Television: Vater Ist der Beste

Reaching upward everywhere—from new apartment buildings in once-devastated Cologne, from the hunting lodges of the Harz Mountains as well as the malty rathskellers of Bavaria—the television aerials of West Germany pull down programs with a standard of excellence unparalleled in the world. They reflect the variety of the national interest rather than its lowest common denominator—and until this month all this was achieved on a single channel operating just five hours a day. Now a second, supplementary channel has been introduced, and every night last week announcers on both channels were generously falling all over themselves telling viewers what they...