News

   
21. March 2013

Phenomenal viewer hit “Generation War” triggers unprecedented media debate in Germany

Munich, 21 March 2013. The highly acclaimed event production Generation War, praised as a “turning point in German television” (Der Spiegel), has scored record ratings in Germany, triggering an unprecedented media and public debate about the personal involvement and guilt of everyone’s parents and grandparents. The exceptional “Band of Brothers”-style six-hour miniseries reached up to 7.6 million viewers (market share 24.3 %) on public broadcaster ZDF, winning the prime time against Private Practice, Grey’s Anatomy and CSI NY as well as beating high-class feature films such as Spiderman 3 and PS I love you. Generation War was also sensationally well received among the younger audience (14-49 years), reaching up to 17.5 % market share, tripling ZDF’s average and leaving all other public and private channels far behind.
Generation War, the story about five friends besieged by twisted ideologies and raw violence, was heavily covered in German media. 68 years after the end of the war, people suddenly started discussing the role of their loved ones who lost their youth and innocence between 1939 and 1945. Germany’s largest tabloid BILD ran several WWII-stories on its front page, asking veterans for wartime memories. Süddeutsche Zeitung, praising Generation War as “epochal”, stated: “It is the first and last chance to look for the ‘devil in the details,’ to ask grandparents about their true biographies, their immoral compromises, their little ill-advised arrangements, the wages of living a lie, the missed chances to act – everything which, in masses, leads to catastrophe.”
Generation War is produced by teamWorx for ZDF and ORF in association with Beta Film. The program will be presented to international buyers at the trade fare MipTV in April in Cannes.