Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (Central German Broadcasting, MDR) is the public broadcaster

Public broadcasting

Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing.Public broadcasting may be...

 for the federal states

States of Germany

Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

 of Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

, Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

 and Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...

. Established in January 1991, it has its headquarters in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

 and regional studios in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Erfurt

Erfurt

Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...

 and Magdeburg

Magdeburg

Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....

.

MDR broadcasts its own television channel to the three states it serves and contributes to the first German TV channel (Das Erste

Das Erste

Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen , marketed as Das Erste , is the principal publicly owned television channel in Germany...

) and also broadcasts various radio channels.

Studios and staff

MDR has approximately 2000 employees. The main television studio is in Leipzig, and the main radio studio is in Halle

Halle, Saxony-Anhalt

Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...

. There are also radio studios in each of the three state capitals for the territory that MDR represents: Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 (Saxony), Erfurt

Erfurt

Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...

 (Thuringia), and Magdeburg

Magdeburg

Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....

 (Saxony-Anhalt).

Finances

Licensing fees

Television licence

A television licence is an official licence required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts...

 required for radio and TV sets are €17.98 per month, as of 1st October 2011. For radio reception alone, the monthly fee is €5.76
These fees are not collected directly by MDR but by the GEZ

Gebühreneinzugszentrale

The GEZ, full title Gebühreneinzugszentrale der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland , is a joint organization of Germany's public broadcasting institutions ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio that is located in Cologne...

, a common organisation of ARD

ARD (broadcaster)

ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...

, its members, ZDF

ZDF

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...

 and Deutschlandfunk

Deutschlandfunk

Deutschlandfunk is a German public broadcasting radio station, broadcasting national news and current affairs.-History:Broadcasting in the Federal Republic of Germany is reserved under the Basic Law to the states. This means that all public broadcasting is regionalised...

.

Programming

MDR provides programs to various TV and radio networks, some done in collaboration with other broadcasters, and others completely independently.

TV programming

• MDR Fernsehen (MDR TV) - Third TV channel for central Germany, with regional programming for Saxony
  Saxony
  The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
  
  , Saxony-Anhalt
  Saxony-Anhalt
  Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...
  
   and Thuringia
  Thuringia
  The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
  
  
• ARD
  ARD (broadcaster)
  ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...
  
   - MDR contributes programming to Germany's main network
• Phoenix - collaborative network programming between the ARD and ZDF
  ZDF
  Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
  
  
• KI.KA
  KI.KA
  KI.KA is a public non-commercial free television channel based in Erfurt, Germany. It is a joint venture of national public television channels ARD, and ARD's constituent broadcasting institutions – BR, HR, MDR, NDR, Radio Bremen, RBB, Saarländischer Rundfunk, SWR, WDR and ZDF, and is targeted at...
  
   - Children's network from the ARD and ZDF
• arte
  Arte
  Arte is a Franco-German TV network. It is a European culture channel and aims to promote quality programming especially in areas of culture and the arts...
  
   - Franco-German cultural network
• 3sat
  3sat
  3sat is the name of a public, advertising-free, television network in Central Europe. The programming is in German and is broadcast primarily within Germany, Austria and Switzerland .3sat was established for cultural...
  
   - Cultural network from the ARD, ZDF, ORF (Austrian Broadcasting), and SRG
  SRG SSR idée suisse
  SRG SSR is the Swiss public broadcasting organisation, founded in 1931 as SRG-SSR. Headquartered in Bern, SRG SSR is a non-profit organisation, funded mainly through radio and television licence fees and making the remaining income from advertising and sponsorship.Switzerland's system of direct...
  
   (Swiss Broadcasting)

Radio programming

• MDR1 Radio Sachsen (MDR1 Radio Saxony) - Regional programming for Saxony
• MDR1 Radio Sachsen-Anhalt (MDR1 Radio Saxony-Anhalt) - Regional programming for Saxony-Anhalt
• MDR1 Radio Thüringen (MDR1 Radio Thuringia) - Regional programming for Thuringia
• Sputnik - "Programming for young people", former DT64 cultural youth channel of GDR broadcasting organisation.
• Jump - Pop music and service
• Figaro - Cultural spoken programming and regional classical transmissions
• MDR Info - News and information
• MDR Klassik (available on digital radios only) - classical music

Musical organizations

The MDR operates two musical organizations and a ballet.

The MDR Symphony Orchestra

MDR Symphony Orchestra

The MDR Symphony Orchestra is one of the oldest Radio orchestras in the world and the oldest in Germany. It was founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1923 and therefore 9 months earlier than the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra...

(German: MDR Sinfonieorchester) was originally founded in 1915 as "Orchester des Konzertvereins" ("Orchestra of the Concert Society"). It became the "Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig" ("Radio Symphony Orchestra Leipzig") in 1924. Principal conductors have included Herbert Kegel, Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, Daniel Nazareth and Fabio Luisi

Fabio Luisi

Fabio Luisi is an Italian conductor. On September 6, 2011, he was named Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera....

. Since September 2007, Jun Märkl

Jun Märkl

Jun Märkl is a German conductor, the son of a German violinist father and a Japanese pianist mother. He studied piano and the violin as a youth. Beginning in 1978 at the Musikhochschule Hannover he continued his piano and violin studies and also began to study conducting. He later attended the...

 is the orchestra's principal conductor.

The MDR Radio Choir (German: MDR Rundfunkchor) was founded in 1946 as the "Rundfunkchor Leipzig" ("Leipzig Radio Choir").

The MDR also has the lead management of the MDR TV Ballet (German: MDR Fernsehballett), the only TV ballet company in Europe. It was founded in 1962 as the "DFF-Fernsehballett", reorganized in 1992, and has 30 members.

Transmitters

MDR does not own its own transmission towers. Instead, they are leased through and operated by Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....

.

Podcasts

Several podcasts produced by MDR are available through the iTunes Music Store. These are essentially repeats of regular radio programmes, including: "Figaro," "MDR Info," "Programming Highlights," "Riverboat," "Sputnik" and "Unter uns."

History

From 1991 to 2011 the Managing Director was Udo Reiter, followed by Karola Wille.

Popular MDR productions

MDR produces several programs for the ARD, including crime drama episodes for the series "Tatort" (roughly: "Crime Scene") and "Polizeiruf 110" (roughly: "Police Emergency 110"). MDR also produces the successful hospital series "In aller Freundschaft" (roughly: "In friendship") and the animal series "Abenteuer Zoo" ("Adventure Zoo"), "Deutschlands wilde Tiere" ("Germany's Wild Animals") and "Europas wilder Osten" ("Europe's Wild East").

See also: German television

German television

Television in Germany began in Berlin on March 22, 1935, broadcasting for 90 minutes three times a week. The German television market had approximately 36.5 million television households in 2000, making it the largest television market in Europe...

External links

• MDR Homepage (in German)