Deutschland 83 is UK’s highest-rated foreign drama

German drama Deutschland 83 has become the UK’s highest-rated foreign-language drama of all time.

Top peforming foreign-language dramas in UK, 2010-2016

Launching on Channel 4 the series took 1.49 million viewers, consolidated to 2.5 million.

This puts it ahead of French drama Les Revenants (The Returned), also on Channel 4, which previously held the record with 2.2 million.

Deutschland 83 is also being offered in the UK via new foreign-language on-demand platform Walter Presents, which Channel 4 runs with Global Series Network, whose co-founder Walter Iuzzolino lends his name to the service.

Appetite for foreign-language dramas has boomed in the UK in recent years, with BBC Four and, more recently, Channel 4 leading the charge (see chart, left).

Deutschland 83, set against the backdrop of the Cold War in 1983, focuses on a young East German agent sent across the Berlin Wall to spy on West Germany for the Stasi.

The show launched on RTL in Germany, and became the first German-language drama to debut on a mainstream cable channel, namely SundanceTV.

FremantleMedia International sells the show globally.