About Antenne 1 Neckarburg Rock & Pop

Antenne 1 Neckarburg Rock & Pop

Antenne 1 Neckarburg Rock & Pop is a private local radio station based in Rottweil, Baden-Württemberg, serving the Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg region with a rock- and pop-oriented oldies-based adult contemporary format. The station's official broadcast area covers the districts of Rottweil, Schwarzwald-Baar and Tuttlingen, with reception extending into parts of the Zollernalb, Freudenstadt, Ortenau and Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald districts via FM frequencies between 93.1 and 107.6 MHz, supplemented by DAB+ and an internet stream. Founded in 1990 as Radio Neckarburg — the name refers to the ruined Neckarburg castle above the Neckar valley — the station is one of the veteran local broadcasters of southwestern Germany. Since 2015 it has been majority-owned by the Schwarzwälder Bote newspaper group, with the Stuttgart-based Antenne Radio GmbH & Co. KG, operator of Hitradio antenne 1, holding a substantial minority stake that gives the station its current brand affiliation. Around the turn of 2025 to 2026 the programme additionally took over a statewide DAB+ slot in Baden-Württemberg, significantly widening its digital reach.

Overview

The station presents itself as the rock and pop station for the region between the Black Forest, the Baar plateau and the Swabian Alb foothills. Its format, classified as oldie-based AC with a rock emphasis, leans on guitar-driven hits from the 1970s through the 1990s and beyond — the playlist features staples such as Dire Straits, Journey, Bon Jovi-era rock, Alphaville and Kim Carnes-style eighties pop-rock — positioned for an adult audience that grew up with rock radio. Local news, weather and traffic for the three-district core area are central to the programme's identity, distinguishing it from the statewide pop services that also cover the region. The programme is presented in German with a strong local editorial voice, and the station maintains a visible presence at regional events, business forums and cultural life in Rottweil, Villingen-Schwenningen and Tuttlingen.

Reception is via FM across the southern Black Forest fringe and the Baar, via DAB+ digital radio, and worldwide through the station's web stream. The addition of the statewide DAB+ programme slot at the start of 2026 — the former slot of Antenna Baden-Württemberg — means the station's digital signal now reaches well beyond its traditional FM footprint. The station is financed as a commercial private broadcaster through regional and national advertising, marketed in combination with the reach of its shareholder Hitradio antenne 1 where appropriate.

History

The official launch of "Radio Neckarburg" took place on 1 December 1990. In the beginning the station broadcast only between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. and on a single frequency that reached just a handful of communities in the greater Rottweil area. The name honoured the Burgruine Neckarburg, the ruined hilltop castle that overlooks the upper Neckar valley and serves as a landmark of local identity. For a time the former Stadtradio Stuttgart supplied a framework programme; after that station radically changed its music format, Radio Neckarburg gradually expanded its own programming, reaching a full 24-hour schedule by the end of the 1990s.

A milestone came in 1992, when Radio Neckarburg won the licence for a frequency in Villingen-Schwenningen, the largest city in the neighbouring Schwarzwald-Baar district. The decision triggered a fierce rivalry with the unsuccessful applicant Radio 7, and the district administrator of Tuttlingen, Hans Volle, publicly dismissed the programme as an imposition — yet the station thrived commercially, growing its revenue from 20,000 Deutschmarks in 1991 to 650,000 Deutschmarks in 1995. With the new licensing period beginning in 1994, founder and then-sole owner Gerd Kieninger was required to bring additional shareholders into the company in order to expand to a full-day programme; Kieninger nevertheless remained the majority owner and continued to determine the programme himself.

In April 2015, Kieninger sold his shares for reasons of age to existing and new shareholders. The station has since been 51 percent owned by the Schwarzwälder Bote, the regional daily newspaper of the Black Forest area; the Antenne Radio GmbH & Co. KG, which operates the statewide programme Hitradio antenne 1, increased its stake in the course of the sale and now holds 35 percent; the remaining 14 percent is held by Städte-Radio Produktions GmbH, the company that had previously supplied Radio Neckarburg's framework programme. During the transition, broadcasting operations were temporarily relocated to the Stuttgarter Pressehaus in Stuttgart before a new studio in Rottweil's city centre went into service in spring 2016, returning the station physically to its home town. On 21 July 2016 the founder and longtime owner Gerd Kieninger died at the age of 63.

The branding evolved over the years from Radio Neckarburg — also abbreviated RNB — to "das neue radio neckarburg" and finally to the current Antenne 1 Neckarburg Rock & Pop, reflecting the closer ties to the antenne 1 group. Programme leadership has been in the hands of Klaus Winter, who joined from the Ulm station Donau 3 FM, where he had worked for ten years; the management role has been held by Stephan Offierowski since November 2025. At the turn of 2025 to 2026 the station took a further step in its history when Antenna Baden-Württemberg, the women's-format station of Medienhaus Südwest, ceased operations on 31 December 2025 and Antenne 1 Neckarburg Rock & Pop took over its slot in the Baden-Württemberg DAB+ state multiplex, giving the Rottweil programme statewide digital distribution for the first time.

Programming

The music format is rock and pop with an oldies-based adult contemporary foundation. Daytime programming centres on well-known rock and pop hits from the seventies, eighties and nineties — from Dire Straits and Daryl Hall & John Oates to Metallica, Van Halen and Glenn Frey — mixed with selected newer titles that fit the guitar-oriented sound. The station's playlist leans more heavily toward rock than the mainstream pop of its statewide competitors, giving it a distinct sonic profile in the region. Presented shows structure the broadcast day, with local news bulletins carrying reporting from Rottweil, the Schwarzwald-Baar district and Tuttlingen, including district politics, the regional economy — the area is one of Germany's industrial heartlands for precision engineering and medical technology — club life, culture and sport.

Service elements include weather and traffic tailored to a region of Black Forest commuters and cross-district travel, and the station positions itself as a companion for the working day in the many small and medium-sized industrial towns of the broadcast area. Interviews with regional figures from politics, business and culture are a regular feature; a visit by the Bundestag member Thorsten Frei to the Rottweil studios, for instance, underlined the station's role as a forum for regional public life, with Frei praising the station's local news and new programme direction as an enrichment of media diversity in the region. The station also covers regional events and partners with local institutions, reinforcing its identity as the audio voice of Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg.

Organization and Ownership

The station is operated by a company whose ownership has been stable since the 2015 restructuring: 51 percent is held by the Schwarzwälder Bote media group, the regional newspaper publisher headquartered in Oberndorf am Neckar, which thus controls the station; 35 percent is held by Antenne Radio GmbH & Co. KG of Stuttgart, the operator of Hitradio antenne 1, whose stake underpins the Antenne 1 branding and provides programme and marketing synergies; and 14 percent remains with Städte-Radio Produktions GmbH. This structure combines a regional newspaper publisher's local roots with the resources of a statewide radio group — a common ownership pattern among Baden-Württemberg's local stations.

Management of the station has been led by Stephan Offierowski since November 2025, with Klaus Winter responsible for programming. The studios are located in Rottweil's city centre, in the new facility opened in spring 2016 after the interim period in Stuttgart. Regulatory oversight lies with the Landesanstalt für Kommunikation Baden-Württemberg, the state media authority, which licenses the station's FM frequencies and its participation in the DAB+ multiplexes. The business is financed through advertising, sold to regional advertisers in the Rottweil, Villingen-Schwenningen and Tuttlingen economic area as well as through the broader sales structures of the antenne 1 group.

Digital Presence

The station maintains its web presence within the antenne 1 group's online platform at antenne1.de, where the Neckarburg programme is presented with a live web stream, programme information and regional news content. The live stream makes the station available worldwide, serving listeners from the region who have moved away as well as rock fans beyond the FM coverage area. The programme is also carried on the standard radio aggregator apps and smart-speaker platforms, and its DAB+ distribution — expanded at the start of 2026 to the statewide multiplex slot — gives it a robust digital terrestrial footprint alongside FM.

On social media the station operates under its Antenne 1 Neckarburg identity, sharing programme highlights, regional news, event coverage and music content. The playlist is published online so listeners can look up songs heard on air. The station's digital strategy mirrors that of many German local broadcasters: the linear FM and DAB+ programme remains the core product, while the website, stream, social channels and on-demand elements extend its reach and give advertisers digital touchpoints alongside the broadcast. With the statewide DAB+ slot added to its portfolio, the station's digital distribution now matches the ambition of a programme that has grown from a five-hour-evening local station into a full-service regional broadcaster.