The broadcasting centre in Bonn

“This is Deutsche Welle in Bonn“. This announcement goes around the world. With the inauguration of the new broadcasting centre in June 2003 the first studio complex started operation.

For the new Broadcasting Centre, the move was the end of a long, scandal-ridden history. At the beginning of 1989, construction was begun on the building designed by Professor Schürmann and originally planned as the new parliament building. Reunification and parliament’s move to Berlin robbed the building of its purpose before its completion. Mother Nature did her bit: in December 1993, the shell of the building was a victim of flooding. The foundations sank and sloped, a catastrophe.

In ensuing years, the building attained sad fame as the most famous construction ruin in Germany, until the Federal Government finally brought itself to a costly course of renovation. Yet another challenge for the architect as well: what was planned as an office building had to be converted into a complexly equipped technical broadcasting centre.

The result: brilliant white, light-flooded rooms, lots of glass and clear lines add up to a uniform image of modernity. This was the almost unanimous judgment of the press. “Gardens, water, patios and the view of the Rhine create an ambience is a joy to work in. It would be hard to find a broadcaster in more beautifully landscaped scenery,” rejoices Director-General Erik Bettermann.

The complex on Kurt-Schumacher-Strasse consists of nine individual bridge-linked buildings of three or four storeys each, two ground floor levels, four basements and a so-called media section. The combined floor area is 160,000 square metres.

Europe’s most modern broadcasting centre

Seven studio complexes are provided for the radio services. Each has a control room, two audio studios and an editorial office. The two audio studios make it possible to move smoothly from one programme to the next and offer the option of “automatic pilot”. Each audio studio is equipped with its own independent control panel, which can also be used as a backup system should the master control room break down.

In order to be able to produce more lavish programmes, nine production studios are available, one of which can also be used for TV interviews. The number of studios – the old Broadcasting Centre had 45 – was drastically reduced, because editors today produce a majority of the programmes at independent audio workstations (AWs). These roughly 50 AWs are installed in rooms with comparatively simple acoustic equipment. There are about 150 editing stations where the programmes are given their finishing touches.
Digital technology is employed in the entire studio area. With a few exceptions, analogue tape is a thing of the past.

All of the internal signal paths meet in the operations centre, which is staffed around the clock. From here, links are made to correspondents, transmission vehicles, external studios and the other broadcasters in the Association of German Public Broadcasters (ARD). From here, the up to 30 different programmes are “processed” so that they can go around the world via the broadcast stations, then via shortwave and medium wave as well as via satellite.

The DW Broadcasting Centre in Bonn at a glance:

Radio technology

• 7 studio complexes, each with 1 control room, 2 audio studios and 1 editorial office
• 9 production studios, one of them also suitable for use as a TV interview studio
• Coordination centre for up to 30 broadcast links
• 50 audio workstations
• 150 editing stations
• 40 satellite antennas
• Computer centre and backup computer centre with over 100 servers

Building systems

• 23 elevators (11 hydraulic elevators, 5 cargo lifts for transport of people and heavy goods)
• 34 air conditioning systems
• 70 modern gravity venting systems in the studios
• 86 ventilation systems

February 2007