Television Presentation From Defunct Countries and Regimes

BTW, this is ARD's 8PM news ( Tagesschau ) from the following day, with footage of people pouring across the border:



Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppAzZnCqQ2c

And here's that day's local news from Berlin's SFB (now RBB) -- one of the broadcasters that make up ARD:

The credibility of the story depends on which source the contributor cited.

Absolutely. That particular Wikipedia paragraph is based on these two sources:

Sebetsyen, Victor (2009). Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire. New York City: Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-375-42532-2.

Sarotte, Mary Elise (1 November 2009) "How it went down: The little accident that toppled history" Washington Post. Retrieved 2 November 2009.

From 1989, here are Yugoslav TV listings as published in the Zagreb-based magazine Studio . Listings for European satellite channels are also provided:


CLICK TO ENLARGE

The letters in parenthesis indicate the originating broadcaster:

(zg) = TV Zagreb
(bg) = TV Belgrade
(sa) = TV Sarajevo
(lj) = TV Ljubljana (also see page #3 for TV Ljubljana's separate, Slovenian-language output)
(sk) = TV Skopje
(ns) = TV Novi Sad
(pr) = TV Pristina
samo = only shown on a particular broadcaster

From September 1989, here's an edition of the East German evening news, Aktuelle Kamera , in its entirety. An exhibition devoted to the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic is the lead story, and the newscast is full of pronouncements on the technological and social successes of the socialist German state, and its bright future. (The Berlin Wall fell in November, less than two months later.) The first two minutes consists of "breakfiller", so you may to skip ahead:

The Wikipedia entry is widely regarded as the true story here. My family is German and we witnessed most of the events by watching German satellite TV from the UK. The reason for the formality in the initial news broadcasts was, more than likely, the initial hesitation about hyping up the story before it was absolutely clear what was going to happen. Remember the East German Government was still warning its people that it would crack down hard on them if they rebelled. The last thing West German TV wanted was blood on its hands by inciting the East Germans (many East Berliners would routinely watch West German TV news). The coverage became more what you would expect once it was clear what was happening.

Having said all of that, German TV always struck me as VERY formal when I was a kid. We used to get BR from Bavaria and even my family, from North Germany, found it hilariously stiff and formal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kJFL2SV-u0 - from around 30:00 onwards, this gives a pretty good run down of the events of that historic night.

Globaltraffic24, do you understand German? If you -- or others reading this thread -- know a little German, you may be interested in this report from West Germany's ARD in the 1980s about the reception of West German television in East Germany:

[quote="WW Update" pid="866537"]And from December 1990, this is the last-ever edition of Aktuelle Kamera , the flagship newscast of the former East Germany:



Sorry, going back quite a bit in this thread (page 3, no less), but watching the first clip they go through the bulletin, with the soundtrack not sounding like they're particularly enthused by the changes. (not surprising, given the station gets the heave-ho). It then goes to a weather forecast, and then three words come up on screen, which I take to mean shocked, disappointed and one other. The voiceover then seems to get cut off.

Have I read this correctly and did the newsteam have a little rant before being hoiked off the air unceremoniously, or is it something else entirely?

According to google, shocked, disgusted and appalled.

That's indeed what the words say, but it's not someone having a rant. It's merely a preview of the topics planned for the late edition of Aktuelle Kamera . (So this was merely the last main evening edition of AK; not the last edition ever.) They are essentially creative keywords for the topics to be covered -- all the words begin with the prefix "ent-" and describe an emotion associated with each topic. It seems the recording ends abruptly because someone taped over the end.

At the time, most of the DDF team didn't really have a huge reason for disappointment. The historic Aktuelle Kamera was gone, but it was replaced with Aktuell , which actually had more daily editions. DFF and Aktuell lived on for another year, albeit on just one channel rather than two -- it wasn't until December 1991 when they were shut down and replaced by the new broadcasters (MDR, ORB, and an expanded NDR).