The series in the ZDF media library was very entertaining: Trackers.

The South African secret service wants to prevent an attack in its country.

The first five episodes weren't overly brutal, plus there were beautiful landscapes from the Cape.

Then it got exciting – the sixth and last episode was coming up.

"This show is not suitable for young people under the age of 16," it said suddenly on the screen.

And further: "Login failed.

Unfortunately, your device does not support secure login.

The registration is therefore deactivated.” A call to the manufacturer revealed: Indeed, the device is already nine years old.

Archibald Preuschat

Editor in Business

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Too old to make it possible to access adult content outside of the night hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

This was the answer from the ZDF press office: "For data protection reasons, your data will be encrypted using the latest version of https when you register in the ZDF media library.

Unfortunately, not all TV sets support this type of encryption, and it is therefore not possible to log in to 'Mein ZDF'.

This primarily affects devices that are older than 2016. Unfortunately, we cannot give a blanket statement as to which device type allows registration.”

In plain language: If viewers and fee payers use a device that is more than six years old, parts of the media library can only be called up during the night.

The question of whether viewers can also prove their age in other ways, for example by sending in a copy of their ID, was expressly not answered by ZDF, despite a specific request.

When is a TV old?

But is a nine-year-old television already a thing of the past?

The manufacturers don't want to answer the question either.

“There are only general, non-Samsung-specific numbers for the replacement cycles of TV sets.

However, these do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the average service life of the products.

Exchanged TVs can, for example, continue to be used as second devices in the household or sold as used devices," answers the Korean manufacturer Samsung.

According to the PR agency commissioned by Sony, please contact industry associations such as Bitkom.

Two links to articles on the Internet are attached to the answer.

They are quite revealing.

A service life of between 60,000 and 100,000 hours is quite realistic.

So even if the TV is used for several hours a day, a device can last for decades.

Even if you use your television set for eight hours a day, you only reach 2920 operating hours.

The warranty policy of the major manufacturers also suggests that six years is not old, even for modern flat-screen televisions.

In addition to a two-year manufacturer's warranty, Samsung also offers the option of a warranty extension of another 3 years, during which the devices can be repaired or replaced without a deductible.

Certainly, modern flat screens can no longer match the lifespan of tube televisions, which have been in service for several decades.

But according to data from the European Environment Agency in 2019, manufacturers produce the devices for a service life of eleven years.

Based on statistical data and models over time, the Federal Environment Agency assumes that TV sets in Germany currently have an average lifespan of around ten years.

This is also consistent with a study conducted by the Federal Environment Agency in 2016.

However, half of the discarded TV sets were still operational and were therefore not replaced because they had reached the end of their life cycle.

Precious metals and rare earths

Modern televisions are more like computers or smartphones in terms of the raw materials they consume, such as precious metals or rare earths.

According to research by the Federal Environment Agency, which is no longer up to date, televisions with LCD or LED displays contain between 47.5 and 183 milligrams of gold, 198 to 550 milligrams of silver, up to 44 milligrams of palladium and between 18,300 and 26,576 milligrams of tin.

There are also rare earths such as yttrium - up to 110 milligrams are processed in a television.

ZDF doesn't want to know about any of this.

The press office of the public service broadcaster does not want to answer the question of how the control of youth protection is compatible with sustainability.

Now it won't just be ZDF that will motivate viewers to discard a television that is actually still functional.

According to Alexander Dehmel, the expert for consumer electronics at GfK, Germans spent 3.5 billion euros on new TV sets last year.

Rather little: Dehmel speaks of reluctance to buy, because at the beginning of the corona pandemic in 2020, TV sets were sold over the counter for a total of 4.2 billion euros.

However, the need for entertainment has not generally decreased.

He suspects that brighter and larger televisions will be the focus this year.

If you still don't want to give up your TV and want to watch content that is protected for young people outside of the night hours, we recommend a simple trick that the ZDF press office has not revealed.

With a TV stick, which is available from 30 euros depending on the model, even a nine-year-old television becomes so smart again that ZDF believes its age from the viewer.