The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ("Cooperative association of public-law broadcasting institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany"), or simply ARD, was founded in West Germany in 1950 to represent the common interests of the new post-war broadcasting services. Today the ARD is one of the biggest television and radio broadcasting organisations in Europe.

Fifty regional and local radio channels, two nationwide radio channels (DeutschlandRadio), an overseas service (Deutsche Welle), the world-wide service (Deutsche Welle TV), the nationwide television 'First' (Das Erste) service and the eight regional television 'Third' (Die Dritten) channels can be received by practically all households throughout Germany: over thirty-one million homes with one or more television sets.

The allied victors were determined German radio after the war would not show the same faults as the pre war Reichsrundfunk ('Imperial Broadcast'). A federal structure, the renunciation of state influence and the avoidance of economic dependence were to be the key of the radio and TV institutions under public law (öffentlich-rechtliche Rundfunk- und Fernsehanstalten, public broadcasting and TV organizations). In 1947 the US military governor Lucius D. Clay declared diversity of public opinion as the main aim of post-war media policy.

After the creation of the German federal state’s institutions, these principles were further consolidated by Länder broadcasting laws, verdicts of the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), and state treaties between the Länder. ARD services are thus free of government influence, and rely for only a small part of their income on advertising (1995: ten percent), mainly from licence fees of about 17 Euros (about 21 US Dollars) which have to be paid monthly by all owners of radio and television equipment. The proclaimed aim of the ARD corporations is not only to inform and to entertain, but also to encourage the integration of various parts of society, and let minorities have a say in the 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 television service was the goal of the ARD from the outset, and the go-ahead for this was given at the end of 1952. The first daily news feature, the Tagesschau went on the air from Hamburg in 1956. The eight o’clock announcement of the Tagesschau’s newsreader: "Hier ist das Erste Deutsche Fernsehen mit der Tagesschau" ("This is German TV’s Channel One with the Tagesschau") continues to be the ARD’s trade mark, currently attracting eight million viewers every day. Starting as a two-hour evening broadcast and in colour since 1967, television became generally accepted during the 1960s. Without competition from private television companies -- the only competition was the TV-only ZDF which was also publically owned -- the ARD stations made considerable progress in becoming modern and respected broadcasters in the 1970s, and have been a significant force in German politics. Investigative news magazines (for example Monitor, Panorama) reach millions of viewers every week. The environmental movement of the 1980s increased in popularity not least as a result of the disclosures made by the ARD. During the 1980s most of the ARD radio channels changed either to a mixed schedule of information and entertainment, to music-dominated background listening, or to programs for special interest listeners, becoming more or less like the programs offered by the then-new commercial broadcasters.

The licensing of commercial broadcasting in Germany that started in the late 1980s has brought many changes to the public services as well. Since 1989 the 'First' television channel has been broadcasting a twenty-hour full schedule, clearly structured into breakfast television and morning programs, afternoon talk shows, pre-prime-time daily soap prime-time information programs, entertainment, sport and movies, produced on a proportional basis by separate ARD institutions. Information programs on television and the orientation of Deutschland Funk programs towards the GDR were of crucial importance to the eventual collapse of the GDR. Established in 1974, the ARD bureau in East Berlin made ARD television the most important source of information for GDR citizens (eighty per cent of them 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 Deutschland-Funk broadcast reports about the Leipzig Monday demonstrations as early as September 1989. After unification and the closure of the GDR television service two new corporations - Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk and Ostdeutscher Rundfunk - were established in the East, becoming associate members of the ARD in 1992. The latter was merged with the former West Berlin ARD corporation Sender Freies Berlin (Free Berlin Channel) some years later. Some thirty offices in foreign cities (from Mexico City to Tokyo) are a symbol of the ARD’s world-wide status, rivalling that of many other international news services, such as CNN or the BBC. ARD and most of the regional broadcasters are also represented on the World Wide Web.

External link

• ARD (http://www.ard.de)

See also

List of German language television channels

de:ARD