 Logo since December 2019 | |
| Type | Broadcast radio, television and online |
|---|---|
| Country | Germany |
| Availability | National International |
| Owner | Independent[1] |
Key people | Florian Hager (HR), Chairman |
Launch date | 5 June 1950; 74 years ago (1950-06-05) |
Official website | www |
ARD[a] is a joint organisation ofGermany's regionalpublic-service broadcasters. It was founded in 1950 inWest Germany to represent the common interests of the new, decentralised, post-war broadcasting services – in particular the introduction of a joint television network.
The ARD has a budget of €6.9 billion, 22,612 employees and is the largest public broadcaster network in the world.[2][3][4] The budget comes primarily from a mandatorylicence fee which every household, company and public institution, regardless of television ownership, is required by law to pay. For an ordinary household the fee is €18.36 per month, as of 2023. Households living onwelfare are exempt from the fee. The fees are not collected directly by the ARD, but by theBeitragsservice (formerly known as Gebühreneinzugszentrale GEZ), a common organisation by the ARD member broadcasters, the second public TV broadcasterZDF, andDeutschlandradio.
ARD maintains and operates a national television network, calledDas Erste ("The First [Channel]") to differentiate it fromZDF, a.k.a. "das Zweite" ("The Second [Channel]"), which started in 1963, as a separate public TV broadcaster. The ARD network began broadcasting on 31 October 1954 under the name ofDeutsches Fernsehen ("German Television"), becomingErstes Deutsches Fernsehen ("First German Television") with a corporate redesign in 1984; it adopted its current short name (Das Erste) in 1994. ARD's programmes are aired over its own terrestrial broadcast network, as well as via cable, satellite and IPTV.
ARD also produces twofree-to-air channels (one andTagesschau24) and participates in the production ofPhoenix (current events, news and documentaries),KiKa (kids-oriented),3sat (cultural-oriented),arte (Franco-German cultural programming), andFunk (teenage-oriented, online only).
ARD's programming is produced by its regional members (see alsoInstitutions and member organizations) (Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR),Hessischer Rundfunk (HR),Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR),Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR),Radio Bremen,Rundfunk Berlin–Brandenburg (RBB),Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR),Südwestrundfunk (SWR) andWestdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR)), which operate 54 regional and local radio stations and seven regional TV networks, some of which have opt-outs at during the day.[clarification needed]Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcaster, is also a member of ARD.
‡public-law broadcasting institutions meansbroadcasters which are not privately owned (German:Privatradio and Privatfernsehen) and are not governmental radio or TV. ARD is not 'owned by' anybody, particularly not by "Germany" (meaning its government/federal state). ARD members like BR (Bayerischer Rundfunk) are not owned by theirLand (state and its government, hereBavaria), either. With theRundfunkfreiheit (freedom of broadcasting), they have an independent position (within a legal framework).
The winningAllies of World War II determined that German radio afterWorld War II would notbroadcast the same propaganda as the pre-warReichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft ("Reich Broadcasting Company"). Afederal structure, the renunciation of state influence and the avoidance of economic dependence were to be the key of the radio and TV institutions underpublic law (öffentlich-rechtliche Rundfunk- und Fernsehanstalten, public radio and television organisations). The legal form of the new entity wasAnstalt des öffentlichen Rechts ("Institution under Public Law"), a non-government and nonprofit organisation with its own administration under the control of two commissions, theRundfunkrat (Broadcasting Council, responsible for the programmed content) and theVerwaltungsrat (Administration Council, responsible for management and infrastructure), in which different stakeholders from German public life were represented.
ARD's founding members wereNordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR), the station for the former British zone,Südwestfunk (SWF), the station in the French zone, and four stations located in the former American sector—Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR),Süddeutscher Rundfunk (SDR),Hessischer Rundfunk (HR), andRadio Bremen (RB). The new entity was financed by an obligatory fee that every German household with at least one radio receiver paid. Each station received the money collected in its state. Larger ARD members subsidised smaller ones up to a certain extent.
In 1947, American military governorLucius D. Clay declared diversity ofpublic opinion as the main aim of post-warmedia policy. Individuals aligned with the post-war Allied forces in their respective sectors of Germany had a local influence on local regional broadcasters. NDR cites the influence ofHugh Greene on the early years of their organisation.
After the creation of individual broadcasting agencies for most German federal states these principles were further consolidated byLänder broadcasting laws, decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), and state treaties between theLänder. ARD members are thus (at least nominally) free of government influence and rely for only a small part of their income on advertising (1995: ten percent). They are financed mainly fromlicence fees from radio and TV owners, which are set through a complex political process. The mandated aim of the ARD corporations is not only toinform and to entertain but also to encourage the integration of various parts of society and allowminorities a say in programming.
In the 1950s the ARD radio services became the major factor of the mass media system in West Germany. As early as 1952 the ARD radio stations had ten million listeners. However, the radio stations operated on a regional level, and it was only the development of a television umbrella that helped the ARD to establish itself nationwide. The broadcasting of a countrywide TV broadcast service was the goal of the ARD from the outset and the go-ahead for this was given at the end of 1952. The same year ARD was admitted as a fully active member of theEuropean Broadcasting Union and the "German sound archive", nowGerman Broadcasting Archive (DRA,DeutschesRundfunkarchiv), was established as a joint facility of the ARD.
In 1955 the founding memberNWDR ("Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk", English: "North-West German Broadcasting") split into today's NDR and WDR. The year before (1954) the smaller SFB was split off. The first dailynews feature, theTagesschau, went on the air fromHamburg in 1952. The famous 8:00 pm chime and announcement"Hier ist das Erste Deutsche Fernsehen mit der Tagesschau" ("This is the first German television channel with the Tagesschau") remains an ARD hallmark today. The broadcast attracts an average of 8 million viewers.
After starting with a mere two-hour schedule per night, television became more widespread in Germany in the 1960s. Color broadcasts were introduced in 1967. Without competition from private broadcasters (other than the francophoneEurope 1 and the multilingualRTL (Radio-Television Luxembourg) radio programs), the ARD stations made considerable progress in becoming modern and respected broadcasters.ZDF (ZweitesDeutschesFernsehen, Second German Television), a second public television broadcaster with a centralized national organization structure, began its programming in 1963, but ARD would encounter no private competition in Germany until 1984. The ARD stations have also been a significant force inGerman politics; suchinvestigative news magazines asMonitor andPanorama still reach millions of viewers every week. Theenvironmental movement increased in popularity during the 1980s largely as a result of the disclosures made by ARD.
When private/commercial German-language broadcasters were admitted in Germany by federal law in the mid-1980s, ARD television made subtle changes, adapting somewhat by producing programs oriented to a larger audience for their national networks and shifting many cultural and news programs to the regional networks and to newly created niche channels.
Informational television programs and the orientation of "Deutschlandfunk" (Germany's national public radio station, associated with, but not a member of the ARD) programs towards the GDR were of importance to the eventual collapse of the GDR.[citation needed] Established in 1974, the ARD bureau inEast Berlin made ARD television the most important source of information for GDR citizens,[citation needed] eighty percent of whom could watch what they referred to as "Westfernsehen". Notwithstanding obstruction on the part of GDR authorities and the repeated expulsion of their correspondents, the ARD-Tagesschau and Deutschlandfunk transmitted a report about theLeipzigMonday Demonstrations (which started on 4 September 1989) as early as September 1989.
After theunification and the closure of theDeutscher Fernsehfunk, two new regional broadcasters were established in the East, becoming ARD members in 1992. These were originally theMitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR, English: "Central German Broadcasting"), and Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB, English: "East German Broadcasting Brandenburg"). The existing NDR service expanded into the north-east, where it also coveredMecklenburg-Vorpommern. The ORB service has since merged with the former Sender Freies Berlin (SFB, English "Radio Free Berlin") to become Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB, English: "Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting") in 2003.
Another merger took place between two member organisations of the ARD in 1998. The former Süddeutscher Rundfunk (SDR, English: "Southern German Broadcasting") and Südwestfunk (SWF, English: "Southwestcast") becameSüdwestrundfunk (SWR, English: "Southwest Broadcasting") on 1 October 1998.
Today, ARD member stations usually produce their radio programming. Some ARD member stations usually collaborate for common radio services (an example is Nordwestradio, a culture-oriented radio station co-produced by Radio Bremen and NDR). Most ARD stations, however, will have at least a news-oriented radio station, a classical music station, a youth-oriented station, and a cultural station. At night some stations will relay common night programming produced on a rota system by the ARD stations themselves. There are four common night programming services: Hitnacht (light music), Nachtkonzert (classical music), Infonacht (all news), and Popnacht (pop music). Most services are on theFM broadcast band, though some services are also available onDAB.
A similar network intended for national coverage is calledDeutschlandradio, however, Deutschlandradio is not an ARD member – instead, Deutschlandradio is controlled by both ARD and ZDF. Deutschlandradio provides two terrestrial radio services:Deutschlandfunk (DLF), a news-oriented service, andDeutschlandfunk Kultur, a culture-oriented service. It also provides a science-orientated internet channel:Deutschlandfunk Nova.
ARD's best-known radio station outside Germany isDeutsche Welle, which broadcasts its radio services around the world in many languages, mostly on analogue shortwave radio, online, and FM partner stations. Deutsche Welle has no FM distribution in Germany.
"Archivradio"[5] is an ARD internet radio station that streams raw audio from German sound archives, mainly the ARD radio archives and the DRA. The program is accompanied by a web portal run by the ARD-member SWR, with background information on the original sounds aired.
The main television channels of the ARD are the nationwideDas Erste and seven regional channels operated by the different regional broadcasting institutions. These channels were available on the analogue terrestrial transmitters until the shutdown of the analogue transmitters started in 2003. Das Erste and the third programmes, like the radio stations, are principally funded by licence fees, with a very limited amount of on-air advertising.
Das Erste broadcasts nationwide 24 hours a day. However, the schedule does include four and a half hours of joint programming with ZDF each weekday, in the form of the news programmesMorgenmagazin (on air 5.30–9.00) andMittagsmagazin (13.00–14.00), which the two organizations take weekly turns to produce.Audience share (March 2008):12.5%, from 14 to 49 years 6.9%.
The regional members of ARD all, jointly (NDR/rb and SWR/SR) or separately, operate their own regional channels, known collectively asdie Dritten ("the Third Programmes") – before recent rebranding, most of these stations had names like West 3 and Hessen 3. The schedules of these regional channels also include sub-regional opt-outs at certain times, in particular for local news.
ARD has three additional channels as part of theirARD Digital package:
ARD is also involved in several joint venture channels:
The international broadcasterDeutsche Welle also produces television services; however, these services are mostly available via satellite.
TheTagesschau, produced by the ARD on a nightly basis, is available on the ARD website as a podcast (available as audio-only or as audio and video). Other audio programs from the ARD's members (e.g.,BR,MDR) andDeutsche Welle are available as podcasts, through their respective websites.
| Regional broadcaster (translation) | Abbreviation | Main office location(s) | Income 2004 (Millions of Euro) | Year of establishment | Region of coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting) | BR | Munich | 806 | 1949 | Bavaria |
| Deutsche Welle ("German Wave") | DW | Bonn | Financed through taxes | 1953 | International |
| Hessischer Rundfunk (Hessian Broadcasting) | HR | Frankfurt | 383 | 1948 | Hesse |
| Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (Central German Broadcasting) | MDR | Leipzig | 561 | 1991 | Saxony,Saxony-Anhalt,Thuringia |
| Norddeutscher Rundfunk (North German Broadcasting) | NDR | Hamburg | 892 | 1956 | Hamburg,Lower Saxony andSchleswig-Holstein since 1955;Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since 1991. |
| Radio Bremen | RB | Bremen | 41 | 1945 | Bremen |
| Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting) | RBB | Berlin,Potsdam | 340 | 2003 | Berlin,Brandenburg |
| Saarländischer Rundfunk (Saarland Broadcasting) | SR | Saarbrücken | 64 | 1957 | Saarland |
| Südwestrundfunk (Southwest Broadcasting) | SWR | Stuttgart,Mainz,Baden-Baden | 922 | 1998 | Baden-Württemberg,Rhineland-Palatinate |
| Westdeutscher Rundfunk (West German Broadcasting) | WDR | Cologne | 1,067 | 1956 | North Rhine-Westphalia |
ARD has 30[6]correspondents' offices[7] in 26[8] countries.[9][10]
ARD operates several other companies and institutions, sometimes jointly with ZDF:Degeto Film, a television rights trader and production company; theGerman Broadcasting Archive (DRA – Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv); the Institute for Broadcasting Technology (IRT – Institut für Rundfunktechnik), responsible for research and development; the Fee Collection Service(Beitragsservice), and others.
ARD is a supporter of theHybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) initiative that is promoting and establishing an open European standard for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast TV and broadband multimedia applications with a single user interface.
| Term Begin | Term End | Name | Broadcaster |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 August 1950 | 2 February 1951 | Rudolf von Scholtz | BR |
| 3 February 1951 | 2 August 1951 | Eberhard Beckmann | HR |
| 3 August 1951 | 3 February 1952 | Adolf Grimme | NWDR |
| 4 February 1952 | 30 September 1952 | Walter Geerdes | RB |
| 1 October 1952 | 31 March 1953 | Fritz Eberhard | SDR |
| 1 April 1953 | 30 September 1953 | Friedrich Bischoff | SWF |
| 1 October 1953 | 30 September 1954 | Rudolf von Scholtz | BR |
| 1 October 1954 | 31 December 1955 | Eberhard Beckmann | HR |
| 1 January 1956 | 31 December 1956 | Fritz Eberhard | SDR |
| 1 January 1957 | 31 December 1957 | Walter Hilpert | NDR |
| 1 January 1958 | 31 December 1958 | Franz Stadelmayer | BR |
| 1 January 1959 | 31 December 1960 | Friedrich Bischoff | SWF |
| 1 January 1961 | 31 December 1962 | Hans Bausch | SDR |
| 1 January 1963 | 31 December 1964 | Klaus von Bismarck | WDR |
| 1 January 1965 | 31 December 1966 | Werner Hess | HR |
| 1 January 1967 | 31 December 1969 | Christian Wallenreiter | BR |
| 1 January 1970 | 31 December 1971 | Gerhard Schröder | NDR |
| 1 January 1972 | 31 December 1973 | Helmut Hammerschmidt | SWF |
| 1 January 1974 | 31 December 1975 | Hans Bausch | SDR |
| 1 January 1976 | 31 December 1977 | Werner Hess | HR |
| 1 January 1978 | 31 December 1979 | Friedrich-Wilhelm von Sell | WDR |
| 1 January 1980 | 31 December 1983 | Reinhold Vöth | BR |
| 1 January 1984 | 31 December 1985 | Friedrich Wilhelm Räuker | NDR |
| 1 January 1986 | 31 December 1987 | Willibald Hilf | SWF |
| 1 January 1988 | 31 December 1988 | Hans Bausch | SDR |
| 1 January 1989 | 31 December 1990 | Hartwig Kelm | HR |
| 1 January 1991 | 31 December 1992 | Friedrich Nowottny | WDR |
| 1 January 1993 | 31 December 1994 | Jobst Plog | NDR |
| 1 January 1995 | 31 December 1996 | Albert Scharf | BR |
| 1 January 1997 | 31 December 1998 | Udo Reiter | MDR |
| 1 January 1999 | 31 December 2000 | Peter Voß | SWR |
| 1 January 2001 | 31 December 2002 | Fritz Pleitgen | WDR |
| 1 January 2003 | 31 December 2004 | Jobst Plog | NDR |
| 1 January 2005 | 31 December 2006 | Thomas Gruber | BR |
| 1 January 2007 | 31 December 2008 | Fritz Raff | SR |
| 1 January 2009 | 31 December 2010 | Peter Boudgoust [de] | SWR |
| 1 January 2011 | 31 December 2012 | Monika Piel | WDR |
| 1 January 2013 | 31 December 2015 | Lutz Marmor [de] | NDR |
| 1 January 2016 | 31 December 2017 | Karola Wille [de] | MDR |
| 1 January 2018 | 31 December 2019 | Ulrich Wilhelm | BR |
| 1 January 2020 | 31 December 2021 | Tom Buhrow | WDR |
| 1 January 2022 | 4 August 2022 | Patricia Schlesinger | rbb |
| 4 August 2022 | 31 December 2022 | Tom Buhrow | WDR |
| 1 January 2023 | 31 December 2024 | Kai Gniffke [de] | SWR |
| 1 January 2025 | Florian Hager [de] | HR |
| Studio | Broadcaster | Area of responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| Brussels | WDR | The largest ARD foreign studio and the only one with its own TV show (Europamagazin [de] (WDR/SWR)). Responsible for Benelux and the EU as well as NATO. The office was established in 1961. After almost two years of construction, a new studio was opened in the new media house in EU City in 2008. DW employees and the head of the ARD liaison office also work there. The radio studio is divided into three groups with the respective leaders WDR, HR and SWR. There is also a radio studio fromDeutschlandradio. |
| The Hague | WDR | Radio studio for theNetherlands |
| Geneva | SWR | TV and radio studio. Responsible for Switzerland, Liechtenstein, UN organizations,WHO, FIFA,IOC, etc. The studio has existed since the mid-1950s. |
| Istanbul | BR /SWR | Turkey,Northern Cyprus, (→ Studio Tel Aviv), including a liaison office inTehran, Iran. |
| Kyiv[11] | WDR | Television and radio studio. Responsible for Ukraine and, if necessary, other areas in Eastern Europe. Established in 2023 as a result of theRussian invasion of Ukraine. |
| London | NDR | Television and radio studio. Responsible for the UK and Ireland. |
| Madrid | SWR /HR | Television and radio studio. Responsible forSpain,Portugal,Andorra, Gibraltar and since March 2004 also responsible for the Maghreb.[12] |
| Moscow | WDR | Television and radio studio. Responsible for Russia and all CIS states, as well as Mongolia and Georgia, and also for Ukraine until 2023 (opening of a new ARD studio in Kyiv). Closed briefly in 2022 in the wake of the Ukraine war and a new media law in Russia. |
| Paris | WDR | Television and radio studio. Responsible for France and Monaco. |
| Prague | MDR | Television and radio studio, responsible forCzech Republic and Slovakia. |
| Rome | BR | Tri-media studio: television, online and radio studio. Responsible for Italy, Malta, Greece, Vatican City. |
| Stockholm | NDR | Television and radio studio. Responsible for Scandinavia, Finland and the Baltics. The studio was moved from Riga to Stockholm in 1997. |
| Warsaw | WDR /RBB | TV and radio studio. Reporting aboutPoland. |
| Vienna | BR | Austria, two sub-offices inBelgrade andSarajevo, responsible for Southeast-Europe. |
The radio studio in Strasbourg, which was closed in July 2010 and previously operated by SWR, was responsible for theEuropean Parliament. Since then, reporting has been carried out fromBrussels and Paris.
The ARD radio studio inZurich was closed in August 2021. Since then, reporting has been carried out from Geneva.
| Studio | Broadcaster | Area of responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | HR | United States, radio studio in West Coast, reporting primarily on California and Hollywood. Another office exists in San Francisco. |
| Mexico City | SWR/RBB | The studio in Mexico has existed since 1982 and is responsible for Central America, the Caribbean and northern South America (except Colombia). |
| New York City | WDR | UN/New York/Canada[13] The studio started as a one-man office in 1973, and in 1980 WDR expanded the office into a television studio. |
| Rio de Janeiro | SWR | The main studio for South America has been in Rio de Janeiro since April 2005, before that it was inBuenos Aires. The radio and television studios have been in Rio de Janeiro since 2022. |
| Washington, D.C. | BR/HR/MDR/NDR/SWR/WDR | USA overall/focus on politics Washington |
The ARD radio studio in Buenos Aires was closed in 2022. Since then, reporting has been carried out from Rio de Janeiro.
| Studio | Broadcaster | Area of responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| Johannesburg | SWR | In addition toSouth Africa, the reporting area also includes Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Angola, Botswana, Zambia and Malawi. The radio also coversMadagascar, La Réunion, Mayotte, Mauritius and the Comoros.[14] The ARD studio is based in a media complex and has had a radio correspondent since 1976 and a TV correspondent since 1977. Apart from the correspondents and assistants, all employees are South African. |
| Cairo | WDR /SWR | Main studio for theArab World,North Africa to Sudan. In 2010, the ARD radio studios in Cairo (SWR) and Amman (WDR) became a joint studio based in Cairo under the joint management of SWR and WDR. The studio has locations inAmman and temporarily in Beirut or Dubai. |
| Nairobi | WDR | Nairobi is ARD's largest studio on the African continent and has existed since 1973.[15] |
| Rabat | HR | Pure radio office, responsible for 22 countries in West andNorth Africa. Reporting area: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Liberia, Mali, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Sao Tomé and Principe, Senegal,Sierra Leone, Chad, Togo, Tunisia. |
| Tel Aviv | BR | Israel, Palestine |
The studio for Turkey and Iran (radio) is in Istanbul, see above. The ARD radio studio in Amman was closed in 2013. It only has a branch office in Cairo, from where reporting has been carried out ever since.
Since it was founded in 2013, the German partyAfD has accused the German broadcasters of being state-driven propaganda machines. This claim is heavily disputed. For example, a 2019 study from Oxford (p. 24) stated that the majority of the audience of German public broadcasters ARD, ZDF and "Deutschland Radio" areleft-winged or left of the center of the political spectrum. The AfD took this to show that the broadcaster is biased and contributing to a left-shift in the political environment. The majority of German newspapers have responded that the AfD have misunderstood the Oxford study, and accused the AfD of spreadingfake news. Another point of evidence offered is that ARD board member and Director for Programming Christine Strobl is not only a member of theCDU party herself, but also the daughter ofWolfgang Schäuble, a prominent CDU member of parliament. As Director for Programming she is in a position to stop or initiate the production of programs, but also potentially editorial decisions.[citation needed]
As of August 2024[update], theMedia and Journalism Research Center evaluated ARD to be "Independent Public Media" under itsState Media Matrix.[16][17]
After the ARD withdrew material critical of the Turkish presidentRecep Tayyip Erdoğan, a journalist from the magazineDer Spiegel compared this behaviour in an opinion article to thePolitburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[18] To get rid of the "annoying image of state radio", the journalist recommends it would certainly be helpful to keep more distance from the government.[19]
Claudia Schwartz from theNeue Zürcher Zeitung reported in February 2019 the ARD wanted to impress upon its audience certain moral views. A manual from the "Berkeley International Framing Institute" (see sources below) was used internally in order to make ARD viewers consider their fees less as a compulsory contribution than as a kind of donation to a good cause.[20]
But the websiteNetzpolitik.org (who published the original document), came to the conclusion that "Many of the proposed frames, which are currently heating the minds of many critics, have never been used in public by the public broadcasters representatives. This also shows that the excitement about the report is too high."[21]
