Television Presentation From Defunct Countries and Regimes

Upon reunification on 3 October 1990, the DFF ceased to be the state broadcaster of the former GDR. Because the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany reserves broadcasting as a matter for the German states (Länder), the Federal Government was not permitted to continue to run a broadcasting service. Article 36 of the Unification Treaty (Einigungsvertrag) between the two German states (signed on 31 August 1990) required that DFF was to be dissolved by 31 December 1991 and that the former West German television broadcasting system be extended to replace it.
On 15 December 1990, the ARD's Das Erste channel took over the frequencies of DFF1. Das Erste had regional opt-outs during the first part of the evening, but the former GDR did not have ARD broadcasters to fill these spaces. Therefore, DFF continued to provide programmes until 31 December 1991 in these slots:

Landesschau for Brandenburg (originally LSB aktuell)
Nordmagazin for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Tagesbilder for Saxony-Anhalt
Bei uns in Sachsen for Saxony
Thüringen Journal for Thuringia

Employees of the DFF were worried about job prospects in the new broadcasters and also had a loyalty to the DFF. Viewers, accustomed to the DFF's programming, were concerned at the loss of favourite shows and the choice most viewers had between West and East channels. The new Länder considered keeping a form of DFF running as the equivalent to the ARD members' "third programme" in other regions. However, political opinion was against centralisation and in favour of the new devolved system brought in from the west.
Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia agreed to pool their broadcasts into Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR), an ARD member broadcaster based in Leipzig. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, and Berlin considered pooling their broadcasts into Nordostdeutschen Rundfunkanstalt - Northeast German Broadcasting (NORA). Another alternative was for Brandenburg and Berlin to consolidate and for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to have its own broadcaster.
No agreement could be reached between the three Länder; Mecklenburg therefore joined the existing Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), while the existing Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) expanded to the whole of the city and a new broadcaster, Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB) was launched for Brandenburg.
DFF finally ended on 31 December 1991. The new organisations began transmissions the next day, on 1 January 1992. On 1 May 2003, SFB and ORB merged to form Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB).

This is the transition from DFF to MDR as it happened on the air on midnight, January 1, 1992; it's similar to how ITV broadcasters once handed over to their successors after losing their franchises. Unfortunately for MDR, their first moments on the air were plagued by technical problems; the transition started too late, there was no audio at first, and when the audio did finally arrive, it was from ORB -- the neighboring ARD broadcaster (and another regional successor to DFF)!

My pleasure, p_c_u_k!

By the way, I mentioned this in another thread; but it's equally (or perhaps more) relevant here. This Wikipedia passage does a nice job of explaining how East German television was integrated into the West German system:



(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutscher_Fernsehfunk . Extended text reproduced here in accordance with Wikipedia's copyright policy.)

This is the transition from DFF to MDR as it happened on the air on midnight, January 1, 1992; it's similar to how ITV broadcasters once handed over to their successors after losing their franchises. Unfortunately for MDR, their first moments on the air were plagued by technical problems; the transition started too late, there was no audio at first, and when the audio did finally arrive, it was from ORB -- the neighboring ARD broadcaster (and another regional successor to DFF)!

And finally... from the United States, here's ABC's Primetime Live on the night the wall fell (At the time, it was already early morning in Germany):

Although they were scooped by NBC's Nightly News - who (they claim) were the only ones live from the scene that night - at 00:30 Berlin time - just a couple of hours after the famous Tagesthemen broadcast

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/33590933/ns/world_news-fall_of_the_berlin_wall_20_years_later/t/good-evening-live-berlin-wall/#.Ueq07FMgvAc

Here some Apartheid-era South African TV commercials (all from the 1980s -- South Africa famously had no TV at all until 1976 and advertising was only introduced several years later):



And some (older) South African radio commercials (as heard on the commercial radio station Springbok Radio):