Cable television was introduced to Germany at about the same time as private broadcasting, and it is one of the means by which the private TV programs come into German homes. The number of satellite dishes has grown exponentially over the last few years as prices have dropped and the number of available channels has increased. The public broadcasting corporations make full use of both cable and satellite. Channel surfing through the German stations will give you an idea of the impact of commercial stations on the industry. It will also show you an industry that is still far from being fully developed.
Commercials tend to be lumped together and seem to run for hours at a time.
The same movie may be shown on two or three different channels in one week. Starting times for shows vary. There is a lot of programming hours that have to be filled and it's obvious that it's a struggle to come up with consistently high quality programs. But, it's still an improvement over a few years ago. All of the channels mentioned so far broadcast primarily in German, but stations that broadcast in English and other languages can be found on the cable and satellite.