'' , a popular animated children's series The channel's first experimental broadcast was on 27 November 1950 as the TV channel of the then
NWDR, which in 1956 split into
NDR and
WDR. The regular NWDR television service started on 25 December 1952. Nationwide transmission began on 1 November 1954 within the ARD framework, under the name
Deutsches Fernsehen ("German Television"). It was
West Germany's only television channel before the establishment of
ZDF in 1963. The new channel consisted of jointly-produced shows such as the nightly news programme
Tagesschau (on the air since 26 December 1952), as well as broadcasts produced individually by ARD member stations. The programs were coordinated by the
Programmdirektion based in Munich. Besides several entertaining shows, ARD went political in 1957 when it launched its first political TV magazine, Panorama. Germany's first political TV show adopted the slogan "What is being talked about and what should be talked about" and pictured all aspects of postwar West German society—including conflict-laden topics, scandals, and other taboo topics, such as former Nazis who had held important roles. ARD nevertheless produced a provisional second TV channel (
ARD 2) from 1 June 1961 until ZDF started its transmissions on 1 April 1963. Colour television was introduced on 25 August 1967. Since 1 September 1995, Das Erste has broadcast 24 hours a day. The channel's name was changed to
Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen ("First German Television") on 1 October 1984. At the same time, a new corporate design was introduced, designed by
Hans Bacher, along with new
CGI idents produced by
Cranston/Csuri Productions in
Columbus, Ohio. The previous logo, with stylized waves, was replaced by a new logo showing a stylized number "1" which is still in use today. It changed its name to
Das Erste on 1 January 1997, but the long name
Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen is still used for some purposes (e.g. the introduction to the main editions of the
Tagesschau). Informally, it is also known under the metonym
ARD among viewers. In addition to its
SD broadcast, a
720p50 HD version of the channel,
Das Erste HD, is also broadcast. Broadcast of
Das Erste HD began in February 2010 with the coverage of the
2010 Winter Olympics in
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Das Erste HD is available via satellite (
DVB-S2 on
Astra 19.2°E), cable (all cable providers in Germany and some providers throughout Europe), IPTV (MagentaTV), encoded using
H.264 AVC, and on
digital terrestrial television in
1080p50, encoded using
H.265 HEVC. ==Member broadcasting organizations==