About Antenne Landau

Antenne Landau

Antenne Landau is a private local radio station serving Landau in der Pfalz and the Südpfalz — the southern Palatinate — in Rhineland-Palatinate, broadcasting a pop-based local programme with regional news, service information and talk. On air since 31 May 2008, the station transmits on FM 94.8 MHz from Landau, a frequency previously used by Rockland Radio, and is also available on cable and via internet live stream. It is part of the local-radio chain coordinated under the umbrella of The Radio Group, the network founded in 2008 through a re-tendering of radio frequencies by the state's media authority. The station is operated by Antenne Lokalradios Pfalz GmbH, which also runs the sister station Antenne Pfalz from shared studios in Landau. Its music offering, billed as the "Supermix", spans the 1980s to the present day, and its presenter team has included the veteran German radio personality Thomas Koschwitz since January 2013.

Overview

Antenne Landau broadcasts from the heart of the Palatinate wine region. Landau in der Pfalz is a university city surrounded by vineyards at the edge of the Palatinate Forest, and the station's coverage area — the "Großraum Landau" and the wider Südpfalz — takes in wine villages, the German Wine Route, the biennial wine harvest festivals and a landscape where viticulture shapes the economic and cultural calendar. The station's local programming reflects that setting: alongside city news from Landau, it covers district politics in Südliche Weinstraße and Germersheim, the wine harvest and wine festivals, tourism in the Palatinate Forest biosphere reserve, and the carnival and club life of the region.

The music format is a broad pop "Supermix" reaching from the eighties through current hits, designed as a feel-good daytime companion for a family audience. Local news, hourly bulletins, weather and traffic reports for the Südpfalz commuter corridors toward Karlsruhe, Ludwigshafen and Mannheim, and talk topics with regional relevance structure the broadcast day. The station's studios are located at Waffenstraße 17 in Landau, shared with the sister programme Antenne Pfalz. As a commercial local broadcaster, Antenne Landau finances itself through advertising, marketed within the structures of The Radio Group.

History

Antenne Landau was born of the great Rhineland-Palatinate frequency re-tender of 2008. The Landeszentrale für Medien und Kommunikation put a package of FM frequencies out to tender, and on 31 May 2008 six new local stations launched on the former frequencies of Rockland Radio — among them Antenne Landau on Landau's 94.8 MHz, alongside sister launches including Antenne Pfalz, Antenne Bad Kreuznach, Antenne Kaiserslautern, Radio Pirmasens and Radio Idar-Oberstein. The new stations were organised from the start as a coordinated local-radio chain under the umbrella of The Radio Group, owned by Stephan Schwenk, cooperating on production and marketing while each served its own local area.

From its first day, Antenne Landau has broadcast from Landau in der Pfalz with a programme focused on the city and the Südpfalz. The operating company, Antenne Lokalradios Pfalz GmbH, was set up to run both Antenne Landau and Antenne Pfalz, with the two stations sharing studios, management and much of their team. The managing directors of the operating company have been Normann Küntzler and Achim Geißert, with studio leadership shared by Sophie Gareis and Tobi Rinker. In January 2013 the station gained a prominent addition to its team when Thomas Koschwitz — one of the veteran personalities of German private radio, known nationally from his television and radio career — joined to present the Saturday show "Koschwitz zum Wochenende" from 9 a.m. to noon, a fixture that has continued since. The Radio Group itself has since grown into an operator of seventeen regional radio stations across several German states, with the Palatinate stations among its founding local operations.

Programming

The broadcast day is built around the "Supermix" music format — pop hits from the eighties to the present — combined with local news, service and talk. The morning show "Perfekt geweckt", presented by Tobi Rinker, wakes the Südpfalz with music, regional news, weather and traffic, setting the tone for the day. Daytime programming continues the mix with presenters including Dana Nolte, Theresa Bosse and Marco Blechschmidt, while Sophie Gareis presents the local news bulletins. Talk topics with regional relevance — from wine-harvest outlooks to local infrastructure debates — give the programme its conversational character.

Saturday mornings belong to "Koschwitz zum Wochenende" with Thomas Koschwitz, airing from 9 a.m. to noon since January 2013, bringing the veteran presenter's interview skills and entertainment experience to the local audience. Local news coverage spans Landau city politics, the university, the districts of Südliche Weinstraße and Germersheim, the wine economy, tourism and the cultural calendar from the Landauer Sommer to the Christmas markets. Service elements include weather forecasts for a region where vintners watch the skies closely, traffic reports for the A65 corridor and the commuter routes toward the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region, and event tips covering wine festivals, village fêtes and concerts. The overall tone is warm, local and unpretentious — a neighbourly companion for the Südpfalz.

Organization and Ownership

Antenne Landau is operated by Antenne Lokalradios Pfalz GmbH, the company that runs both Antenne Landau and the sister station Antenne Pfalz from their shared studios in Landau in der Pfalz. The managing directors have been Normann Küntzler and Achim Geißert, with Sophie Gareis and Tobi Rinker sharing studio leadership. The station is part of the local-radio chain of The Radio Group, owned by Stephan Schwenk, which coordinates production, technology and marketing across its portfolio of seventeen regional stations in Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Hesse, Brandenburg and elsewhere. Since October 2023 Tim Lauth has served as CEO of the group's holding.

This group structure gives the Landau station the best of both worlds: genuinely local programming for the Südpfalz produced in Landau, backed by the resources, advertising sales power and technical infrastructure of a multi-state radio group. The Radio Group's stations are typically market leaders at their broadcast locations, and the Palatinate operations benefit from shared newsroom resources with their sister stations. Regulatory oversight lies with the Medienanstalt Rheinland-Pfalz, the state media authority that licensed the station in the 2008 tender round and supervises its FM operations. The station is financed through advertising as a commercial private broadcaster.

The station also plays an active role in the public life of the Südpfalz beyond the microphone: it partners with local festivals, wine events and club celebrations, runs on-air campaigns for regional causes, and uses its platforms to promote tourism in the German Wine Route region. For many local associations and vintners, the Landau station is the most direct route to a regional audience, and its newsroom's daily coverage of the harvest season is a fixture of autumn in the Palatinate.

Digital Presence

The station's website at antenne-landau.de is the digital home of the programme, offering the live internet stream, local news articles, programme and presenter information, and event tips for Landau and the Südpfalz. The live stream extends the 94.8 MHz FM service worldwide, serving Palatinate natives living elsewhere and wine-region enthusiasts beyond the broadcast area. The station is listed on the major radio aggregator apps and smart-speaker platforms, and its cable distribution complements the FM signal in the region.

On social media Antenne Landau maintains active profiles sharing local news updates, programme highlights, wine-festival coverage and community stories from the Südpfalz. The website functions as a compact regional news portal, extending the Landau newsroom's output into text and images. The station's digital offering mirrors the group's broader strategy of combining linear local radio with online news and streaming — a complete local media package for the Südpfalz, rooted in the Landau studios on Waffenstraße and available wherever its listeners are.