And among the commercial networks themselves, competition is fierce for every advertising dollar.
German national TV advertising revenues peaked in 2001 at US$18 billion, and have been edging downward every year since then, down US$3 billion so far. In a country where the TV advertising market is so fragmented, that means a number of smaller niche-market networks are struggling to make ends meet and even the larger ones are having to cut back.
To the extent that there is any conventional wisdom in a country where commercial TV has existed only since 1984, the conventional wisdom has always been that German TV viewers will only ever watch "free TV" and that they will tolerate commercials in order to avoid having to pay extra.
The conventional wisdom has also always been that the current advertising slump would eventually end.
But the new study suggests that a great sea change is taking place and that conventional wisdom is wrong.
The analysts say that, of the US$3 billion that have vanished from the TV advertising market in the past three years, two-thirds of that sum found its way into other advertising avenues. Only a billion was actually due to the economic downturn.
"Germans still like to watch TV, but they are increasingly weary of having to watch commercials," warns the study, which notes that a whopping 82 percent of viewers look forward to the day when they can own a DVD recorder which will allow them to "skip over" commercial breaks at the press of a button.
And 57 percent would even be willing to subscribe to a service which would enable them to black out or skip over commercial blocks.
"Viewers want comfort, control and individualized programming," says the study which warns, "and commercial networks will either meet those wishes or else they will go under."
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