The German Sky has its origin in the analogue premium channel
Premiere. It was owned by
Kirch Group,
Bertelsmann, and
Canal+, and started broadcasting in 1991, having an encryption method similar to that used by Canal+ in France, Spain and Poland and needing a similar decoder. In 1996, Kirch Media launched a digital satellite platform called DF1, which offered several different channels, including premium movie and sports channels and basically, thematic channels. Premiere started broadcasting three digital channels in 1997, one channel mirroring the analogue channel and two showing the same content at different times. In the following years Bertelsmann and Canal+ sold their ownership of Premiere to Kirch Group leaving it as the sole owner of the service. Premiere and DF1 merged to form Premiere World on 1 October 1999. Many of the channels offered on DF1 were carried over to Premiere World, others were rebranded or closed. In 2002, the service became known as simply Premiere. Many of the channels were rebranded and the package structure was overhauled at the same time. At the same time, Kirch Group filed for bankruptcy, due to pay TV services in Germany failing to gain much traction, and terrestrial television in Germany having already become very robust in a shorter period of time when compared with other European regions, leaving Premiere as a pretty notorious flop. In 2003, investment group
Permira stepped in and took control of Premiere and managed to turn the service profitable in the following years. In 2005 it launched an initial public offering for €1.2 billion. Exclusivity was for a long time a major selling point for Premiere, and most of its channels were only available through the Premiere platform. This changed in September 2007, when Premiere launched Premiere Star, a new satellite package made up of channels that were not exclusive to Premiere. The new package was called Sky Welt/Extra. The package included
TNT Serie, TNT Film, Sat.1 emotions, Kabel eins Classics,
AXN, Kinowelt.TV, RTL Living,
RTL Crime,
FOX,
Syfy Universal,
Animax,
Disney Junior,
Disney XD,
Boomerang,
Cartoon Network,
ESPN America,
Eurosport HD,
Eurosport 2,
National Geographic Channel,
Discovery Channel,
MTV Germany,
MTV Live HD and
Nicktoons. Beginning in 2007 the channel broadcast
TNA Wrestling on their premiere sports channels for a period of time. They broadcast regular episodes and live pay-per-views. At that time it was the only European cable television company to broadcast live TNA pay per views. It was also the only cable television company to broadcast both WWE and TNA entire programming in the same years, on the same channels. In January 2008,
News Corporation bought a 14.6% share of Premiere. News Corporation increased its shares of Premiere in the following months. On 4 July 2009, Premiere was rebranded, becoming Sky Deutschland. The acquisition of the 57.4% stake was formally announced on 25 July 2014. BSkyB also made a required takeover offer to Sky Deutschland's minority shareholders. This resulted in BSkyB acquiring 89.71% of Sky Deutschland's share capital in total. The acquisitions were completed on 13 November. On 17 November 2016, Sky Deutschland and
WWE signed a multiyear agreement to distribute WWE's premier pay-per-view events and broadcast
Raw and
SmackDown live on Sky Sports starting in April 2017. In May 2017, Sky Deutschland acquired Homedia, operator of the Swiss over-the-top streaming company Hollystar. Sky subsequently launched
Sky Sport as an OTT service in Switzerland, followed by an OTT entertainment service known as Sky Show in 2018. Services in Switzerland are handled by
Sky Switzerland, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sky Deutschland. In September 2017, Sky Deutschland extended its multi-year satellite capacity deal with satellite operator
SES for seven transponders at the
19.2°E orbital position, confirming its long-term commitment to satellite delivery of services. In June 2022, Sky Ticket's name was changed to "WOW". In June 2025,
RTL Group announced that it would acquire Sky Deutschland from Sky for €150 million. Following the closing of the transaction, Sky Deutschland will become part of
RTL Deutschland. In April 2026, the European Commission cleared the sale without imposing any conditions. The transaction is expected to close by 1 June 2026. == Channels ==