About LOHRO

LOHRO

LOHRO — an acronym for Lokalradio der Hansestadt Rostock (local radio of the Hanseatic City of Rostock) — is a non-commercial community radio station in Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Broadcasting since 1 July 2005 on FM 90.2 MHz, it describes its format as "editorially responsible participatory radio" (redaktionell verantwortetes Mitmachradio) under the slogan "LASS HÖREN!" (roughly: "Let it be heard!"). The licence is held by the association Kulturnetzwerk e. V., supported by the friends' association Förderverein LOHRO, and the station is a member of the Bundesverband Freier Radios (BFR). Around 150 volunteers — predominantly young people aged 13 to 27 — produce a structured 24-hour daily programme.

Overview

LOHRO is Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's most prominent free radio and one of Germany's youngest full-time community stations. Its defining characteristic is youth participation: the "Mitmachradio" (join-in radio) concept is lived practice, with some 150 volunteers of all ages — but mainly teenagers and young adults between 13 and 27 — working in editorial departments covering daily news, music, and special-interest topics. Paid staff support, coordinate, and train the volunteers, and the station functions as a project of media and youth work as much as a broadcaster.

The station's work has an explicit educational mission: conveying media competence — the ability to use media in a self-determined way and with critical distance — alongside journalistic craft, technical skills, and social competence. For LOHRO, media competence means more than operating a mixing desk: it encompasses mastering journalistic forms of expression and the technical realities of radio production, while social competence covers the abilities and attitudes that help individuals align their own wishes with a group's shared goals — teamwork, motivation, and reflection. Volunteers gain insight into professional fields and receive extracurricular education and further training that goes far beyond the microphone. LOHRO is supported by various public institutions and raises its operating funds through project grants from several organisations, membership fees, and sponsorships.

History

LOHRO's path to the airwaves ran through repeated trial operations — including broadcasts during Rostock's Hanse Sail maritime festival — before the station went on air permanently on 1 July 2005, transmitting around the clock from day one. The programme was initially licensed as a pilot project, scheduled to run until 2010.

The pilot's success led to permanence: on 30 June 2010, the Media Analysis Committee of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern authorised Kulturnetzwerk e. V. as a broadcaster under the state's Broadcasting Act (Rundfunkgesetz M-V), extending the existing frequency to LOHRO for ten more years effective 1 January 2011. The decision turned a temporary experiment into a fixture of Rostock's media landscape.

The station has continued to develop its profile through internal debate: a 2021 "profile discussion" among volunteers, staff, and federal voluntary-service participants weighed whether LOHRO should develop toward a professional radio with local and alternative content or remain a low-threshold "lay radio" with flexible topics — concluding, characteristically for the participatory model, that it is and remains both: local radio and participatory radio for Rostock. A members' survey conducted to underpin the discussion drew responses from nearly fifty participants, and the process itself — a day-long circle in the Alte Schmiede event rooms in Toitenwinkel — exemplified the station's deliberative culture.

LOHRO's history mirrors the broader story of free radio in eastern Germany: initiatives that began as temporary or trial projects in the 2000s, often starting with festival broadcasts, and fought their way to permanent licences through persistence and community support. The Hanse Sail trial broadcasts that preceded the 2005 launch were typical of the movement's approach — proving demand and building a volunteer base before the licence arrived. The 2010 decision by Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's media authority to grant Kulturnetzwerk e. V. a ten-year extension recognised what the pilot had demonstrated: that a volunteer-run, non-commercial station could sustain a structured daily programme and serve as a genuine complement to the state's commercial and public-service offerings.

In Rostock's media landscape, that complement is distinctive. The city hosts a regional studio of the public broadcaster NDR, the commercial statewide stations Ostseewelle and 80s80s MV (formerly Antenne MV), the private local television station tv.rostock, and the citizen television channel rok-tv (Rostocker Offener Kanal) — but LOHRO is the only radio station in the city produced by its young residents themselves. For teenagers in Rostock, the path from listener to programme-maker runs through the station's editorial departments, its workshops, and its federal voluntary-service placements: an infrastructure of participation that commercial broadcasters, by their nature, cannot provide.

Programming

LOHRO's volunteers work in distinct editorial departments: a daily news editorial team (Tagesredaktion), a music editorial team (Musikredaktion), and various special-interest editorial teams (Spezialredaktionen). The departments cover a wide range of music genres and topics — environmental issues, literature, politics, and cross-cultural dialogue among them — producing a structured 24-hour daily programme that has run continuously since 1 July 2005.

The station's youth focus shapes the schedule: programmes by and for young people are central, and the association offers training and workshops to promote media production skills and social engagement. Federal voluntary-service (BFD) placements — for example in the cross-media music editorial team — give young adults a year of structured media work with pedagogical guidance, social-pedagogical support, free further training, and a qualified final certification. The station actively encourages applications from women and people with migration backgrounds.

Coverage and Audience

LOHRO broadcasts terrestrially on FM 90.2 MHz across the greater Rostock area, on digital cable at 122.00 MHz, and worldwide via the web player at webplayer.lohro.de and the station's livestream. The station transmits 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

As a non-commercial community radio, LOHRO takes part in no commercial audience measurement. Its audience is Rostock's young and culturally engaged public — the peers of its predominantly young volunteers — plus the families, schools, and community organisations connected to its youth-work mission. In a city whose media landscape is otherwise dominated by the commercial statewide broadcasters Ostseewelle and Antenne MV (now 80s80s MV) alongside NDR's regional studio, LOHRO is the only radio station made by Rostock's young people themselves.

Ownership and Funding

LOHRO is maintained by two associations: Kulturnetzwerk e. V. acts as the licence holder, while the Förderverein LOHRO supports the station and organises trainings. The station is a member of the Bundesverband Freier Radios (BFR), embedding it in the national community-radio movement.

Financing is project-based and plural: the station raises operating funds through project grants from several organisations, membership fees from the associations, and sponsorships, supplemented by support from various public institutions. The absence of commercial advertising preserves the station's editorial independence and its youth-work character.

Digital Presence

LOHRO's online home is lohro.de, with the web player at webplayer.lohro.de carrying the 24-hour livestream. The website publishes the programme schedule, the station's newsletters — which document internal debates about the station's profile and direction — and calls for volunteers and federal voluntary-service placements. The station's productions circulate through the free-radio exchange networks, and its training materials reflect two decades of experience in youth media work. Since 2005, LOHRO has shown that a participatory radio run largely by teenagers and young adults can sustain a structured round-the-clock programme — "LASS HÖREN!" as both slogan and working method, and as an invitation to the whole city. The Tagesredaktion, Musikredaktion, and Spezialredaktionen keep the 24-hour schedule staffed year-round, while the BFD placements and workshops renew the volunteer base that makes it possible.