Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Encyclopedia
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...
institution based in the Federal State
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 North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...
with its main office in Cologne
KOLN
KOLN, digital channel 10, is the CBS affiliate in Lincoln, Nebraska. It operates a satellite station, KGIN, on digital channel 11 in Grand Island. KGIN repeats all KOLN programming, but airs separate commercials...
. WDR is a constituent member of the consortium of German public-broadcasting institutions, ARD
ARD (broadcaster)
ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...
. As well as contributing to the output of national television channel Das Erste
Das Erste
Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen , marketed as Das Erste , is the principal publicly owned television channel in Germany...
, WDR produces the regional television service WDR Fernsehen (formerly known as WDF and West3) and six regional radio networks.
History
WDR was created in 1955, when Nordwestdeutscher RundfunkNordwestdeutscher Rundfunk
Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk was the organization responsible for public broadcasting in the German Länder of Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia from 22 September 1945 until 31 December 1955. Until 1954, it was also responsible for broadcasting in West Berlin...
(NWDR) was split into Norddeutscher Rundfunk
Norddeutscher Rundfunk
Norddeutscher Rundfunk is a public radio and television broadcaster, based in Hamburg. In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR transmits for the German states of Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein...
– covering Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, and Hamburg – and Westdeutscher Rundfunk, responsible for North Rhine-Westphalia. WDR began broadcasting on two radio networks on 1 January 1956.
Funding
WDR is funded partly from the limited sale of on-air commercial advertising time but principally from viewer and listener licence feeTelevision licence
A television licence is an official licence required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts...
receipts. As of January 2009 the monthly fee payable per household for radio and television reception was €17.98: the equivalent of €0.59 (USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
0.45) per day. For radio only, the monthly fee was €5.76. These fees are collected not directly by WDR 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 joint organization of ARD
ARD (broadcaster)
ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...
, its member institutions, 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...
.
Television
WDR began its regional television service, Westdeutsches Fernsehen (WDF), on 17 December 1965. In 1988 the channel was renamed West3; since 1994, it has been known as WDR Fernsehen.While the programmes are mainly run from their Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
headquarters, they also have a number of sub-regional studios contributing a regular broadcast called Lokalzeit with the addition
"Regio Aachen" (Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
), "OWL aktuell" (Bielefeld
Bielefeld
Bielefeld is an independent city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 323,000, it is also the most populous city in the Regierungsbezirk Detmold...
), "aus Bonn" (Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
), "aus Dortmund" (Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....
), "aus Düsseldorf" (Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
), "aus Duisburg" (Duisburg
Duisburg
- History :A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus holds that Duisburg, was built by the eponymous Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC...
),"Ruhr" (Essen
Essen
- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...
), "Köln" (Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
and Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
), "Münsterland" (Münster), "Südwestfalen" (Siegen
Siegen
Siegen is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region...
) and "Bergisches Land" (Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...
) for each respective region. WDR has its current affairs and regional-politics studios in Düsseldorf.
It has served as the production entity for network shows on the ARD, such as Verbotene Liebe
Verbotene Liebe
Verbotene Liebe , often abbreviated to VL, is a Rose d'Or Award-winning German television soap opera. The show was created by Reg Watson and first broadcast on Das Erste on 2 January 1995...
, which over the years has exposed many young actors to the German audience, such as Andreas Stenschke
Andreas Stenschke
Andreas Stenschke, is a German actor and director originally brought to prominence in the groundbreaking story of teenager Ulli Prozeski coming to terms with being gay on the popular daily serial, Verbotene Liebe, seen nationally on the ARD network.-Biography:Stenschke was born in Cologne, Germany...
, Jo Weil
Jo Weil
Johannes "Jo" Hermann Bruno Anton Weil is a German actor. He is best known for his role of Oliver Sabel in Verbotene Liebe, on the German soap-opera channel, Das Erste...
, Luca Zamperoni and Kay Böger.
Radio
- 1LIVE1LIVE1LIVE is a radio network by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk public broadcasting corporation in Germany. It specialises in popular music aimed at the 14-39 age bracket. The average age of listeners is 34.- History :...
(formerly styled L1VE: Radio Eins Live) is a popular music channel modelled on BBC Radio 1BBC Radio 1BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
and aimed at a young audience. Its schedules include such non-mainstream night-time programmes as "Heimatkult", focusing on pop music from Germany, and "Lauschangriff", a series of audio-books.
- WDR 2WDR 2WDR 2 is a radio channel produced by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk public broadcasting organization in Germany. It focuses on contemporary pop music for an adult audience.-FM:*Aachen / Euregio 100.8 MHz*Eifel 101.0 MHz*Monschau 94.2 MHz*Kölner Bucht 100.4 MHz...
(motto: Der Sender, "The Station") focuses strongly on national and regional news and current affairs, together with adult-oriented popular music.
- WDR 3, the cultural channel, offers mostly classical, jazz and world music as well as radio dramaRadio dramaRadio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
and spoken-word features covering literature and the performing arts.
- WDR 4 (motto: Schönes bleibt, "The beautiful endures") is principally oriented towards an older audience. The channel specializes in traditional and modern tuneful German-language music.
- WDR 5 (previously WDR Radio 5) offers spoken-word programming with the focus on present-day culture and society.
- Funkhaus Europa 103,3: previously WDR 5 Funkhaus Europa (an offshoot of WDR 5) and now a joint Radio BremenRadio BremenRadio Bremen , Germany's smallest public radio and television broadcaster, is the legally mandated broadcaster for the city-state of Bremen...
/ WDR production, this channel, which features a wide selection of world musicWorld musicWorld music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
, is principally directed at immigrants and aims to promote integration. It is not available over-the-air in every part of WDR's broadcasting area.
WDR's radio programmes are available on FM and digital, as well as via cable and satellite. In addition WDR 2 is broadcast on two AM frequencies, 720 and 774 kHz, which provide extended road traffic announcements and opt-out coverage of parliamentary debates.
Except on Sundays and public holidays, 1LIVE, WDR 2, and WDR 4 carry a limited amount of paid-for commercial advertising during the daytime.
WDR also produces a number of experimental digital radio
Digital radio
Digital radio has several meanings:1. Today the most common meaning is digital radio broadcasting technologies, such as the digital audio broadcasting system, also known as Eureka 147. In these systems, the analog audio signal is digitized into zeros and ones, compressed using formats such as...
channels, which are mostly variations on 1LIVE and WDR2.