Norddeutscher Rundfunk - NDR History

NDR History

On 1 December 1956 the NDR started its third radio channel, NDR3 (from 1962 to 1973, this was a joint operation with Sender Freies Berlin).

In 1958 Han Koller became the musical director of Hamburg's NDR Jazz Workshop, which became a popular radio broadcast. Numerous names in Jazz performed on these broadcasts including; Kenny Clarke, Lucky Thompson, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Griffin, Oscar Peterson, Ben Webster, Sahib Shihab, Carmell Jones, Lee Konitz, Cecil Payne, Slide Hampton, Phil Woods, Jazz Composers Orchestra, Howard Riley, Barry Guy, John Surman, the Kuhn Brothers and Barney Wilen. Some of these have been released since 1987, while the older ones only exist as rare bootlegs, sought after by many Jazz aficionados.

On 4 January 1965 the NDR, Radio Bremen and SFB began a joint "third channel" television service, Norddeutsches Fernsehen, later Nord 3 and N3. Since December 2001, this service is called NDR Fernsehen. SFB started a separate TV channel for Berlin in 1992, called B1, later SFB1, now RBB Fernsehen.

In 1977, Gerhard Stoltenberg, the minister-president of Schleswig-Holstein cancelled the NDR-Staatsvertrag, the governing body of the NDR onesided. This caused a discussion how to organise broadcasting in the North German region.

In 1980, the NDR signed a new convention with the three Länder, changing the pattern of broadcasting and creating new regional services. NDR1 was divided into three independent radio stations from 2 January 1981:

• NDR 1 Radio Niedersachsen (from 2002, NDR 1 Niedersachsen) for Lower Saxony
• NDR 1 Welle Nord for Schleswig-Holstein
• NDR Hamburg-Welle 90.3 (from 2 December 2001, NDR 90.3) for Hamburg

NDR2 and NDR3 (now NDR Kultur) continued as regional stations.

These regional services were further subdivided with opt-outs for specific areas. NDR 1 Niedersachsen established regions based around Oldenburg-Ostfriesland-Bremen-Cuxhaven, Osnabrück-Emsland, greater Hanover, Braunschweig-southern Lower Saxony and northern Lower Saxony. NDR 1 Welle Nord was subdivided with studio centres in Flensburg, Heide, Norderstedt, Lübeck and Kiel.

On 30 September 1988 the NDR introduced a teletext service on its N3 television channel. Originally called Nordtext, it became NDR Text on 2 December 2001. The teletext service also offers information for viewers in the Radio Bremen area under the title Radio Bremen Text.

On 1 April 1989, the NDR introduced its fourth radio service, NDR4. This service was later renamed NDR4 Info and from 2 June 2002 is now known as NDR Info. The station is a news and information service for the whole NDR region.

On 1 January 1992, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the former East Germany joined the NDR as the fourth state in the organisation. The area receives the main NDR radio and television stations, plus the regional NDR 1 Radio mV, which has subregions based in Schwerin, Rostock, Neubrandenburg and Greifswald. In October of the same year, SFB in Berlin stopped relaying the Nord 3 television service in favour of its own Berlin 1 TV channel.

On 4 April 1994, the NDR introduced N-Joy Radio (since 2001, just N-Joy), a young-persons radio station aimed at 14 to 29-year-old listeners.

On 3 October 1997, NDR3 was relaunched as Radio 3, produced in co-operation with Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg. At the end of 2000, SFB joined Radio 3. This arrangement lasted until ORB and SFB merged on 1 January 2003 and started their own classical and culture network. NDR3 became NDR Kultur on 1 January 2003.

On 1 November 2001, the NDR and Radio Bremen launched a joint radio station, Nordwestradio, to serve Bremen and northwestern Lower Saxony. This service replaced Radio Bremen 2 and control of the service remains with Radio Bremen.

As the organization responsible within the ARD consortium of German public-service broadcasters for overseeing the country's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, NDR staged the 56th annual contest which was held in Düsseldorf on 10–14 May 2011.