German Media Links

(last updated January 28, 2014)

Web Portals/Search Engines
For most purposes, Google Deutschland is probably the best choice. There is also a Yahoo! Deutschland. Specifically German sites include:

T-Online
GMX
WEB.DE

Information about German-language media, etc.

Goethe Institut: Deutschsprachige Zeitschriften und Zeitungen. Frequently updated descriptions of and links to major German-language newspapers and magazines, including special-interest magazines in a number of fields.

Perlentaucher. Regularly updated summaries of and links to interesting articles from the German and international press.

Media-Daten Verlag. Basic information on all print media (newspapers, magazines, trade journals, book publishers, etc.) and links to other media information sites.
PZ-online. Lots of statistics about popular German magazines (PZ stands for Publikumszeitschriften) from the Verband Deutscher Zeitschriftenverleger.

Newspapers

Germany
The listings here are limited to major "überregionale" papers. There are many other German newspapers on the Internet, but most of them are local or regional.

Bild. The tabloid that is read by about ten times as many Germans as any other newspaper.
Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). A leader among Germany's politically conservative dailies.
Frankfurter Rundschau. Another important daily from Frankfurt, politically left of center.
Die Süddeutsche Zeitung. Probably Germany's most important mainstream left-of-center daily, based in Munich.
Die Welt. Another popular, though considerably more serious, paper from the publisher of "Bild" (Axel Springer AG).
die tageszeitung (taz). Germany's leading "alternative" newspaper, based in Berlin.
Handelsblatt. The German counterpart to the Wall Street Journal.
DIE ZEIT. One of the most important weekly newspapers in the world. Excellent coverage of a wide variety of topics.
Austria

Salzburger Nachrichten. Regarded by many as Austria's best newspaper.
Der Standard. Among the more widely read "serious" newspapers in Austria, politically liberal (in the European sense). Became the first German-language newspaper on the Internet in 1995.
Die Presse. Serious, conservative (some would say "dry").
Kurier. Somewhere between a tabloid and a serious newspaper.
Die Kronen Zeitung. Austria's #1 tabloid.
Österreich. A newer tabloid (founded in 2006) that has gained significant readership in Austria.
Switzerland
Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). An important paper, read throughout the German-speaking world and beyond.
Blick. A Swiss counterpart to Germany's "Bild".

Magazines

General news magazines

Germany
Der Spiegel. The dominant German news magazine since the post-war period, although readership and perceived significance have been dwindling somewhat in recent years.
Focus. Founded in 1993 as a right-of-center alternative to Spiegel.
Stern. Stern could be classified with the Illustrierten below, but it has significantly more political news than any other publication in that category.
Austria
Profil. The most widely read German-language news magazine published outside of Germany.

Illustrierte (roughly comparable to People and Us Weekly)
A popular genre in Germany with a long tradition.
Bunte. The most popular German Illustrierte.
Gala. Another major Illustrierte, a little more modern and youthful than Bunte or SUPERillu.

SUPERillu. A very popular magazine among East Germans; not widely read by West Germans.
"Women's magazines" (comparable to Cosmopolitan, or Ladies' Home Journal)
Fashion, beauty, diets, fitness, lifestyle, sex tips, etc. These are Illustrierte aimed specifically at a female audience. In addition to the publications listed below, some of the well-known international women's magazines also have German editions, including Cosmopolitan and Elle. A different kind of "women's magazine" is represented by Emma, a feminist publication comparable to Ms. magazine.
Brigitte.
Freundin.
FÜR SIE.
Science, geography, knowledge (comparable to National Geographic)
Geo.
P.M. The initials stand for Peter Moosleitner, the magazine's creator.

Radio
There are an enormous number of German-language radio stations on the Internet. For a list that at least tries to keep up to date, try the radio-locator.

Germany
ARD. The major public broadcasting corporation in Germany, responsible for both radio and television. Click on the "Radio" link for information specific to German public radio. Links to the varioius regional broadcasters are at the bottom of the page. You can listen to most stations live on the Internet.

Austria
ORF. The Österreichischer Rundfunk, Austrian counterpart to the ARD.

Switzerland
SRF. Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen.

Television
Almost all of these channels have extensive video offerings that you can watch online (live and/or on demand).

International
Deutsche Welle. The international broadcasting branch of the ARD.
Public channels
Germany
Das Erste. Germany's first TV channel, part of the ARD. To watch programs live or on demand go to the Mediathek The ARD's television news service, Tagesschau, also makes all of its many news programs available for Internet viewing.
ZDF. Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen. The other major public channel in Germany. Here too, you can watch live and on-demand programming through the Mediathek
In addition to Das Erste and ZDF, each region has its own third public television channel. These can be accessed by following the links to the regional broadcasters in the righthand column at the bottom of the ARD home page. The third column includes links to a number of specialized channels, including the German-Austrian-Swiss collaboration 3sat, the German-French culture channel arte, the children's channel KiKA, and the documentary channel Phoenix.
Austria
ORF. Same site as under "Radio" above. For on-demand video, click on TVthek
Switzerland
SRF. Schweizer Fernsehen. Same site as under "Radio" above. Links for live viewing are a little ways down the page on the right. For on-demand video, go to the SRF Player.

Major private channels
RTL. The most watched private channel in Germany.
SAT.1
ProSieben.
Secondary general cable channels
RTL2.
kabel eins.
VOX.
ServusTV. A new Austrian private channel (founded in 2009).
Specialized channels
News
n-tv. This and the next are both 24-hour news channels.
N24. The news channel of the ProSieben group.
Euronews. Based in France but broadcasts news in several European languages.
Sports
Sport1.
Eurosport. A Europe-wide channel.
Music
MTV. The German version of the well-known American cable music channel.
Viva.
Children's
SuperRTL.
KI.KA. (Der Kinderkanal). The childern's channel of the public broadcasting corporation ARD/ZDF.
Home shopping
HSE24.

New Media

Online magazines (comparable to Salon and Slate)

Telepolis.

Blogs, etc.

Deutsche Blogcharts. Rankings of, and links to, the most popular German blogs.
de.indymedia.org. The Independent Media Center (IMC) in Germany, part of a global movement of leftist (anti-globalist, anti-capitalist) independent journalists. There is also a (multilingual) IMC in Switzerland.
WIKINEWS. The German-language version of this participatory news medium.

Social networking
The well-known international giants Facebook, Google+, Xing, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn have pretty much taken over the German market in the last few years. German sites like StudiVZ and wer-kennt-wen are just barely hanging on and may not survive much longer. The more specialized site StayFriends seems to be holding up a little better.
10000 Flies. Daily rankings of, and links to, the most popular topics and articles in the German social media.

Question-and-answer/advice sites (similar to Answers.com, etc.)

gutefrage.net.
wer-weiss-was.

Video sharing (similar to YouTube, etc.)

MyVideo.
sevenload.
Video activism

kanalB.
Filmpiraten.

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