About Radio Holiday

Radio Holiday

Radio Holiday is a German feel-good radio station operated by the Radio Group, broadcasting under the motto "DAS gute Laune Radio" ("THE feel-good radio"). The programme is built around a simple promise: holiday mood, feel-good music and good news, a station that sounds like vacation all year round. It began as a web radio and went terrestrial for the first time on 15 November 2021 on the DAB+ multiplex 9C in Saarland; since then it has expanded to DAB+ multiplexes in North Rhine-Westphalia (9D), Berlin-Brandenburg (7B) and Saxony (8C Dresden, 10A Leipzig), with a Thuringian distribution on 12B that ended in August 2025. The station is closely tied to the travel industry, with tourism partners from airlines to tour operators, and its Sunday travel show "Happy Holiday" with Dieter Döring is the flagship of the schedule.

Overview

Radio Holiday's format is unique in German radio: a full programme dedicated to the holiday feeling. The music is upbeat and sunny, the news is deliberately positive, and the presentation evokes beaches, mountains and distant cities. The station describes itself as the good-mood radio, and every element of the programme serves that promise, from the travel-themed show titles to the tourism partners that underwrite the concept.

The distribution reflects the Radio Group's DAB+ strategy: rather than a single regional licence, Radio Holiday rides the group's multiplex slots across several states, reaching listeners on 9C in Saarland, 9D in North Rhine-Westphalia, 7B in Berlin-Brandenburg and the Saxon multiplexes 8C Dresden and 10A Leipzig, complemented by the worldwide livestream. The travel show "Happy Holiday – Reisesendung" with Dieter Döring airs every Sunday from 10 am to noon, presented by the station as Germany's most-listened-to travel programme.

The format is a deliberate counter-programming to the news cycle. Where most stations lead with the day's crises, Radio Holiday leads with the day's sunshine: the "good news" promise is not naivety but a programming strategy, offering listeners a deliberate break from the negativity bias of conventional news. In a media landscape where bad news dominates, a station that guarantees good mood is itself a distinctive product, and the travel framing gives the positivity a concrete subject: the world is worth visiting, and the station is the soundtrack.

History

Radio Holiday began as a web radio, a digital-first experiment by the Radio Group in feel-good programming. The Radio Group, founded by Stephan Schwenk and led since October 2023 by CEO Tim Lauth, operates 17 regional stations across Germany, mostly market leaders in their cities, from Bad Kreuznach to Trier, from Frankfurt to Potsdam. Radio Holiday was the group's first thematic national-style brand, a format that could travel across the regional multiplexes.

On 15 November 2021 the station went terrestrial for the first time, launching on the DAB+ multiplex 9C in Saarland. The expansion followed: 9D in North Rhine-Westphalia, 12B in Thuringia and 7B in Berlin-Brandenburg, with launches on 8C Dresden and 10A Leipzig announced thereafter. The Thuringian distribution ended in August 2025. The growth of the DAB+ footprint mirrors the broader digital radio rollout in Germany, where multiplex capacity has given thematic stations like Radio Holiday a terrestrial home that FM scarcity never allowed.

The Radio Group's own history explains the strategy. Founded by Stephan Schwenk, the group built its position with local and regional stations in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, stations that typically lead their city markets with local news, hourly bulletins and music. The acquisition of Antenne NRW on 1 July 2025, the statewide programme built by the Antenne Bayern group since 2021, showed the group's appetite for scale; Radio Holiday, as a thematic brand that can ride any multiplex, is the portable complement to the group's local flagships, a format that works identically in Saarbrücken and Dresden.

Programming

The programme is feel-good radio in the purest sense: upbeat music, positive news and a presentation style that keeps the holiday mood alive around the clock. The weekly schedule is organized around travel-themed dayparts, with the images of Ischia and Fuerteventura on the station's website setting the visual tone for the on-air promise. The Saturday "Party Night" brings the weekend celebration, while the Sunday "Upgrade Show" rounds off the week.

The flagship is "Happy Holiday – Reisesendung" with Dieter Döring, every Sunday from 10 am to noon, a two-hour travel magazine that the station presents as Germany's most-listened-to travel show. The format is a classic of German radio, the Sunday travel magazine, but Radio Holiday gives it the full station treatment: destinations, travel tips, interviews with tourism professionals and the music to match, all in the service of the holiday feeling. The podcast "Reiseshow" extends each episode into on-demand listening, so the Sunday morning show travels with the listeners through the week. The DJ team includes Klaus Bente, Andreas Schmidt, Mona, Seppl Pauli, Stephan Schwenk and Eike Knall, a mix of professional presenters and group personalities. The travel focus shapes the advertising as well: the station's partners read like a tourism trade fair, from koffer.de and CANUSA to Croatia Airlines, Windrose, PADI, DERTOUR, Condor, Iberostar, Visit Malta, Ireland tourism, Ethiopian Airlines and the Kempinski Palace Engelberg, a natural fit for a station that sells the holiday feeling.

Organization and Ownership

Radio Holiday is operated by the Radio Group, the radio holding founded by Stephan Schwenk, who also appears among the station's DJs. Since October 2023 Tim Lauth has been CEO of the holding, managing director of several participations and member of supervisory boards. The group operates 17 regional radio stations, mostly city stations that lead their local markets, and has expanded its portfolio with national DAB+ brands and, on 1 July 2025, the acquisition of Antenne NRW from the Antenne Bayern group.

The station's travel-industry partnerships are an organizational feature in their own right: the deep integration of tourism advertisers, from airlines to tourist boards, makes Radio Holiday as much a travel medium as a radio station, a business model built entirely around the holiday feeling it sells on air, every hour of every day, from the Saarland to Saxony and beyond. The DAB+ distribution runs through the group's multiplex slots in Saarland, North Rhine-Westphalia, Berlin-Brandenburg and Saxony, a multi-state footprint managed centrally by the group.

Digital Presence

The livestream on radioholiday.de is the station's original home: Radio Holiday began as a web radio, and the stream remains the primary way to listen for fans outside the DAB+ coverage areas. The website carries the weekly programme, the travel show podcast "Reiseshow" with the latest and past episodes of "Happy Holiday", and the team pages introducing the DJs.

The Radio Holiday apps for iOS and Android, plus availability via Amazon and Alexa, bring the feel-good programme to smartphones and smart speakers, and the QR codes on the website make installation a scan away. The podcast extends the Sunday travel show into on-demand listening, letting the holiday feeling travel with the listeners wherever they go. For a station that started on the internet, the digital presence is not an add-on but the foundation: DAB+ gave it terrestrial reach across four states, but the stream and the apps are where Radio Holiday was born, and where its feel-good promise reaches listeners far beyond any multiplex.