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-gover ...

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inha ...

with its main office in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

. 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'', WDR produces the regional television service WDR Fernsehen (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 in 1933. This included Ernst Hardt, Hans Stein and Walter Stern. WDR was created in 1955, when Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR) was split into Norddeutscher Rundfunk (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: Ernst Hardt, 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 * 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 * since 1 July 2013: Tom Buhrow

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 fees. 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, and Deutschlandradio.

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 ca ...

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

), "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 ...

), "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 ...

), "Ruhr" ( Essen), "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 di ...

), "Südwestfalen" (

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. The university town (nearly 20,000 students in the 2018–2019 winter semest ...

) and "Bergisches Land" ( Wuppertal) 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 Ma ...

'' ('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 b ...

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 mul ...

, Luca Zamperoni and Kay Böger. The '' Sportschau'' is produced for ARD in Cologne, and WDR contributes to ARD Digital, ''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 German ...

, 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, 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 t ...

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 w ...

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 198 ...

: 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 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 Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

. 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, simul ...

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, 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