Television? For millions of tenants, this was a given, as the TV connection was included in the rent. But that is now over.
After four decades, a regulation that has seen around 12 million households in Germany pay for their television access through their rent expires on Monday: From July 1, landlords will no longer be allowed to collect the costs for the television signal through the utility bill. Instead, tenants must go their own way or voluntarily enter into a separate agreement with the landlord.
The abolition of the legal regulation, known as the ancillary costs privilege, was already decided in 2021, and a transitional period is now expiring. This is a setback for the cable network operators Vodafone and Tele Columbus, who have to fear for part of their business – Vodafone has already reported severe customer losses for the first quarter of 2024. At Tele Columbus, the loss of customers is moderate. When asked what losses are expected, Tele Columbus spokesman Sebastian Artymiak said: “The majority of current TV customers will stay with us.”
How Germans watch TV
Some of these providers’ customers now use Internet services to watch television, such as Magenta TV from competitor Deutsche Telekom, or online services such as Zattoo and waipu.tv. The online segment is on the rise: According to a market study by the state media authorities, 20 percent of households watched television over the Internet last year, 5 percentage points more than in 2021. This year, the share is expected to continue to rise. According to the study, the cable television share was 37 percent last year, which corresponds to a decrease of three percentage points since 2022. The share of satellites is about the same. Antennas only play a minor role.
Most landlords have terminated their collective agreements as of July 1st – from then on, their tenants must have their own contracts or participate in new collective agreements that are paid separately from the rent and in which, unlike previous practice, there is no obligation to participate.
First connections were shut down
Some landlords terminated their collective contract under the old model for a date before July 1. Some of the tenants affected by this probably continued to watch television even though they did not have a new contract – the providers cannot switch off the television signal remotely, but have to seal or otherwise deactivate the connections on site in the basement of a rental property or in the apartments themselves.
Customers have been informed intensively and new contracts have been offered to them, says Tele-Columbus spokesman Artymiak. “We don’t want to scare away our long-standing customers, but one thing is clear: anyone who doesn’t pay and still uses the TV signal will have their connection switched off in the next few weeks.”
Vodafone says that blockages have already been implemented in more than 60 towns and communities. It did not say how many households this affected. This happens in what is known as normal operation: if a technician is in a house or street anyway for other tasks, such as maintenance work or to fix Internet problems, he will also take care of blocking cable connections.
Cable customers who want to continue watching TV as before and have paid for the cable signal through their rent until June do not have to worry about sitting in front of a black TV tomorrow or the day after. There will not be a “hard cut” at the beginning of July, says Vodafone manager Marc Albers. But they should not put the issue off. “Our technicians will […] “We are now disconnecting cable connections even more than before,” says Albers.
What this means financially
The change in the law may mean that cable customers will have to dig a little deeper into their pockets than before. For example, most Vodafone tenants paid between seven and nine euros under the old model – outside of this price range there were outliers both up and down. According to company information, under the new model of various collective contracts, it is between eight and ten euros. An individual contract – i.e. when the landlord offers nothing and the customer is on his own – would cost just under 13 euros. At Tele Columbus, the future price range is also eight to ten euros.
When customers get in touch, companies offer them bundled products. These are contracts that include a cable connection, a landline telephone and landline Internet; Vodafone also offers a mobile phone service as an option. This can mean that a customer can get a slightly better deal in terms of price than before. An example from Berlin shows this: a customer previously paid 10.52 euros per month on the utility bill for his cable connection and just under 40 euros for his Internet contract including a landline telephone. He has now signed a bundled contract that costs just under 50 euros per month – so the customer pays half a euro less than before.
Source: Stern
