Sat.1 is a privately owned German television

German television

Television in Germany began in Berlin on March 22, 1935, broadcasting for 90 minutes three times a week. The German television market had approximately 36.5 million television households in 2000, making it the largest television market in Europe...

 broadcasting station. Sat.1 was the first privately owned television broadcasting station in Germany, having started one day before RTL Television

RTL Television

Rtl.de' redirects here. For other uses, see RTL.RTL Television , or simply RTL, is a German commercial television station distributed via cable and satellite along with DVB-T , in larger population centres...

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It started in January 1984 as PKS (Programmgesellschaft für Kabel- und Satellitenrundfunk), initially a joint venture of various publishing houses, and was renamed to Sat.1 in January 1985. The first broadcast could only be seen by roughly 1200 households who owned cable access in the city of Ludwigshafen.