WDR 2
WDR 2 is a full programme of WDR. As part of the largest public broadcaster, WDR 2 reaches more than a fifth of the population of North Rhine-Westphalia every day, and around 3.5 million people nationwide. WDR 2's programme consists largely of music, but the station also offers news, sport and interviews and talk segments. WDR 2 has been honoured several times with the German Radio Prize for its interviews, most recently in 2016 for the interview format MonTalk.
Audience Share
4.6%
Ownership Type
public
Geographic Coverage
regional (North Rhein-Westphalia)
Content Type
licence fee funded € 18.36 per month
Media Companies / Groups
Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Ownership Structure
WDR2 is part of Westdeutscher Rundfunk. WDR has no owner in the literal sense, as it is part of the public broadcasting system and is financed by the public through a licence fee.
Voting Rights
The management of WDR consists of the director general and six directors. According to the WDR Act, the director general is "responsible for programme planning and for the entire operation of the institution". WDR also has two central committees: The Administrative Board consists of nine members, seven of whom are elected by the Broadcasting Council. The remaining two members are delegated by the WDR Staff Council. The current chairperson is Claudia Schare. Each member has one vote. However, the two members delegated by the Staff Council are not entitled to vote on matters relating to the programme area. The WDR Broadcasting Council consists of 55 members, 13 of whom are members of the state parliament, delegated by the parliamentary groups in proportion to their size. 37 members are delegated by statutory interest groups such as trade unions, churches, family or social organisations. Other status groups can apply for the remaining five places, which are selected by the state parliament. The members may not belong to the federal or state government and may not be members of the federal or state parliaments or the European Parliament. The Board of Directors passes its resolutions by a simple majority of the votes cast. In the event of a tie, a resolution is deemed to have been rejected. The Broadcasting Board passes its resolutions by a simple majority of the members present. Resolutions are generally passed by open vote on a show of hands.
Individual Owner
General Information
Founding Year
1950 (as NWDR 2)
Affiliated Interests Founder
Bishop was commissioned by the British occupying power in 1945 to set up press, radio and information services in the British occupation zone. The Northwest German Broadcasting Corporation (NWDR) was modelled on the BBC, from which the NDR and WDR emerged in 1956.
Greene was a British journalist. He had been editor-in-chief of the BBC's German-language programme since 1940. In 1946, he took over the management of NWDR as an organiser, which was transformed into a public institution under his guidance in 1948. His aim was to establish a public broadcaster that would be independent of state or party political influence. From 1960 to 1969, he was Director General of the BBC.
Affiliated Interests Ceo
has been the director general of WDR since 2013. He completed a traineeship at WDR in 1985. He then worked for several ARD studios abroad, including in Brussels and Washington. He was Chairman of ARD from January 2020 to December 2021 and temporarily from August to December 2022.
Buhrow has been Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bavaria Film GmbH since 2015 and is also a member of the supervisory boards of several public service subsidiaries.
Buhrow will step down at the end of 2024. In June 2024, Dr Katrin Vornau was elected as his successor, who will become the new Director General from January 2025.
Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief
has been Programme Director of both WDR 2 and the radio station WDR 4 since March 2022. He was previously Programme Director of Die Neue 107.7 (2000-2008) and Head of Music at Antenne Bayern (2009-2014). He has held various positions at WDR since 2014.
Affiliated Interests other important people
has been Chairman of the WDR Broadcasting Council since December 2021, of which he has been a member since 2016. He was delegated as a member of the State Association of Adult Education Centres, of which he has been a board member since 2014. Zurbrüggen holds further offices as a member of the Supervisory Board of WDR media group GmbH, Deputy Chairman of the Förderverein Haus Nottbeck e. V. and Vice President of the Deutsch-Französische Gesellschaft Warendorf e.V.
Since December 2019, Schare has been the Chairwoman of the Administrative Board, of which she has been a full member since 2012. She is also a member of the Supervisory Board of WDR media group GmbH, a member of the University Council of TH Ostwestfalen-Lippe and, until June 2021, Deputy Chairwoman of the Dortmund-Schüren SPD local association.
Contact
Westdeutscher Rundfunk,
Appellhofplatz 1
50667 Köln
Webseite:www1.wdr.de/index.html
Email: redaktion@wdr.de
Financial Information
Revenue (in Mill. $)
Missing Data
Operating Profit (in Mill. $)
Missing Data
Advertising (in % of total funding)
Missing Data
Market Share
Missing Data
Further Information
Meta Data
The share of the total audience in per cent comes from the agma survey I/2024 and refers to the nationwide daily reach in the population aged 14 and over.
Financial data is shown as 'Missing data' as a breakdown of finances is only provided at broadcaster level. Individual data on broadcasters is not published.
Note on the transparency level:
As it is not possible to categorise the transparency level for public service media in terms of ownership, the availability of information on the supervisory and control bodies as well as information on their members and transparency were used for the evaluation.
