“Attention, attention, this is the broadcasting station in the Vox-Haus” – with these words the history of broadcasting in Germany officially began on October 29, 1923, when the “Funk-Hour Berlin” was held in an attic of the Vox-Haus on Potsdamer Platz. started regular broadcasting on wave 400 meters (= 749.5 Khz).
Silent night, holy night on the radio
In fact, the world’s first electronic mass medium had already left its first traces in the ether three years earlier. On December 22nd, 1920, technicians at the main post office in Königs Wusterhausen near Berlin signed the annals of radio broadcasting: Their live song “Silent Night, Holy Night”, broadcast on a 10-kilowatt long-wave transmitter, is considered the first German radio broadcast.
When the November Revolution broke out in 1918, revolutionary workers ‘and soldiers’ councils had briefly seized the radio systems. The rapidly increasing range made radio a powerful medium, the control of which was fiercely contested from the start. By the end of 1925 there were around one million listeners in Germany, a number that rose to around four million by 1932.
Instrument of cultural further education
Due to its comparatively simple technology, radio was considered an instrument of democratization in its early days by some contemporaries. The then active workers radio movement distinguished itself from the “bourgeois” amateur and handicraft clubs. She viewed radio not as a mere entertainment medium, but as an instrument for the “cultural further education of the working class”.
The Nazis had other plans. The Nazi propagandists saw it as the ideal instrument for ideologically aligning the population. The Ministry of Propaganda promoted the development of the radio into a mass medium with the so-called “Volksempfänger”. The comparatively cheap device was quickly derided by the people as the “Goebbels snout”. However, only behind closed doors. Those who think and hear differently were persecuted mercilessly. Listening to the British BBC risked your life.
Birth of public service broadcasting
After the Second World War, the Allies withdrew Germany’s control over radio. Never again – according to the victorious Western powers – should the radio be a central instrument of state information control. It should be organized along the lines of the BBC: outside the state, controlled by committees, financed from fees.
In 1950 the state broadcasting corporations (including the BR founded in 1948) merged to form the working group of broadcasting corporations in Germany (ARD). Radio via medium wave and ultra-short wave, plus the first television program: public broadcasting as we know it today was born.
In the centralized GDR, on the other hand, the state secured complete control over broadcasting. Against the background of the Cold War between East and West, the hour of the jammers struck in the ether. Above all, the “Radio in the American Sector” (RIAS) was a thorn in the side of the SED leadership and a nuisance in the ear. As a result, she systematically disrupted him with a great deal of technical effort.
From 1984 private broadcasters were allowed
Until the 1980s, the public broadcasters in the Federal Republic of Germany supplied their audiences as monopolists with increasingly diverse programs. From 1984 onwards, private commercial broadcasters were also allowed, and many new local radios were created. However, this was linked to the existence of a public service broadcaster that ensured basic services and diversity of opinion. This created the basis for the dual broadcasting system that is still in force today.
Radio has long since ceded its role as the leading medium to television. For the “digital natives” the internet has become the main source of information and entertainment. But 54 million Germans still tune into one of the around 70 public and around 280 private radios every day. There is at least one radio in 94 percent of households. And almost every fourth household has a digital DAB + radio.
Future of radio
What will the radio look like in 20 years? What role will it play in our lives in the future? The development of the medium in the Internet age remains exciting, especially thanks to the competition between FM, DAB + and web radio or the growing importance of streaming services such as Spotify.
“Video killed the Radio Star”? On the contrary. The radio is more alive than ever. It provides reliable information, good entertainment, structures our lives and accompanies us through the day – especially in times of crisis such as the current corona pandemic.
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