About Radio Herne

Radio Herne

Radio Herne is the local radio station for the city of Herne in the Ruhr region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. On air since 1 September 1990, it launched under the name Radio Herne 90acht, was renamed 90.8 Radio Herne in a 2008 marketing campaign, and has called itself simply Radio Herne since the programme relaunch of 11 January 2010. The station broadcasts on FM 90.8 MHz, on DAB+, on cable and via livestream, with the morning show "Am Morgen" and the afternoon show "Am Nachmittag" as the pillars of its local day. Like all NRW local stations it carries the Radio NRW framework programme outside its local windows, with local news every half hour on weekday mornings through the early evening.

Overview

Radio Herne broadcasts to the city of Herne on 90.8 MHz FM, on DAB+, on cable and via livestream. The local day centres on "Am Morgen" from 6 to 10 am and "Am Nachmittag" from 4 to 6 pm, with local news every half hour on weekdays from 6:30 am into the early evening. On Sundays the station broadcasts three hours of local programming from 9 am to noon; on Saturdays it carries the "Ruhrcharts" from 6 to 9 pm, produced alternately by Radio Essen and Radio Bochum. The statutory Bürgerfunk airs Monday to Friday from 9 to 10 pm and Sundays from 7 to 8 pm. The remaining hours and the world news on the hour come from Radio NRW.

Herne, the city between Bochum and Recklinghausen in the heart of the Ruhr, gives the station a compact but distinctive reporting territory: a former mining city that has reinvented itself, with its own local politics, culture and sporting life. Herne's identity is shaped by the tension between its industrial past and its green present, the city calls itself the "Stadt im Grünen" despite its mining heritage, and by its position at the crossroads of the Ruhr's major cities. The station's half-hourly local news rhythm keeps the city's residents informed through the working day, covering the stories that the regional media of the larger neighbours overlook.

History

Radio Herne went on air on 1 September 1990 as Radio Herne 90acht, licensed by the Landesanstalt für Medien NRW, one of the founding stations of the NRW local radio system. The name carried the frequency, 90.8 MHz, as was common in the early years of private radio. On 1 April 2008, in a marketing campaign by the operating company Westfunk, the station received its new name, 90.8 Radio Herne; the programme relaunch of 11 January 2010 then dropped the frequency from the name entirely, and the station has been Radio Herne ever since.

The editorial leadership changed hands twice in the station's history: Wolfgang Tatzel was Chefredakteur until 2013, when he moved to Radio Vest; Christine Schindler led the station from July 2013 to August 2026, a 13-year tenure that shaped the modern station; she was succeeded by Lennart Hemme, who took over the post for 30 months. The name changes of 2008 and 2010 reflect the broader branding history of NRW local radio, where frequencies moved in and out of station names as marketing fashions changed. The 2008 campaign, run by Westfunk across its stations, put the frequency front and centre at a time when the FM dial was still the primary battleground; the 2010 relaunch removed it again, recognizing that listeners find their stations by name and preset button rather than by memorizing megahertz. Radio Herne's journey from "Radio Herne 90acht" to "90.8 Radio Herne" to "Radio Herne" is a small history of German radio branding in three acts.

Programming

The weekday programme is built around "Am Morgen" from 6 to 10 am, moderated alternately by Christine Schindler and Achim Preikschat, and "Am Nachmittag" from 4 to 6 pm, with local news every half hour from 6:30 am into the early evening keeping Herne informed. Further presenters include Christine Thomas, Doro Gornik and Tanita Ehmke, a compact team that carries the station's local day with the voices Herne knows best, every weekday morning. On Saturdays the station hands the 6-to-9 pm slot to the "Ruhrcharts", the regional chart show produced alternately by the neighbouring stations Radio Essen and Radio Bochum, a cooperation typical of the Ruhr's local radio family. The Ruhrcharts are a good example of how the Ruhr's local stations pool their resources: rather than each producing its own Saturday evening chart show, the stations take turns, giving the listeners a professionally produced regional programme while sharing the cost. For Herne's listeners, it means a chart show with the reach and production values of a larger station, presented as part of their own local station's Saturday evening.

On Sundays, three hours of local programming air from 9 am to noon. The Bürgerfunk, produced by citizens under the statutory provisions, occupies the evening hours from Monday to Friday and on Sunday evenings. The music follows the Adult Contemporary format of the Radio NRW framework, aimed at the broad adult audience of the city. Stream directories also list web-only genre channels under the station's brand, including rock, urban, lounge and eighties streams, extending the FM programme into the digital space.

Organization and Ownership

The station is marketed by Westfunk, the sales organization for the Funke-affiliated NRW local stations, and operates within the NRW two-pillar model of programme responsibility with the Veranstaltergemeinschaft and economic responsibility with the Betriebsgesellschaft. The programme director is Lennart Hemme, who also succeeded Christine Schindler as Chefredakteur in August 2026.

The long tenures of the station's editorial leaders, from Wolfgang Tatzel through Christine Schindler's 13 years to Lennart Hemme, give Radio Herne a continuity that has served the station well in the competitive Ruhr radio market, where the WDR's regional programmes and the neighbouring local stations all compete for the same listeners. That stability, from the 1990 launch as Radio Herne 90acht through the renamings to today's Radio Herne, is the quiet foundation of the station's local journalism.

Digital Presence

The livestream on radioherne.de carries the programme beyond the 90.8 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 programme information.

The web-only genre channels listed by stream directories, rock, urban, lounge and eighties streams under the Radio Herne brand, show the station's digital ambitions beyond the FM simulcast: thematic music streams for specific tastes, available to listeners everywhere. Combined with the FM signal, DAB+ and the main stream, Radio Herne is available on every modern listening path, keeping the city between Bochum and Recklinghausen informed every half hour on weekday mornings.

The digital strategy reflects the station's understanding of its audience: the FM signal serves the city, the DAB+ multiplex serves the region, and the genre streams serve the tastes that a single FM format cannot cover. For a local station in the competitive Ruhr market, where every listener has dozens of alternatives at the push of a button, that multi-channel presence is not a luxury but a necessity, and Radio Herne has built it step by step since its 1990 launch as Radio Herne 90acht.