The Olympic Tower in the Olympic Park, Munich has an overall height of 291 m (955 ft) and a weight of 52,500 tons. At a height of 190 m (620 ft) there is an observation platform as well as a small rock and roll museum housing various memorabilia, which is signposted as "Rock Museum" outside the entrance. Since its opening in 1968, the tower has registered over 35 million visitors. At a height of 182 m (597 ft) there is a revolving restaurant, which seats 230 people. A full revolution takes 53 minutes. The tower also serves as a broadcast tower, and has one Deutsche Telekom maintenance elevator with a speed of 4 m/s (13 ft/s), as well as two visitor lifts with a speed of 7 m/s (23 ft/s) which have a capacity of about 30 people per car. The travel time is about 30 seconds. The tower is open daily from 09:00 to 24:00.
ARD is a joint organisation of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters. It was founded in 1950 in West Germany to represent the common interests of the new, decentralised, post-war broadcasting services – in particular the introduction of a joint television network.
Südwestrundfunk is a regional public broadcasting corporation serving the southwest of Germany, specifically the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The corporation has main offices in three cities: Stuttgart, Baden-Baden and Mainz, with the director's office being in Stuttgart. It is a part of the ARD consortium. It broadcasts on two television channels and six radio channels, with its main television and radio office in Baden-Baden and regional offices in Stuttgart and Mainz. It is the second largest broadcasting organization in Germany. SWR, with a coverage of 55,600 km2, and an audience reach estimated to be 14.7 million. SWR employs 3,700 people in its various offices and facilities.
Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk is the public broadcaster for the federal states of Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Established in January 1991, its headquarters are in Leipzig, with regional studios in Dresden, Erfurt and Magdeburg. MDR is a member of the ARD consortium of public broadcasters in Germany.
Television in Germany began in Berlin on 22 March 1935, broadcasting for 90 minutes three times a week. It was the first public television station in the world, named Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow. The German television market had approximately 36.5 million television households in 2000, making it the largest television market in Europe. Nowadays, 95% of German households have at least one television receiver. All the main German TV channels are free-to-air.
Norddeutscher Rundfunk is a public radio and television broadcaster, based in Hamburg. In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR transmits for the German states of Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein. NDR is a member of the ARD consortium.
Radio Bremen (RB), Germany's smallest public radio and television broadcaster, is the legally mandated broadcaster for the city-state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. With its headquarters sited in Bremen, Radio Bremen is a member of the consortium of German public broadcasting organizations, ARD.
Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg is an institution under public law for the German states of Berlin and Brandenburg, situated in Berlin and Potsdam. RBB was established on 1 May 2003 through the merger of Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) and Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB), based in Potsdam, and is a member of the Association of PSBs in the Federal Republic of Germany (ARD).
Saarländischer Rundfunk is a public radio and television broadcaster serving the German state of Saarland. With headquarters in the Halberg Broadcasting House in Saarbrücken, SR is a member of the ARD consortium of German public-broadcasting organizations.
Sender Freies Berlin was the ARD public radio and television service for West Berlin from 1 June 1954 until 1990 and for Berlin as a whole from German reunification until 30 April 2003. On 1 May 2003 it merged with Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg to form Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg.
The Southern part of Germany was split at the end of World War II into two occupation zones, an American and a French one. In Bavaria and in Württemberg-Baden, Radio München (Munich) and Radio Stuttgart went on air in 1945. In the next years, Radio München was transformed to a Bavarian broadcaster, and in Germany's South West, two public broadcasting corporations started and produced radio and (subsequent) television programs up to their merger in 1998:
ARD-alpha is a German free-to-air television channel run by regional public-service broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk. Its programming consists of shows made by Bayerischer Rundfunk, as well as from ARD and Austrian broadcaster ORF. The channel was originally called BR-alpha but was rebranded as ARD-alpha on 29 June 2014.
The Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG) was a national network of German regional public radio and television broadcasting companies active from 1925 until 1945. RRG's broadcasts were receivable in all parts of the country and were used extensively for Nazi propaganda after 1933.
Deutscher Fernsehfunk was the state television broadcaster in the German Democratic Republic from 1952 to 1991.
The first regular electronic television service in Germany began in Berlin on March 22, 1935, as Deutscher Fernseh Rundfunk. Broadcasting from the Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow, it used a 180-line system, and was on air for 90 minutes, three times a week. Very few receivers were ever privately owned, and viewers went instead to Fernsehstuben. During the 1936 Summer Olympics, broadcasts, up to eight hours a day, took place in Berlin and Hamburg. The Nazis intended to use television as a medium for their propaganda once the number of television sets was increased, but television was able initially to reach only a small number of viewers, in contrast to radio. Despite many technical improvements to camera technology, allowing for higher resolution imaging, by 1939, and the start of World War II, plans for an expansion of television programming were soon changed in favor of radio. The production of the TV receiver E1, that had just started was cancelled because of the war. Nevertheless, the Berlin station, along with one in occupied Paris, remained on the air for most of World War II. A special magazine called Fernsehen und Tonfilm was published.
Scheibenwischer was the name of a long-running German Kabarett show. It was founded in 1980 by Dieter Hildebrandt and produced by BR / RBB to be broadcast on Das Erste. The show ended in 2008 after 28 years on the air.
Thomas "Thomy" Aigner is a former Austrian TV-Entertainer and a current documentary film producer and lecturer.
Bayern 1 is a German, public radio station owned and operated by the Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR).
This article deals with the Bavarian cabaret artist Monika Gruber. For the Austrian actress and dubbing actress see Monica Gruber.
