No more TV signal: Why your TV will remain black from Monday and what you can do about it

WATCHING TELEVISION OVER THE INTERNET: WATCH LIVE TV ONLINE WITH TV STREAMING APPS

June 28, 2024 at 5:32 p.m.

Starting Monday, many of you may experience a loss of TV signal and a black screen. We’ll tell you why and what you can do about it.

The so-called ancillary costs privilege will end in Germany on June 30th. Landlords will then no longer be allowed to bill their tenants for the fees for a cable TV connection via the ancillary costs. This means that anyone who rents and watches TV via cable may no longer have a signal from Monday, July 1st.

Because the property owners can no longer get the money for the cable connection back from the tenant, many landlords have terminated their supply contracts with the cable TV providers. If you want to continue watching TV via cable, you now have to sign a contract yourself. Depending on the provider, this costs between 5 and 10 dollars per month.

Utility costs privilege ends – tenants with cable connection affected

But there are alternatives – such as receiving TV programs over the Internet. This is even possible for free with the corresponding TV apps. With Joyn, for example, you can receive the channels of the ProSieben-Sat.1 group and the public broadcasters for free. Provided you have a smart TV or a TV stick. For example, you can also watch TV via Amazon’s Fire TV Stick.

With paid providers such as waipu.tv or Magenta TV from Telekom, you can also watch many more programs – some of them even pay-TV channels. As the additional cost privilege ends, providers are increasingly advertising for new subscribers. For example, at waipu.tv you can currently secure access to over 270 channels, including 70 pay-TV channels, for 60 dollars a year.

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Telekom even offers you MagentaTV with its 150 channels for six months free of charge. We recommend that you compare the offers carefully with those of your cable TV provider. This way, after the additional costs privilege, you may be able to watch more channels at a lower cost than before.

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