Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (''West German Broadcasting Cologne''; WDR, ) is a German

public-broadcasting Public broadcasting involves 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 ...

institution based in the

Federal State A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-governi ...

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...

with its main office in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

. WDR is a constituent member of the consortium of German public-broadcasting institutions, ARD. As well as contributing to the output of the national television channel ''

Das Erste Das Erste (; "The First") is the flagship national television channel of the ARD association of public broadcasting corporations in Germany. ''Das Erste'' is jointly operated by the nine regional public broadcasting corporations that are member ...

'', WDR produces the regional television service

WDR Fernsehen WDR Fernsehen is a German free-to-air television network owned and operated by Westdeutscher Rundfunk and serving North Rhine-Westphalia. It is one of the seven regional "third programmes" television stations that are offered within the federal ...

(formerly known as WDF and West3) and six regional radio networks.

History

Origins

The Westdeutsche Funkstunde AG (WEFAG) was established on 15 September 1924. There was a substantial purge of left wing staff following the

Nazi seizure of power Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...

in 1933. This included

Ernst Hardt Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Hardt (9 May 1876 – 3 January 1947), born Ernst Stöckhardt, was a German playwright, poet, and novelist. Hardt was born in Graudenz, West Prussia (now Grudziądz, Poland). He is the author of ''Priester des Todes' ...

, Hans Stein and Walter Stern. WDR was created in 1955, when

Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR; ''Northwest German Broadcasting'') 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 to ...

(NWDR) was split into

Norddeutscher Rundfunk Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR; ''Northern German Broadcasting'') is a public broadcasting, public radio and television broadcaster, based in Hamburg. In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR broadcasts for the German states of Lower Saxony, M ...

(NDR) – covering

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

, Schleswig-Holstein, and Hamburg – and Westdeutscher Rundfunk, responsible for North Rhine-Westphalia. WDR began broadcasting on two radio networks (one produced jointly with NDR) on 1 January 1956. WDR constitutes the most prominent example of regional broadcasting in Germany.

Directors

* 1926–1933:

, director general of WERAG * 1933–1937: Heinrich Glasmeier, director general of "Reichssender Köln" * 1937–1941: Anton Winkelnkemper, director general of "Reichssender Köln" * 1942–1945: closed * 1945–1947: Max Burghardt, director general of NWDR * 1947–1961: Hanns Hartmann, director general of NWDR and since 1956 of WDR * 1961–1976:

Klaus von Bismarck Klaus von Bismarck (6 March 1912 – 22 May 1997) was the Director General of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (West German Broadcasting) from 1961 to 1976, and the president of the ARD broadcasting association in 1963-1964. He was also the president ...

* 1976–1985: Friedrich-Wilhelm von Sell * 1985–1995:

Friedrich Nowottny Friedrich Nowottny (born 16 May 1929) is a German television journalist. Life Nowottny worked as director of German broadcaster WDR. He lives in Swisttal-Buschhoven near Bonn. Awards *1973: Goldene Kamera in category ''Politischer Journali ...

* 1995–2007:

Fritz Pleitgen Fritz Ferdinand Pleitgen (21 March 1938 – 15 September 2022) was a German television journalist and author. He was correspondent in Moscow, East Berlin and Washington. Pleitgen was a supporter of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik. In 1988, Pleitgen b ...

* 2007–2013:

Monika Piel Monika Piel (born 9 April 1951 in Bensberg) is a German television journalist and radio journalist. Life and career Piel studied Business economics in Cologne. Afterwards she studied Jura and Oriental Studies without graduating. During her ...

* since 1 July 2013:

Tom Buhrow Tom Buhrow (born 29 September 1958, in Troisdorf) is a German journalist who has been serving as intendant of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk, WDR since 2013. Early life and education Buhrow studied history and political science in Bonn. Career Car ...

Logo history

File:WDR 1956 Logo.svg, WDR's first and original logo used from 1956 to 1970. File:Wdr logo 1970 1988.svg, WDR's second and former logo used from 1970 to 1994. File:WDR Dachmarke (bis 2013).svg, WDR's third and previous logo used from 1994 to 2012. File:WDR Dachmarke.svg, WDR's fourth and current logo since 2012.

Funding

WDR is in part funded by the limited sale of on-air commercial advertising time; however, its principal source of income is the revenue derived from viewer and listener

licence fee A television licence or broadcast receiving licence is a payment required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts, or the possession of a television set where some broadcasts are funded in full or in part by the licence f ...

s. As of 2015 the monthly fee due from each household for radio and television reception was €17.50. These fees are collected not directly by WDR but by a joint agency of ARD (and its member institutions),

ZDF ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...

, and

Deutschlandradio Deutschlandradio (DLR) (''Radio Germany'') is a national German public radio broadcaster. History ''Deutschlandfunk'' was originally a West German news radio targeting listeners within West Germany as well as in neighbouring countries, ''Deutsc ...

Television

WDR began its regional television service, Westdeutsches Fernsehen (WDF), on 17 December 1965. On 27 August 1967, when West Germany broadcast its first color TV program, WDF used a live broadcast originating from a Bosch

outside broadcast Outside broadcasting (OB) is the electronic field production (EFP) of television or radio programmes (typically to cover television news and sports television events) from a mobile remote broadcast television studio. Professional video camera ...

van to start broadcasting in color. In 1988, the channel was renamed West 3; since 1994, it has been known as

. While the programmes are mainly run from their

headquarters, they also have a number of sub-regional studios contributing to a regular broadcast called ''Lokalzeit'' with the opt-outs "aus Aachen" (

Aachen Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...

), "OWL" (

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region (''Regierungsbezirk'') of Detmold and the ...

), "aus Bonn" (

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

), "aus Dortmund" (

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

), "aus Düsseldorf" (

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

), "aus Duisburg" (

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in Nor ...

), "Ruhr" (

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

), "aus Köln" (

and

), "Münsterland" (

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...

), "Südwestfalen" (

Siegen Siegen () is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly sho ...

) and "Bergisches Land" (

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...

) for each respective region. WDR has its current affairs and regional politics studios in Düsseldorf. It has served as the production entity for shows on Das Erste, such as ''

Verbotene Liebe ''Verbotene Liebe'' (, "Forbidden Love") was a German television soap opera created by Reg Watson for Das Erste. The show was set primarily in the German city of Düsseldorf although, at times, the city of Cologne and the Spanish island of Mal ...

'' ('Forbidden Love'), which, over the years, has introduced many young actors to the German audience, such as

Andreas Stenschke Andreas Stenschke (born 26 July 1975), is a German actor and director. Biography Stenschke was born in Cologne, West Germany and moved shortly to the nearby suburbs, where his parents, Wolfgang and Marlene, had bought a home. He has a younger br ...

Jo Weil Johannes "Jo" Hermann Bruno Anton Weil (born 29 August 1977) is a German actor and television host, best known for his portrayals of Oliver Sabel on the long-running German serial ''Verbotene Liebe'' and titular bodyguard, Frank Farmer, in multi ...

, Luca Zamperoni and Kay Böger. The ''

Sportschau ''Sportschau'' is a German sports magazine on broadcaster ARD, produced by WDR in Cologne. The magazine started in 1961. In its Saturday' edition, the ''Sportschau'' shows a summary of the Bundesliga, whereas the Sunday edition reports on the la ...

'' is produced for ARD in Cologne, and WDR contributes to

ARD Digital ARD is a joint organisation of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters. It was founded in 1950 in West Germany to represent the common interests of the new, decentralised, post-war broadcasting services – in particular the introduction ...

, ''3sat'' and ''arte''.

Radio

A long-running talk show on wheels was

Hallo Ü-Wagen ''Hallo Ü-Wagen'' (''Hello Radio Van'') was a German travelling talk radio show of the WDR. It was presented and directed weekly by Carmen Thomas from 1974 to 1994. In 1990, ''Forbes'' named her one of the 100 most influential women in Germany ...

, running from 1974 to 2010, begun by

Carmen Thomas Carmen Thomas (born 7 May 1946) is a German journalist, radio and television presenter, author and lecturer. On television, she was the first woman to present the ZDF's ''das aktuelle Sportstudio''. She worked for public radio, running '' Hallo ...

. WDR's main radio channels are available on FM and digital (DAB+), as well as via cable and satellite: *

1LIVE 1LIVE is a radio station operated by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk public broadcasting corporation in Germany. It specialises in popular music aimed at the 14–39 age demographic, the average age of its listeners is 34. History On 1 April 1995 ...

is a popular music channel modelled on

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

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 2 WDR 2 is a radio station owned and operated by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) public broadcasting organization in Germany. It focuses on contemporary pop and rock music for an adult audience and on information. It is also WDR's broadcast sport ev ...

, featuring adult-oriented popular music, focuses strongly on national and regional news, current affairs, and sport. * WDR 3, the cultural channel, offers mostly classical, jazz and world music as well as

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

and spoken-word features dealing with literature and the performing arts. * WDR 4 (motto: ''Melodien für ein gutes Gefühl'', "Melodies for a good feeling") is a channel aimed chiefly towards an older audience. Its focus is on tuneful music – in particular,

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as we ...

and

classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 1980s ...

: popular music of the 1960s to the 1980s or later – with more specialized programming (operetta, country, folk) in the evenings. Around 30-40% of WDR 4's musical output is made up of

German-language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a c ...

songs. * WDR 5 features spoken-word programming with the focus on present-day culture and society. Between 6.05 and 9.45 each Monday to Saturday morning the channel offers news, background briefing, interviews, and correspondents' reports in a sequence entitled ''Morgenecho''. The main lunchtime and early-evening news and current affairs programmes ''Mittagsecho'' (at 13.05–14.00 on Mondays to Fridays and 13.30–14.30 on Sundays) and ''Echo des Tages'' (at 18.30–19.00 daily) are both co-productions with

(NDR) in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. Additionally, WDR 2's 30-minute round-up of the day's most important news reports, ''Berichte von heute'', is

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

by WDR 5 on Monday to Friday evenings at 23.30. WDR 5 also carries children's programming from KiRaKa at 19.05–20.00 each evening as well as on Sundays at 7.05–8.00 and 14.05–15.00. * Cosmo (earlier WDR 5 Funkhaus Europa – an offshoot of WDR 5 – and now a joint production of

Radio Bremen Radio Bremen (RB), Germany's smallest public radio and television broadcaster, is the legally mandated broadcaster for the city-state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (which includes Bremerhaven). With its headquarters sited in Bremen, Radio Brem ...

, RBB, and WDR) is a channel principally aimed at serving immigrants and promoting integration. It features a wide selection of world music. It is not available over-the-air in every part of WDR's broadcasting area.

Notes

External links

* {{Authority control ARD (broadcaster) Radio stations in Germany Television networks in Germany Television stations in Germany German-language television networks Mass media companies of Germany Mass media in Cologne Television channels and stations established in 1956 Mass media in North Rhine-Westphalia 1955 establishments in Germany