About Radio Duisburg

Radio Duisburg

Radio Duisburg is the private local radio station for the city of Duisburg in the Ruhr region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and it holds a place of honour in German broadcasting history: when it went on air on 1 April 1990 under the name Radio DU, it was the first private local radio station in North Rhine-Westphalia, opening the era of commercial local broadcasting in Germany's most populous state. Broadcasting on FM 92.2 MHz, via DAB+, cable and live stream under the slogan "So klingt zu Hause!", the station airs eight hours of locally produced programming daily from its studio at Am Silberpalais 1 in the city centre, combining Duisburg news, traffic and service with the Radio NRW framework programme. It is also the radio home of MSV Duisburg football, broadcasting all of the club's competitive matches live.

Overview

Radio Duisburg's terrestrial signal is 92.2 MHz with 100 watts, covering the Duisburg city area and reaching into parts of the Wesel district as well as Essen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Oberhausen, Krefeld, Ratingen and Düsseldorf. Cable listeners receive the programme on 101.75 MHz in Duisburg, Moers, Krefeld and Mülheim an der Ruhr. Since 18 December 2025 the station has also been available via DAB+ on channel 8C, with transmitter sites in Essen, Wesel and Kleve extending digital coverage across the Ruhr region and the Lower Rhine, and the programme streams worldwide as internet radio.

The station's identity is inseparable from its status as the pioneer of NRW local radio. Its slogan, "So klingt zu Hause!" ("This is what home sounds like!"), captures the local-radio promise that Radio DU first brought to the airwaves in 1990: a station that sounds like its city. The programme follows the familiar NRW architecture of local daytime hours plus the Radio NRW framework from Oberhausen, with an adult-contemporary music format, while the distinctive local elements include the morning show "Guten Morgen Duisburg", dense local news coverage and the live MSV Duisburg match broadcasts that make the station essential listening for the city's football fans.

History

On 1 April 1990, Radio DU went on air in Duisburg as the first private local radio station in North Rhine-Westphalia, licensed by the Landesanstalt für Medien. The launch was the starting gun for the entire NRW local radio system: the framework provider Radio NRW began operating at the same time from Oberhausen, created to give the new local stations an economic foundation through shared programming and advertising, and the citizen-radio window that is still a fixture of NRW local broadcasting started with Radio Duisburg as well.

The early years established the two-pillar structure that still governs the station: a community-based programme association holding editorial responsibility and a separate operating company handling the business side. The station later adopted the name Radio Duisburg, and over the decades it expanded its local broadcast hours and its technical distribution, adding cable carriage, the internet stream and, in December 2025, DAB+ on channel 8C. The studio at Am Silberpalais 1 in central Duisburg has long been the station's home.

Being first gave Radio Duisburg a special responsibility. In 1990 there was no template for what a private local station in North Rhine-Westphalia should sound like; the public WDR programmes had defined radio in the state for decades. Radio DU had to invent the local commercial format on the fly: how much local news a city station could sustain, how to blend it with a centrally produced music framework, and how to win over an audience that had never had a radio station of its own. The answers it found became the model for the dozens of NRW local stations that followed within a few years, from the two-pillar governance to the mix of local hours and framework programming. Duisburg's station was thus not only the first on air but the prototype for an entire broadcasting system.

A colourful footnote in the station's history is the satire show "Streichzart", which the now nationally known cabaret artist Wolfgang Trepper hosted on Radio Duisburg from 1997 to 2002 together with Marc Weiss; Trepper also served as the station's head of duty programming from 1998 until June 2007. Through more than 35 years of continuous broadcasting, Radio Duisburg has remained the city's local radio from the first day of the NRW local radio era to the present.

Programming

Radio Duisburg broadcasts eight hours of local programming every day. Monday to Friday the local schedule runs from 6 to 10 am and from 2 to 6 pm; on Saturdays the station is local from 7 am to noon and again from 9 pm to midnight, and on Sundays and public holidays from 9 am to 2 pm and from 9 pm to midnight. The morning show "Guten Morgen Duisburg" airs from 6 to 10 am, hosted in weekly rotation by Jens Kobijolke and Thorsten Krappa, while the afternoon programme is presented by Jens Kobijolke, Jens Vossen and Virginia Scholz.

Local news is produced by a dedicated newsroom led by news chief Michele Timm, with Alexandra Krieg, Jens Vossen, Tim Gißke and Benedikt Hauswirth. The citizen-radio window required by the state media law airs daily from 8 to 9 pm, giving local radio groups airtime for their own productions. The remaining hours, including the hourly world news, are filled by the Radio NRW framework programme, with the station transmitting a statewide advertising block each hour in return. A standout of the schedule is the sports coverage: Radio Duisburg broadcasts every competitive match of MSV Duisburg live, making it the radio home of the city's football club.

Organization and Ownership

Radio Duisburg is owned by a consortium typical of the NRW two-pillar model. The Verleger-Holding Radio Duisburg holds 75 percent of the station; within that holding, 94.18 percent is attributable to the Zeitungsverlag Niederrhein (itself 89.4 percent Funke Mediengruppe and 10.6 percent Rheinisch-Westfälische Verlagsgesellschaft) and 5.82 percent to the Rheinische Post Mediengruppe. The remaining 25 percent is held by the Duisburger Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft, the city's utility and transport company. Radio advertising marketing has been outsourced to the Funke media group.

Editor-in-chief is Markus Augustiniak. The programme is produced by the Duisburg editorial team at the Silberpalais studio under the station's licence, while the business responsibilities rest with the operating company and its shareholders, keeping editorial decisions independent of the commercial stakeholders in line with the state's local radio legislation.

Digital Presence

Beyond FM 92.2 MHz, cable and the DAB+ launch of December 2025, Radio Duisburg streams its full programme live on the internet, available worldwide via radioduisburg.de. The website serves as the station's news and service hub for the city, carrying local news, traffic and weather information, the programme schedule and the station's podcasts, extending the on-air service into a digital local portal.

The DAB+ addition on channel 8C marked the station's most significant technical expansion since its FM launch, bringing digital sound quality and a substantially larger coverage area across the Ruhr region and the Lower Rhine. Together with the stream, the website and the podcasts, the digital platforms ensure that the pioneer of NRW local radio remains available to its audience on every modern reception path, more than 35 years after Radio DU first signed on.