About Radio Leverkusen

Radio Leverkusen

Radio Leverkusen is the local radio station for the city of Leverkusen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, broadcasting from its local studio in the Wiesdorf district. On air since 8 May 1991, it is the local voice of the city between Cologne and Düsseldorf, home of the Bayer chemical group and the Bayer 04 Leverkusen football club. The station broadcasts on FM 107.6 MHz, on DAB+, on cable and via livestream, with four hours of local programming on weekdays and the live Bundesliga matches of Bayer 04 Leverkusen as its sporting signature. The Chefredakteur is Michael Thuge, the managing director Ralph Steinhausen.

Overview

Radio Leverkusen broadcasts on 107.6 MHz FM from Leverkusen-Wiesdorf, on DAB+, on cable and via livestream. The 100-watt FM signal serves the city itself, a compact urban area on the Rhine's east bank, while DAB+ and the stream carry the programme to the commuters and the diaspora. Leverkusen's position between Cologne and Düsseldorf, two of Germany's largest media markets, makes local identity the station's most valuable asset: the listeners can choose from dozens of stations, and they choose Radio Leverkusen for the one thing the others cannot offer, their own city's news, their own club's matches, their own streets and stories. The weekday local programme centres on the morning show from 6 to 10 am, Monday to Friday, with local news from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm keeping the city informed through the working day. On Saturdays, a three-hour morning show airs from 9 am to noon. The statutory Bürgerfunk takes one hour daily, Monday to Saturday from 9 to 10 pm and Sundays from 8 to 9 pm. The remaining hours and the world news on the hour come from the framework provider Radio NRW.

The station's standout feature is its football coverage: Radio Leverkusen broadcasts the Bundesliga matches of Bayer 04 Leverkusen live, a service that ties the station to the sporting passion of the city. In breaking news situations, the station can go live from the studio immediately, a capability it has used for major accidents and fires.

History

Radio Leverkusen went on air on 8 May 1991, licensed by the Landesanstalt für Medien NRW, as the local station for the city on the Rhine between Cologne and Düsseldorf. The launch was part of the early wave of NRW local stations, giving Leverkusen, a city shaped by the Bayer works and its football club, its own local voice for the first time.

Leverkusen is a city unlike any other in NRW: founded around the Bayer chemical works, its identity is inseparable from the company whose cross-topped tower dominates the skyline. The Bayer 04 football club, the "Werkself", carries the company's name onto the Bundesliga pitches, and the club's 2024 German championship, the first in its history, was the sporting sensation of the decade. A local radio in this city lives with the rhythms of the works and the club: the shift changes, the match days, the transfer news. Radio Leverkusen has been the audio companion to all of it since 1991. The studio in the Wiesdorf district, near the city centre and the Bayer works, has been the station's home throughout its history, a stone's throw from the streets whose news it broadcasts every half hour, in the heart of the Werkself's city, on air since May 1991 without interruption, come rain or shine.

For more than three decades, the station has covered the city's transformation: the evolution of the Bayer group, the rise of Bayer 04 Leverkusen to the German championship, the development of the Rheindorf and Wiesdorf districts, and the daily life of a city that lives between two metropolises. The live football coverage has been a constant through those decades, making the station the audio home of the Werkself's fans.

Programming

The weekday programme is built around the morning show from 6 to 10 am, with local news every half hour from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm, weather, traffic and the service information of the NRW local radio model. The Saturday morning show from 9 am to noon extends the local week into the weekend. The Bürgerfunk hour, daily in the evening, brings the citizens' own programmes to the schedule.

The Bayer 04 Leverkusen live coverage is the station's sporting flagship: full live broadcasts of the Bundesliga matches, with the commentary and the atmosphere that the city's fans expect. Few local stations in Germany carry their club's full matches live; Radio Leverkusen does, making it the indispensable companion for the Werkself's supporters on match days. The 2024 championship season, with Xabi Alonso's invincible team, gave the station the story of a lifetime, and the live broadcasts carried the city's euphoria to every listener. The breaking-news capability, going live from the studio at a moment's notice for major accidents or fires, gives the station a journalistic agility beyond its modest local hours. The music follows the adult contemporary format of the Radio NRW framework. Stream directories also list a web-only "90er Radio" channel under the station's brand, a nineties music stream extending the FM programme into the digital space.

Organization and Ownership

The managing director is Ralph Steinhausen; the Chefredakteur is Michael Thuge. The station operates within the NRW two-pillar model, with marketing handled by DuMont, the Cologne-based media house. The local studio in Leverkusen-Wiesdorf houses the newsroom and the broadcast facilities from which the city's local radio is produced.

The compact local hours, four on weekdays and three on Saturdays, belie the station's journalistic ambition: the live football coverage, the breaking-news readiness and the twelve-hour local news day give Leverkusen a local radio presence far beyond the formal local programming time. It is a model of efficiency that has served the city well for more than three decades, proving that a small station with the right priorities, the club, the breaking news, the morning show, can matter more to its city than its hours on paper suggest.

Digital Presence

The livestream on radioleverkusen.de carries the programme beyond the 107.6 MHz coverage, and the station's DAB+ presence adds digital terrestrial reception across the region. The website is the hub for the station's digital services, from the stream to the local news and the programme information.

The web-only nineties channel listed by stream directories shows the station's digital ambitions: a thematic music stream for the decade's fans, available everywhere. For the Bayer 04 supporters, the digital presence means the live match coverage travels with them, on the stream and the app, wherever they follow the Werkself. More than three decades after its 1991 launch, Radio Leverkusen remains the local voice of the city between Cologne and Düsseldorf, on FM 107.6, on DAB+ and on the stream.

The stream has a special importance on match days: the supporters in the BayArena, the fans watching in the pubs of Wiesdorf, the exiled Leverkuseners following from afar, all can take the station's live commentary with them. The nineties web channel adds a musical time capsule for the generation that grew up with the station. From the 1991 launch to the 2024 championship, Radio Leverkusen has been the soundtrack of the city's greatest moments, and the digital presence ensures it stays that way.