Broadcasters
The organisations which broadcast Heimat (and the ratings
if possible) around the world: in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Spain, Austria, Australia and Italy
More help is needed to complete this section, I couldn't get
more information by e-mail from the broadcasters themselves. My
rough estimate of the number of people in the world that saw Die
Zweite Heimat on television based on the figures below is 5 million.
- Italian national public broadcaster RAI 3 did a rerun of Heimat on from Friday January 12, the entire weekend.
- German national and regional public broadcasting channels ARD, WRD,
ZDF, SFB (Berlin), BR (Munich), NDR (Hamburg), SWF (Baden-Baden), HR
(Frankfort). Somewhere in spring or summer 1993 it must have been
broadcasted, but when exactly?
In an article in de Volkskrant on 4-9-93, Frank van Zijl wrote that
Variety thinks Die Zweite Heimat is a big flop. While Die Heimat
attracted 10 million viewers (30% of the audience), the first episode of
Die Zweite Heimat was watched by 4 million, later episodes 1.3 million
which is 5% of the television viewers. Read the 'complot theory' by
Reitz about this.
- German 'best of public broadcasting' satellite channel 3SAT. On the
ASTRA satellite: polarisation vertical, transponder 10, frequency
11347, Stereo, audio 7.02 and 7.20, German, PAL tv-system,
unscrambled, 0.8m dish in Europe. In January, February and March 1997.
- Canadian TV Ontario broadcasting Die Zweite Heimat on Friday nights, from June 13 1997 at 10 p.m. onwards.
- Dutch national public broadcaster VPRO. Much critisized for it's
decision to broadcast a Die Zweite Heimat marathon. The cover of their
TV-guide that week showed a couple on a couch watching television.
The man already fast asleep, the woman completely absorbed in what
she was watching, a child and a dog bent over a pan with french fries
and some fast-food on the floor.
Episode | September 5 1993 at | Number of viewers |
1 | 10:00 | 70,000 |
2 | 12:00 | 70,000 |
3 | 13.57 | 100,000 |
4 | 15:55 | 90,000 |
5 | 20:20 | 310,000 |
6 | 22:26 | 180,000 |
7 | 24:00 | 90,000 |
Episode | September 12 1993 at | Number of viewers |
8 | 9:42 | 60,000 |
9 | 11:43 | 50,000 |
10 | 13:43 | 70,000 |
11 | 15:56 | 110,000 |
12 | 20:18 | 220,000 |
13 | 22:24 | 180,000 |
On average 123,076 viewers per episode, that's 2%. In the Netherlands are around 6
million households, 15 million inhabitants, TV penetration 97%.
Prior to the marathon broadcast on two sundays an interview-portrait
was shown on a monday evening with Edgar Reitz. Reitz was
interviewed in a film editing suite commenting on Die Zweite Heimat
scenes and scenes from other movies. German spoken, Dutch subtitled.
Made by Frank Wiering. Highly recommended! Click here for the English
translation or the Dutch original. Mail me for a German transcript.
- British national public broadcasting channel BBC. Prior to a series of weekly broadcasts of both Die Heimat and Die Zweite Heimat (mid
1993) a reportage was shown about the making of Die Zweite Heimat.
The BBC was quite glad with the ratings. About one million viewers,
which is a lot for a series in a foreign language with subtitles. The dates on which weekly broadcasts of Heimat started on BBC2 are: 19 April 1986 (1st showing), 25 June 1988 (2nd showing) and 17 April 1993 (3rd showing, before DZH). The weekly DZH broadcasts of the 13 parts started in July 1993 following the broadcasting of Heimat on BBC2. Later in 1999 the (announcement of) a second showing can be expected. The BBC Information Desk told this to someone.
- DR, Danmarks Radio, the Danish public television broadcasted the film
between 14-11-1993 and 2-2-1994 every Sunday evening around 10
pm, each week one of the 13 episodes. The rating was about 5%. Of
those who watched TV about 20% watched Die Zweite Heimat according
to the 'Seer Service.'
- SVT, Stockholm. Swedish Television. Die zweite Heimat was
broadcasted once a week on Saturdays in 13 episodes starting
1993-04-17 and forward. The rating-system in Sweden was changed
during April-May 1993, so the audience-size of Heimat 2 for the first
three episodes is not available. However, the average rating for the
episodes 4-13 was 1.8 % of Swedish population 3-99 years old or
150.000 people/episode.
- YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company broadcasted Die Zweite
Heimat on the TV 2-channel in the summer of 1993 on: 2 June, 9 June,
16 June, 23 June, 30 June, 7 July, 14 July, 21 July, 4 August, 11
August, 18 August and 25 August1993. YLE said they have no intention
to rerun the film, probably because of low-ratings...
- German-French public cultural channel ARTE. In this article in the
VPRO tv-guide (July 1994) about ARTE you can read (in Dutch): "`Arte'
has had some successes. The channel got the European première of Die
zweite Heimat, the mammothproject of Edgar Reitz (...). With that the
WDR (under the motto: `arte won't take much of our viewers') earned
back almost five million guilder of the 25 million that this Cologne
channel had invested in this series. `Die zweite Heimat' cost in total
forty million, which made it the most expensive in European tv-history.
Impressive figures that are noted here to stress the fact that
qualitively high-standing tv-productions are increasingly only feasable
through international co-financing."
- French public channel France 2 (Antenne 2 at the time)
- The Canadian channel Bravo
- TVE, Madrid
- NRK, Oslo
- ORF, Austrian public television, Vienna
- SBS, Special Broadcasting Service, Australia
- Heimat is always broadcasted in Italy by Raitre, the third channel of national public broadcaster for the first time in 1990 from 9th to 20th July at 10 PM. The second time, in August and September 1992, in three marathons by night (from 1AM to 6AM) in a popular night space that presents movies and rarities called "Fuori Orario". Then, a third broadcast in March 1993 (from 8th to 19th) at 1AM. After a fourth emission by night in 1994, Heimat returns in 2005 with an episode per week, from 6th June to 8th August, around midnight/1AM, in a space dedicated to the best tv-series ever.
In 2005 there's the first emission of Heimat2, in some night marathons from midnight/1am to 7am, in august.
Heimat è sempre stato trasmesso da Raitre: la prima volta nel luglio 1990 al
ritmo di un episodio al giorno, intorno alle 22. Tra l'agosto e il settembre
1992 Fuori Orario lo ritrasmette in tre maratone notturne. Seguono una terza
messa in onda, nel marzo 1993, intorno all'una di notte, e una quarta,
sempre notturna, nel 1994.
Heimat ritorna nel 2005 con un episodio ogni lunedì settimana, intorno alla
mezzanotte e mezza/una. La prima visione di Heimat2 è dell'agosto 2005, con unghe maratone targate Fuori Orario.
(thanks to Davide Bassi for this contribution).
The DZH website is a joint effort by ReindeR Rustema, Alan Andres and many others. Back to the main page.