Technical Innovation, Social Participation, Societal Self-Reflection: Televised Sport in (West) German Society

Abstract

The history of German television has been closely connected with sports since its very beginning. Following the official start of test services on 22 March 1935, the broadcasting of the 1936 Berlin Olympic games represents the first high point in the history of the young medium. With this first ‘media event’, sports coverage had already taken up the key position that it has occupied ever since in the history of television. In Germany today, just as then, technical innovations are symbolically staged and popularized mainly in the context of sports events — whether they be new image technologies like slow motion replay or ‘virtual replay’, or broadcast and recording technologies such as cable and satellite TV after 1984, the introduction of digital pay TV from 1996, or more recently the introduction of DVD and PVR. It is therefore no exaggeration to call sport a central element in the technical, economic and programming strategies of the television industry, and also in the formulation of state policy regarding the media.’ Looking at the history of televised sport shows that the dovetailing of sport, technology and society that we know today has been a constant feature since the advent of the medium.KeywordsGerman SocietyOlympic GameSport EventGlobal SynchronizationTelevision SportThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.