to acquiring Joyn) respectively, although half that use was “rarer than a few times per month.” Sky also offers service similar to its Now TV offering in the UK that is popular among those interested in US series, although only 11 percent of Germans report using it, and 3 percent of those “rarely.” Magenta TV is offered as value-addition to its suite of telecom services and has a significant library, although just 9 percent of Germans report using it.