Media

The German book market produces annually around 18% of all books published worldwide (Frankfurt Book Fair in 2008).

Germany's television market is the largest in Europe, with some 34 million TV households. The many regional and national public broadcasters are organised in line with the federal political structure. Around 90% of German households have cable or satellite TV, and viewers can choose from a variety of free-to-view public and commercial channels. Pay-TV services have not become popular or successful while public TV broadcasters ZDF and ARD offer a range of digital-only channels.[114]

Germany is home to some of the world's largest media conglomerates, including Bertelsmann and the Axel Springer AG. Some of Germany's top free-to-air commercial TV networks are owned by ProSiebenSat1.

The German book market produces around 60,000 new publications every year. It represents 18% of all the books published worldwide and puts Germany in third place among the world’s book producers. The Frankfurt Book Fair is considered to be the most important book fair in the world for international deals and trading and has a tradition that spans over 500 years.

The country's news is provided in English by news magazine Der Spiegel, state broadcaster Deutsche Welle and news site The Local.

In December 2008 the top visited websites by German internet users were Google.de, Google.com, YouTube, eBay, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Amazon.de and gmx.net.