ZDF adds more than 15 themed channels to its streaming app

ZDF, the German public broadcaster, has added more than 15 themed channels to its streaming service. The broadcaster switched them on on 1 September and calls them ZDF Channels. Reports in the German trade press count between 15 and 20 of them, depending on the day, because the list can change.

The idea is old television in a new place. Instead of searching for a title, the viewer picks a topic and the programmes simply run.

ZDF Channels sit in the Live and TV part of the app

The channels are inside the “Live and TV” section of the ZDF streaming portal and app. Each one is filled automatically from the broadcaster’s own library, and the line-up refreshes every day. A viewer can stay inside one topic or jump to another, the way people used to flick through channel numbers.

One channel runs nothing but the antiques show Bares fuer Rares

The topics are broad and narrow at the same time. There are channels for crime drama, feel-good films and nature documentaries. There is also a channel that shows only “Bares fuer Rares”, the antiques and haggling show that has been a hit on German daytime television for years. Single-programme channels of that kind are cheap to run because the material already exists.

Tina Kutscher says the aim is watching without searching

Tina Kutscher, who heads user products at ZDF, said in the broadcaster’s press release, written in German, that the channels are meant to let viewers be inspired and watch in “lean-back mode”. In plain words: fewer decisions before the picture starts.

Streaming services are copying the parts of old TV that worked

ZDF is not first here, and the direction is clear across the market. Sony turned the PlayStation 5 into a free channel with ads, and paid services keep raising prices, as when Apple TV went up to 14.99 dollars a month in the United States. Free, always-on channels are the answer to a real problem: one in four sports fans cannot find the match they want to watch.

ZDF carries no spot advertising after 8pm, so buyers watch the format

For advertisers the German public broadcaster is a limited buy, because its advertising rules are tight. The interesting part is the format. If viewers accept a channel that is a topic rather than a schedule, commercial services will build the same thing and sell breaks inside it. It is worth watching which topics people stay with, because those lists are a cheap map of what an audience will sit through without choosing.