I don't know if this was already mentioned but I just saw it mentioned in the French-speaking !utilisereuropeen@jlai.lu (Use European) community and I thought it was worth talking about it, here too. So, if you don't know about ARTE TV yet, here is my take on it:
ARTE TV is the European culture TV channel (free and on demand). It is a 32 years old German-French-European public TV which is rather unique.
Unique, because there is barely any ads to watch (and the rare ones are a somewhat very recent addition, hopefully they won't add anymore).
Unique, because like its name may suggests, this TV main focus (main, not exclusive) is on art, culture and creation. They regularly air concerts (contemporary, pop, rock, orchestral/classical,...), dance festivals, theater, opera, and so on. They also have series, movies, documentaries in a wide selection of genres. Podcasts, news,... The content is available in French and/or in German. Foreign movies are often aired or streamed in their original language, with subtitles.
Unique because, being a public television it's free access. There is no subscription, no login required either. It's entirely paid by French and German tax-payers money (you're welcome)
Is it worth it?
My spouse and I have not owned a TV for more than twenty years and ARTE could easily be the one reason we would want to own one but we don't even have to since a lot of their content is available through their website/Replay: arte.tv (not all content is available. Many film won't but a lot still are).
In recent years, we have noticed their documentaries morphing into the over-dramatized docu-fiction types, something my spouse and I consider of little value compared to more traditional type of documentaries (a lot more time is being spend on dramatization itself instead of actual information sharing/discussion). Therefore, we barely watch any of their new type of documentaries but if you're more into that type of content than we are, I would say it's probably worth checking.
They regularly have an excellent selection of films. Like, really. Things other TV would seldom dare to air. and like I said, there is no fucking ad-breaks either.
I don't know how easy it is to access ARTE from foreign countries, but worse case one would need to use a VPN and pick a French/German address, even probably any European address would do.
We cancelled ours approx 2 years ago and don't miss them, the only one still running (I canceled it earlier this years is Apple Music but it won't renew. We're back on DVDs + CDs and ripped files played on a computer... since we don't have a tv.
In the same logic, after almost 20 years reading mostly ebooks, I'm back to reading printed books, for privacy concerns and worries about true ownership. If anyone is interested in reading more about that I explained it in my blog and could share a link ;)
Indeed. It could even be much more interesting for people like my spouse and I—we really don't want to own a tv and be force fed ads, but we will also admit it's not impossible to find some quality content here and there so knowing where to look would help ;)