ARD (broadcaster)

ARD (broadcaster)

ARD (full name: Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland – "Consortium of public-law broadcasting institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany") is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters. It was founded in 1950 in West Germany to represent the common interests of the new, decentralized, post-war broadcasting services — in particular the introduction of a joint television network.

The ARD is the world's second largest public broadcaster after the British Broadcasting Corporation, with a budget of €6.3 billion and 23,000 employees. The budget comes primarily from the licence fees required to use radios and TV sets in Germany. For radio and TV reception, the fee is currently €17.98 per month. These fees are not collected directly by the ARD, but by the GEZ, a common organization of the ARD member broadcasters, the second public TV broadcaster ZDF, and Deutschlandradio.

ARD maintains and operates a national television network, called Das Erste ("The First") to differentiate it from ZDF, a.k.a. "das Zweite" ("The Second"), which was founded in 1961. The ARD network began broadcasting on 31 October 1954 under the name of Deutsches Fernsehen ("German Television"), becoming Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen ("First German Television") with a corporate redesign in 1984; it adpoted its current name (Das Erste) in 1994. ARD's programs are aired over its own terrestrial broadcast network, as well as via cable, satellite and IPTV.

ARD also produces three free-to-air digital channels (EinsFestival, EinsPlus and Tagesschau24) and participates in the production of cable/satellite channels Phoenix (current events, news and documentaries), KI.KA (children's programmes), 3sat (cultural/traditional programming) and arte (Franco-German cultural programming).

ARD's constituent broadcasting institutions operate 54 regional and local radio stations and seven regional TV networks, some of which split further during certain parts of the day. ARD also owns international broadcaster Deutsche Welle. ARD's regional members (see also Institutions and member organizations) are Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), Hessischer Rundfunk (HR), Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR), Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), Radio Bremen, Rundfunk Berlin–Brandenburg (RBB), Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR), Südwestrundfunk (SWR) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR).