You can only rarely receive German television abroad. As an alternative, many broadcasters offer media libraries and live streams with which you can watch German TV over the Internet - often outside of Germany as well. ZDF also has such live streams, but not all programs are also available abroad. This article tells you what to watch out for.
Not all streams also available abroad
In addition to the ZDF media library, the ZDF has a live stream with which you can follow the TV program live online. You can also watch some programs abroad in this way, but other offers are excluded. The reason for this is that ZDF sometimes does not have the rights to show programs abroad. You can therefore only use the ZDF's round-the-clock live stream in Germany; there are separate live streams for individual programs that are also available abroad.
ZDF uses the IP address to check whether users are abroad. This shows the country from which a user accesses the ZDF content. If you are not in Germany, you do not have a German IP address and certain content is geoblocked for you. The EU regulation, which has banned geoblocking since 2018, only applies to paid offers - since the ZDF streams are free, they are not affected.
Stream ZDF everywhere with VPN or proxy
To watch ZDF streams that are not available outside of Germany, you have to cheat. With the help of VPN services, you can hide your IP address and trick the streaming provider into believing that you are in Germany. All you have to do is select a German server through which you set up the VPN. How to get a German IP address..
You can find out more about VPN here.
Alternatively, you can also use a proxy server to use the ZDF offer from abroad. This is a server that is interposed between your device and the Internet. If it is in Germany, you also have a German IP address for ZDF & Co. and can use the streaming service. Internet providers are usually the providers of proxy servers. Read more about proxy servers here.
Attention: It is not allowed to bypass geoblocking, as ZDF does not have the broadcasting rights for other countries. However, it is very unlikely that the ZDF will pursue violations of the ban, as this would simply be too costly.