The ARD Film Book: Facts and Figures

Bildunterschrift: Filmrolle ]
In 2006, the regional public service broadcasting organisations joined together in the ARD allocated 220 million euros to the production of new films. This sum is made up of the financial contributions made by the individual broadcasters into regional film support bodies, the funds available at individual public service broadcasters for co-productions with external partners, plus the budgets for inhouse productions and commissioned productions of feature films (television films and series).

Furthermore, in 2006, the ARD Degeto invested some 87 million euros in the production of films commissioned for television, 63 million euros in series for the main evening programme and telenovelas, as well as 100 million euros in early-evening series, in addition to making about 80 million euros available for the acquisition of international feature film productions.

German films produced for cinema accounted for more than twenty per cent of the total turnover made by cinema operators in 2006. This excellent result could not have been achieved without the financial and editorial support of the ARD. Last year, about 40 ARD co-productions were on general release in cinemas, among them "Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen" (3,992,056 viewers), "Das Leben der Anderen" (1,660,662 viewers), "Wer früher stirbt, ist länger tot" (1,300,000 viewers), "Sommer vorm Balkon" (963,595 viewers) and "Elementarteilchen" (820,640 viewers). For 2007, more than 50 ARD co-productions have been registered for general release in cinemas.

The quality of ARD co-productions can be gauged by the national and international awards they have won. Both in 2005 and 2006 sixteen out of seventeen awards of the "Deutscher Filmpreis" went to ARD co-productions, in 2005 the "Bayerischer Filmpreis" gave ten out of fifteen awards to ARD co-productions, in 2006 it was nine awards.

ARD productions also tend to do very well with regard to TV prizes. In 2005 and 2006, about half of all awards of the "Deutscher Fernsehpreis" and the renowned "Grimme-Preis" in the segments fiction and documentary went to ARD productions.

Other important awards were the European Film Award 2006 for "Das Leben der Anderen" and the documentary "Die große Stille", two "Silberne Bären" in 2005 at the Berlinale, and three in 2006, for "Sophie Scholl", "Requiem", "Elementarteilchen" and "Der freie Wille", as well as three Oscar nominations in the category of "Best Foreign Film" for "Der Untergang" (2005), "Sophie Scholl" (2006), und "Das Leben der Anderen" (2007). All these films were produced as co-productions with one or several regional public service broadcasters involved.

In 2006, the share of feature films on "Das Erste", the ARD national full service channel, amounted to 38 per cent. A total of 1888 hours of films made for television, feature films and documentaries were shown on "Das Erste". With their share of 38 per cent, German productions were ahead of US imports, which accounted for 33 per cent. In addition, there were the broadcasts on the regional channels (“Dritte Programme”), totalling 174,019 minutes of films made for television and 299,391 minutes of feature films.

The slots for feature films in the main evening programme of "Das Erste" find wide audience acceptance: in 2006, the two series running on Tuesday evenings were watched by 6.14 and 5.82 million viewers respectively, equalling a market share of 19.4 per cent and 18.4 per cent respectively. The television film shown on Wednesday evenings was watched by an average of 4.88 millions (15.6 per cent), the Friday evening film had an average of 4.85 million viewers (16.2 per cent), and an average of 6.86 million viewers (19.7 per cent) watched the Sunday evening murder mystery.

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