DFF served as the main televised propaganda outlet of the SED with censored political and non-political programmes featuring bias towards the Marxist–Leninist ideology of the Eastern Bloc.

Radio was the dominant medium in the former Eastern bloc, with television being considered low on the priority list when compiling Five-Year Plans during the industrialisation of the 1950s.

Regular public programming, although still described as testing, began on 21 December 1952 – Joseph Stalin's birthday – with two hours a day of programmes.

Speeches by senior figures in the television organisation followed, then the first edition of the East German national news programme, Aktuelle Kamera, presented by Herbert Köfer.

In contrast, West German broadcasts (particularly ARD) easily reached most of East Germany except for the extreme south-east (most notably Dresden, the area being in a deep valley, leading to its old East German nickname of "Tal der Ahnungslosen", or "Valley of the Clueless") and the extreme north-east (around Rügen, Greifswald, Neubrandenburg and beyond).

After the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, the GDR began a programme to attempt to prevent its citizens from watching West German broadcasts.

The GDR had its diplomatic hands tied: jamming the broadcasts with any degree of effectiveness would also interfere with reception within West Germany (breaching treaties and inviting retaliation).

The term Republikflucht (leaving the country without permission) was sometimes used to describe the widespread practice of viewing Westfernsehen (Western TV).

[2] By the early 1970s, the party line concerning Western TV had become much more relaxed, and in some cases people got building permits to erect large antenna towers in areas of fringe reception.

On 11 February 1972, the DFF was renamed, dropping the pretense of being an all-German service and becoming Fernsehen der DDR – GDR Television or DDR-FS.

[citation needed] In 1988, the USSR-built Gorizont satellite was launched, providing television programming to much of Europe and northern Africa, and even eastern parts of the Americas.

A new young aimed television show,called Elf 99 (1199 being the postal code of the Adlershof studios) was created as part of this plan.

However, the plan was not successful as the GDR itself began to dissolve under economic and popular political pressure brought about by the reforms in Moscow under Mikhail Gorbachev.

However, after Erich Honecker was removed from office on Wednesday 18 October 1989 – two days after Aktuelle Kamera showed pictures of the rally that was held in Leipzig the Monday before, without any censorship at all – and the rule of the SED began to break down, DDR-FS reformed their programmes to remove propaganda and to report news freely.

The main propaganda programme, Der schwarze Kanal (The Black Channel) – which ran West German TV news items with an explanatory commentary informing viewers of the "real" stories and meanings behind the pictures and generally criticising Western media (particularly ARD and ZDF) – ended with its final episode on 30 October 1989.

By the time the borders opened on 9 November, the main news programme on DDR2 was being produced without censorship or interference, and so it covered the events in full.

In February 1990, the Volkskammer passed a media resolution defining DDR-FS as a politically independent public broadcasting system.

Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen had regional opt-outs during the first part of the evening, but the former GDR did not have ARD broadcasters to fill these spaces.

Both East and West television ran versions of this idea: an animated film that told a children's story and then sent them to bed before the programmes for adults began at 19:00.

Although DFF decided to revert to Western Europe's standard, the first broadcasts used a set of seven VHF channels some of which were not in line with any other system at the time.

Most East German television receivers were monochrome and colour sets usually had after-market PAL modules fitted to allow colour reception of West German programmes; the official sale of dual standard sets in East Germany started in December 1977.

There were experimental PAL broadcasts most notably during the 1980 Moscow Olympics (which got little coverage on West German television due to the boycott).

The transmission authorities made the assumption that most East Germans had either dual standard or monochrome sets; those who did not could purchase decoders.

(At one time, there was a slightly lower rate for viewers not equipped with the UHF aerials necessary to receive the second channel, however, this arrangement was seen as impractical and abandoned) In addition, broadcasting was heavily subsidised by the state.

By 1975, the advertising magazines gave up the pretence of being western-style commercial programmes and converted to being "shoppers guides", listing availability and prices of goods.

The French advertising agency Information et Publicité was engaged to produce and sell commercials and airtime on the DFF networks.