In this sphere, it is already impossible to surprise anyone with anything. But a new TV channel, the creation of which was announced by the German Deutsche Welle, seems to have succeeded. According to this publication, the German Funeral Directors' Association (BDB) will launch a satellite TV channel for elderly Germans in the coming months, entirely dedicated to the topic of death and funerals.
As its creators promise, via the Internet and satellite, the channel will broadcast programs about various funeral rituals, reports from cemeteries and funeral homes, documentaries about the most picturesque necropolises in Germany, as well as television obituaries commissioned by relatives (it is expected that the funds received for these services will go to finance the channel). The television channel, for which a name has yet to be chosen, will begin broadcasting before the end of 2007.
In addition to paid TV obituaries, another source of funding, according to the organizers, will be advertising of products and services associated with aging: stair-lifts for elderly people, life insurance, nursing homes. Accordingly, the organizers see the target audience of the channel as people of advanced age, for whom passing to the other world has turned from a philosophical problem into an urgent one. The idea that dawned on the channel's organizers is this: to remove the taboo on the topic of death, which, according to the channel's founders, is widespread in German society. For this reason, elderly people and their loved ones often find themselves unprepared for death and the moral and organizational problems associated with it.
However, as the creators of the new channel emphasize, they do not aim to extract commercial profit, but only intend to provide moral support to the elderly population, whose share in Germany is growing year by year. To ensure that correspondents and editors do not lose the right tone in conversations and reports on this delicate topic, an ethics council will monitor the channel's activities, which will give recommendations on proposed topics and the nature of their coverage. After all, it has not yet been proven that listening to funeral music in the company of one's peers in a nursing home while watching commercials for wheelchairs together is exactly what an elderly person needs to achieve peace of mind.
However, Germany is not the first country where high technology has come to the aid of ritual. Several years ago in Israel, an elite private cemetery near Netanya was equipped with the most modern communications, including the Internet, so that relatives and loved ones of the deceased could watch the funeral ceremony via the cemetery's website, as well as light a virtual candle over the grave on the memorial day.