About Klassik Radio Movie

Klassik Radio Movie

Klassik Radio Movie — now on air as Movie Radio — is Germany's film-music station: the first nationwide radio for film and series music, launched by Klassik Radio AG on 1 February 2021. For five and a half months it broadcast terrestrially on the second national DAB+ multiplex; on 15 July 2021 it was replaced there by Beats Radio and continued as an internet-only programme — the briefest terrestrial career in German private radio, the longest afterlife online — the five-month multiplex, the years-long stream — the terrestrial blink, the internet's gaze. The format: the biggest film hits of all time — the goosebump blockbusters of the 90s and 2000s, the series songs of the streaming hits, the mega-soundtracks of 50 years of cinema — plus streaming tips, film news and star stories. The owner is Klassik Radio AG under CEO Ulrich R. J. Kubak. The stream plays on: the playlist logs show current film music around the clock, the cinema never closing — the 24-hour film music, the multiplex's loss, the internet's gain — the DAB+ experiment's end, the stream's beginning.

Overview

Klassik Radio Movie was conceived as Germany's first nationwide film-music broadcaster: 24 hours of soundtracks, scores and series songs, licensed by the Medienanstalt Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein (licence from 1 February 2021, ten years) and distributed via the Antenne Deutschland DAB+ multiplex, cable and internet. The core target group: 25- to 60-year-old listeners — the cinema generation, the streaming generation, the gamers who discovered orchestral music through their consoles.

The programme promise, as Klassik Radio described it at launch: the greatest film hits of all time, the goosebump blockbusters, the trending series songs, the mega-soundtracks of five decades of cinema — plus the hottest streaming and film tips, news from the screens, and stories about the stars of the film and series world. Hourly news and moderated daytime flow rounded out the terrestrial format — the full-service film station, the cinema with a newsroom — the terrestrial format's ambition, the launch year's promise — the 2021 vision, the 2021 reality, the 2021 pivot. Since the DAB+ switch-off the programme continues via internet — the film music without the multiplex, the stream as the survivor, the programme reduced to its essence: the scores — the internet continuation as the pure film music, the moderation as the memory — the scores alone, the voices as the echo.

History

In December 2020 Klassik Radio AG secured the last free slot in the second national DAB+ multiplex and announced the first nationwide film-and-series-music station: a significant expansion of the business model, a seven-figure investment, profitability expected during 2022 — the company's corporate news framing the launch as the monetization of two decades of film-music expertise — the press release as the prospectus, the multiplex slot as the investment — the corporate communication as the business plan. "We brought film music to German radio 20 years ago; now we refine and monetize our expertise with our own national station," said CEO Ulrich R. J. Kubak, pointing to the huge grown market of streaming providers in series and film — the Netflix generation as the target, the scores as the product — the streaming hits' music, the young audience's classics — the series songs as the new standards, the scores as the new songbook. The EU's DAB+ mandate for new cars (from 21 December 2020) promised further tailwind: every new car a potential receiver, every autobahn a potential audience — the EU mandate as the wind in the multiplex's sails — the 21 December 2020 as the DAB+ industry's independence day.

The licence came from Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein's media authority — the ten-year licence, valid from 1 February 2021, granted to Klassik Radio GmbH & Co. KG for a 24-hour programme — the Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein authority's decade-long bet on film music — the licence that outlasted the multiplex, the paper that promised ten years; the launch was set for February 2021 — and on 1 February 2021 Klassik Radio Movie went on air in the Antenne Deutschland multiplex, the livestream at klassikradiomovie.de from day one, also added to Vodafone cable in April (E30). But the terrestrial chapter was brief: after only a few months, on 15 July 2021, the station was replaced in the multiplex by Beats Radio — the film music giving way to deep house, the company's own second brand cannibalizing the first — the 15 July 2021 as the day the multiplex changed its tune — the film music out, the deep house in, the date to remember. Why the channel spent only months on terrestrial digital radio remains unclear — the RadioBlog's verdict: "bis heute unklar" — the mystery of the five-month multiplex, unsolved — the question the RadioBlog asked, the answer never given. The programme lived on as Movie Radio via internet — the film-music brand demoted from the multiplex to the stream, but not discontinued, the ten-year licence outliving the five-month multiplex career — the paper's decade, the airwaves' months, the stream's years.

Programming

The programming is the cinema in sound: film scores, series songs, game music — John Williams' Raiders March, Hans Zimmer's Inception and Interstellar's Time, Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings, Joe Hisaishi's Spirited Away, Max Richter's latest, Gustavo Santaolalla's Last of Us — the playlist logs show the canon in rotation, from Elmer Bernstein's Magnificent Seven (1960) to Carlos Rafael Rivera's Queen's Gambit, from Vangelis' Chariots of Fire to Alan Menken's Little Mermaid. Film quotes punctuate the flow (the Clint Eastwood quote in the log — the station that speaks cinema between the scores — the Eastwood quote, the film's voice in the radio's flow). The terrestrial format added hourly news, daytime moderation and the "Klassik Radio Launch" evening programme starting at 8 p.m.; the internet continuation focuses on the music — the soundtracks as the stars, the stream as the cinema, the scores without the intermission — the internet's film music, unbroken.

Organization and Ownership

Klassik Radio Movie is a brand of Klassik Radio AG, the Augsburg-based media company under CEO Ulrich R. J. Kubak, headquartered in the Palais am Stadtmarkt in Augsburg with its broadcast centre in Hamburg — the same house that launched Beats Radio five months later on the movie channel's own multiplex slot — the sibling rivalry, the company's two 2021 launches, one survivor. The station was launched with a seven-figure investment (running costs in the lower seven figures) and a ten-year licence; after the DAB+ replacement it continues as the internet-only Movie Radio — the licence's decade, the multiplex's months, the stream's years — the three timelines of Klassik Radio Movie. Detailed financial figures for the movie brand specifically are not publicly confirmed in the sources consulted.

Digital Presence

The digital presence is now the whole presence: Movie Radio streams via internet — the livestream that survived the multiplex, the film music's second life online, the klassikradiomovie.de address as the survivor's home — the launch-day URL, the stream's permanent residence. The playlist aggregators log the programme in real time: the scores, the series songs, the film quotes — the proof that the station still plays, the timestamps as the vital signs — the aggregator logs as the proof of life, the playlist as the pulse. As the internet-only remnant of a DAB+ experiment, Movie Radio demonstrates the format's resilience: the multiplex slot lasted five months; the film music plays on — the stream as the afterlife, the cinema as the eternity — the film music's immortality, the multiplex's mortality.