About Radio Lippe

Radio Lippe

Radio Lippe is the local radio station for the district of Lippe in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, broadcasting from a joint broadcast centre in Bad Oeynhausen together with Radio Herford and Radio Westfalica since 20 October 2025. On air since 1 April 1991 and licensed by the Landesanstalt für Medien NRW, it broadcasts on the FM frequencies 106.6, 107.4 and 101.0 MHz, on DAB+ channel 12D for Ostwestfalen-Lippe since 18 December 2025, on cable, via livestream and app. With up to 15 hours of local programming on weekdays and a daily reach of 32.8 percent of the district's over-14 population, it is the local voice of the former principality of Lippe. The district's identity, the half-timbered towns of Detmold, Lemgo and Bad Salzuflen, the Hermannsdenkmal overlooking the Teutoburg Forest, the former principality's proud independence, gives the station a reporting territory with a strong sense of self, and the half-hourly local news serves it from six in the morning to midnight. The Chefredakteur is Markus Knoblich, in office since 1 April 2016.

Overview

Radio Lippe's terrestrial home frequency is 106.6 MHz, broadcasting from Lemgo since the launch and covering large parts of the district; 107.4 MHz from Linderhofe was added in the late 1990s for the northern Lippe, especially Extertal and Kalletal, and 101.0 MHz from Schieder-Schwalenberg in 2004 for the southeast. Cable, the livestream and the app complete the analogue distribution, and the DAB+ launch on 18 December 2025 extended the reach into the western district of Kassel. The weekday programme offers up to 15 hours of local content: "Doppelt wach" from 6 to 10 am with Dominik Tegeler or Judith Brentrup, "Radio Lippe bei der Arbeit" from 10 am to 2 pm with Marvin Kreimeier, "Von Zwei bis Frei" from 2 to 6 pm with Lars Niermann, and the "Radio Lippe Spätschicht" from 6 pm.

Local news airs every half hour on weekdays from 6 am to midnight and on Saturdays from 7 am to noon; weekend local programming runs Saturdays 7 am to noon and Sundays 9 am to noon. The night programme, the weekend off-hours and the world news on the hour come from Radio NRW, with a statewide advertising block before the world news and up to two locally marketed ad blocks per hour.

History

The editorial team and the broadcast studio spent the station's first years on 220 square metres in the Ernst-Hilker-Straße in Detmold. The early programme, on air from April 1991, was strongly shaped by niche programmes for different target groups: a folk music and a sports show on Sundays, a youth programme on Friday afternoons, a culturally oriented programme on holidays, with local topics and listener competitions in the daytime. The niche concept failed: in 1993 Radio Lippe ranked among the least successful local stations in North Rhine-Westphalia. Several new editors-in-chief brought numerous programme reforms in the following years. The failure was instructive: the early nineties belief that a local station should serve every target group with its own niche programme collided with the reality that listeners wanted a consistent, professionally presented daytime programme. The reforms of the following years, and the formatting wave of the 2000s that aligned the station with the other NRW locals, were the painful but necessary correction. The licence history tells the same story in numbers: from eight required hours of own programming to five, with two permitted in cooperation with Radio NRW, and back up to today's 15 hours on weekdays, the station's local output traces a U-curve from ambition through crisis to maturity.

The 1991 licence had required eight hours of own programming daily; difficult economic conditions soon reduced the minimum to five hours, with two of them permitted in cooperation with Radio NRW. Since the 2000s, the programme has been formatted like all other NRW local radios, and while the difference between the self-produced programme and the Radio NRW framework was once clearly audible in presentation, music and positioning, those distinctions have receded. Listener numbers improved markedly, though they still do not reach the levels of comparable stations in the region. The station later moved into the former editorial building of the Lippische Landes-Zeitung on the Lagesche Straße in Detmold, and with the new programme structure of 31 August 2015 the old station voice of the NRW local radios, Bodo Venten, was reintroduced. On 20 October 2025 the local programme moved from Detmold to the joint broadcast centre with Radio Herford and Radio Westfalica in Bad Oeynhausen.

Programming

The weekday local day runs from 6 am into the evening with up to 15 hours of programming: the "Doppelt wach" morning show, the midday "bei der Arbeit", the afternoon "Von Zwei bis Frei" and the evening "Spätschicht", with local news every half hour from changing editors. The E.M.A. NRW 2023/I survey found a daily reach of 32.8 percent among the district's over-14 population, a market share of 27.5 percent in the coverage area.

The station is notable as a talent factory: TV presenter Matthias Opdenhövel began his career as a trainee at Radio Lippe before moving to VIVA in 1993; heute-journal co-presenter Kay-Sölve Richter started as a trainee here; former Tagesthemen and now RTL Aktuell presenter Pinar Atalay began as intern, freelancer and trainee at the station; and Tommi Schmitt was once an intern. For a small district station, the alumni list reads like a who's who of German television news, and it speaks to the quality of the training the station provided even in its difficult years: the volunteers and trainees of the nineties learned their craft at a station that was fighting for survival, and they took those lessons to the top of the industry.

Organization and Ownership

Programme responsibility lies with the Veranstaltergemeinschaft für lokalen Rundfunk im Kreis Lippe, composed of representatives of socially relevant groups; economic responsibility rests with the Lippischer Rundfunk GmbH & Co. KG, in which the newspaper publishers Lippische Landes-Zeitung and Neue Westfälische and the district of Lippe participate. Technical and business operations are largely outsourced to the Bielefeld-based full-service provider Audio Media Service (ams).

Markus Knoblich has been Chefredakteur since 1 April 2016, succeeding Lars Cohrs, who had moved from NDR 1 Niedersachsen in February 2015 and returned after just over a year. The move to the Bad Oeynhausen broadcast centre in October 2025 pooled the station's production with Radio Herford and Radio Westfalica, following the industry trend toward shared broadcast centres while keeping the Lippe editorial voice.

Digital Presence

The livestream on radiolippe.de and the station's app, including smart speaker availability, carry the programme beyond the FM frequencies, and the DAB+ distribution on channel 12D since December 2025 added digital terrestrial reception across Ostwestfalen-Lippe and into neighbouring Hesse. The website is the hub for the station's digital services, from the stream to the local news.

For a station that began in 1991 on 220 square metres with a niche programme that almost failed, the digital present is a long way from the difficult early years: up to 15 hours of local programming on weekdays, a daily reach of nearly a third of the district, and availability on FM, DAB+, cable, stream and app. Radio Lippe remains the local voice of the Lippe district, from Detmold's former newspaper building to the shared broadcast centre in Bad Oeynhausen, on air every half hour with the district's news.