About Radio F.R.E.I.

Radio F.R.E.I.

Radio F.R.E.I. (short for Freier Rundfunk Erfurt International) is a free, non-commercial radio station in Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia, Germany. It emerged in the summer of 1990 from the Erfurt citizens' movement as the first free radio in Thuringia and one of the first free radios of the former GDR, initially broadcasting without a licence as a "pirate station". Licensed by the Thuringian media authority (TLM) on 28 May 1999, it has broadcast on FM 96.2 MHz ever since — a 74-hour weekly schedule until May 2015, and a full programme since 1 June 2015, airing Monday to Friday from 06:00 to 01:00 and around the clock at weekends. The station is run entirely by volunteers as a non-profit association and is a member of the Bundesverband Freier Radios (BFR).

Overview

Radio F.R.E.I. belongs to Germany's "Freie Radios" movement: non-commercial local stations that present themselves as a third pillar alongside public-service and commercial private broadcasting. The "International" in its name is programmatic — the station has always given airtime to non-German languages and international perspectives, from its early multilingual ambitions to its long-running Esperanto programme and its Latin-language strand.

The station carries no advertising and is access-open within the framework of an editorial statute (Redaktionsstatut): anyone can learn to make radio and get airtime. The entire programme is produced by volunteers. Financing comes from membership contributions and a share of Thuringia's broadcasting fee revenue allocated to non-commercial local radio. The station's studios are in the Johannesstraße in Erfurt, having moved there in January 2025 after more than two decades at Gotthardtstraße 21.

History

Radio F.R.E.I. was born in the extraordinary political moment of 1990. In the summer of that year, activists from the Erfurt citizens' movement — the grassroots democratic movement that had helped bring down the GDR — began building a free radio station, making it the first free radio in Thuringia and one of the very first in the territory of the former East Germany. The first broadcast went out on 29 September 1990. With no legal framework for private broadcasting yet in place, the station was considered a pirate broadcaster — operating in the legal grey zone of the reunification period, when the old GDR broadcasting monopoly had collapsed and the new media order was still being written.

The early years were precarious. The station's first public broadcast went out on 6 October 1990 — six hours live from the Interclub, the venue that is today the Ratsgymnasium — and for six months the pioneers broadcast once a week before police stormed the transmission facility, ending the unlicensed phase. The initiative then continued its work in print: the F.R.E.I.-Brief (a pun on "Freibrief", a letter of safe conduct) propagated the idea of a participatory local radio programme open to all interested citizens, keeping the project alive through the years without a frequency. The first studio was located in the former Alternative Youth Centre; the station later moved to Magdeburger Allee 116, and from 2001 until December 2024 its offices and studios were at Gotthardtstraße 21, close to the city archives. In January 2025 the station relocated to Johannesstraße 156.

Legal security arrived on 28 May 1999, when the Thüringer Landesmedienanstalt (TLM) licensed Radio F.R.E.I. as a non-commercial local radio. From then until the end of May 2015, the station broadcast 74 hours per week on FM 96.2 MHz. The Thuringian media law reform of 2015 reshaped the state's citizen broadcasting landscape: the open channel Radio Funkwerk, which had shared the Erfurt and Weimar frequencies with F.R.E.I. and Radio Lotte since 1999, ceased operations on 31 May 2015, and F.R.E.I. and Lotte took over as full citizen broadcasters. Since 1 June 2015, Radio F.R.E.I. has transmitted a full programme: Monday to Friday from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. and all day at weekends, on FM 96.2, on cable (107.9 MHz in Erfurt, Arnstadt, Gotha, and Sömmerda), and via livestream.

Programming

The programme is produced entirely by volunteers working within the editorial statute's framework of open access. The schedule combines daily magazine programming with music specialities, cultural features, and political discussion from the free-radio perspective. A student editorial team, "UNIversal" — students of the University of Erfurt and the Erfurt University of Applied Sciences — produces a magazine for the city's student population.

Two long-running strands illustrate the station's "International" character. From January 2012 to December 2021, Radio F.R.E.I. broadcast "Thuringia Internationalis", a programme in Esperanto presenting Thuringia and its capital to listeners around the world. Aired every second Sunday evening for a full hour and framed by the Esperanto anthem "La Espero", it followed a fixed structure in its first five years: regional news from the Erfurt area (introduced with a brief German summary), a books corner presenting Esperanto literature and translations, "Thuringiensia" on the state's geography, history, customs, notable people, and architecture, a listeners' letters section, and an Esperanto course based on the "Mia-Serio" textbooks — closing, in the early years, with a Latin sentence on Esperanto as a bridge between people of different languages.

The station's standing foreign-language offer also includes a Russian-language information programme and the Africa magazine "African Spirit". The Latin-language strand "Erfordia Latina" — one of very few Latin-language broadcasts anywhere in the world — aired from July 2015 to August 2021. The station also broadcasts on DAB+ digital radio.

Programme exchange with other German free radios takes place through the BFR's freie-radios.net platform, and the station's archive documents more than three decades of volunteer broadcasting, including interviews with figures such as Sergej Lochthofen, the former editor-in-chief of a major Thuringian newspaper, a frequent studio guest.

Coverage and Audience

Radio F.R.E.I. broadcasts terrestrially on FM 96.2 MHz in Erfurt and surroundings, on cable at 107.9 MHz in Erfurt as well as in Arnstadt, Gotha, and Sömmerda, on DAB+ digital radio, and worldwide via internet livestream. The schedule runs Monday to Friday from 06:00 to 01:00 and around the clock on Saturdays and Sundays.

The station publishes no audience ratings, as is standard for German non-commercial radio. Its audience is Erfurt's alternative cultural public and the city's students, activists, and migrant communities, along with the international listeners of its Esperanto and Latin programmes — a small but global audience that reflects the "International" in the station's name.

Ownership and Funding

Radio F.R.E.I. is organised as a non-profit registered association, Freies Radio Erfurt e. V. It is a member of the Bundesverband Freier Radios. The station carries no commercial advertising and is financed through membership contributions and a share of the broadcasting fee revenue allocated by the Thuringian media authority to non-commercial local radio — the financial basis of its editorial independence.

Digital Presence

Radio F.R.E.I.'s online home is radio-frei.de, carrying the livestream, the programme schedule, and the station's extensive MP3 archive with programme texts — a documentation of volunteer radio history stretching back decades. The Esperanto programme's archive and the Latin programme's presentation pages extend the station's reach to international niche audiences. The station's productions also circulate through the freie-radios.net exchange platform. From pirate broadcasts in the reunification summer of 1990 to a licensed full programme on FM, cable, DAB+, and the internet, Radio F.R.E.I. has remained what its founders in the citizens' movement intended: a free, internationalist radio for Erfurt, made by volunteers and open to all.