MASS MEDIA IN DIVIDED GERMANY 571
this process. Rather, the state’s control of the media only seemed to in-
crease in the 1970s and 1980s.^78
However, both systems did share in the assumption that the media
had a very strong infl uence on the population, which could aff ect political
opinions and voting behavior. Accordingly, media content was seen as a
guarantee or danger for the respective claims to power, which made it
seem worthwhile, if not downright necessary, to have as much control
as possible over this input. Both systems therefore still rested on the tra-
ditional assumption that the “masses” could be manipulated, which had
fi rst emerged at the end of the nineteenth century as a critical reaction
against the societalization (Vergesellschaftung) of politics.^79
Additionally, a major change also occurred in radio and television
across the system divide in the 1970s and 1980s at the level of produc-
tion and programming. It can best be described as an adaptation to the
primary desires of audiences for entertainment and light consumer pro-
gramming. In television, the trend toward more programming options
and longer on-air times continued. A second television channel appeared
in the GDR in 1969, for instance, although it only aired for a rather mea-
ger four hours a day at fi rst, and mostly off ered reruns or educational
programming. After the launch of color television in West Germany in the
summer of 1967, color TV also came to the GDR with the introduction of
the second TV station, but not without a clear element of demarcation:
rather than adopting the Western PAL technical norm, the GDR opted for
the French SECAM system that was also used in the Soviet Union, which
meant that West German television could only be watched in black and
white in East Germany without an extra decoder. The dire fi nancial situa-
tion in the GDR, however, made it impossible to provide the funds for the
second channel to off er a full array of programming.^80
A second channel had already been introduced in the FRG in 1961, fol-
lowed by a number of regional public television channels over the course
of the 1960s that had also developed into full-coverage channels. A sep-
arate morning television program was introduced in 1981 in the West,
and the daily on-air time for the main two public television stations as
well as the GDR station was about fourteen hours in the 1980s. This pro-
gramming expansion made it more diffi cult for the stations to fi ll the time
with their own productions. Consequently, channels soon developed into
distribution outlets that often chose the less expensive option of buying
the rights for movies or foreign television shows rather than going to the
expense of developing their own productions.
The resulting dependence on the international acquisitions market
fostered the commercialization and internationalization of television pro-
gramming. In particular, series from the United States and England often