ARD

ARD is the regional network of public service broadcasters in Germany. It was founded in 1950 by the nine regional public broadcasters in the German Länder. Each of them has its own regional broadcast network with dozens of television and radio stations and also provides content to Das Erste, the group’s nationwide television channel.

The ARD channels remain the most popular broadcasters in Germany to this day. The news program Tagesschau, aired every evening at 8 p.m., is the most widely watched news program in Germany, with a daily average of nearly 10 million viewers. ARD runs thematic programs that are available throughout Germany. These include Phoenix, which focuses on documentaries, KIKA, which is geared towards children, and international stations Arte (a Franco-German culture-focused channel) and 3sat (a cultural channel run jointly with Austrian and Swiss public television companies). The tenth member of ARD is the international news and current affairs broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), which is available in 30 languages worldwide. The DW radio channel is based in Bonn and the DW television is in Berlin.

Media assets

Television and radio: Das Erste and regional channels (Bayerischer Rundfunk, Hessischer Rundfunk, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Radio Bremen, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, Saarländischer Rundfunk, Südwestrundfunk, Westdeutscher Rundfunk), Deutsche Welle (DW)

State Media Matrix Typology for ARD

Independent Public (IP)

State Media Matrix Typology for Deutsche Welle (DW)

Independent State-Funded (ISF)

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Ownership and governance

ARD operates as a public media entity. It is an alliance of regional public media organizations, which are part of ARD and organized in accordance with the laws of the Länder or, if more than one state is involved, with agreements between several Länder. All public service media corporations in ARD are overseen by a Broadcasting Council (Rundfunkrat), whose members are responsible for safeguarding the broadcaster’s independence. As per a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, they are required to be appointed from all the “socially relevant groups” of society.

The Broadcasting Councils are responsible for electing the director of each ARD member broadcaster. The council members are selected from official representatives of employer and trade associations, employee organizations, unions, churches, and educational institutions. These representatives are legally obligated to prioritize the general public’s interests over those of the organizations that nominated them.

The nine state broadcasting corporations that are members of the ARD send representatives to the Committee Chairmen’s Conference (GVK). The GVK tasks one of the broadcasting companies with managing the whole group for one year. The general manager of this managing broadcaster becomes the chairman of the ARD. DW follows the same board appointment process as all other ARD entities.

The management of ARD Media, the group’s advertising sales house, saw a new appointment with Ralf Hape taking over as CEO from October 1, 2024. The appointment follows Ralf Hape’s tenure as Senior Vice President and Managing Director at Sky Media, marking a significant change in ARD Media’s executive board. Hape succeeds Elke Schneiderbanger, who retired at the end of 2023, leaving an interim CEO in place until the transition.

Source of funding and budget

The public media in Germany (ARD and ZDF) are primarily funded by a license fee, which is a mandatory tax paid by every citizen who owns a device capable of receiving audiovisual content in Germany. Additionally, ARD is permitted to air advertisements only between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. from Monday to Saturday. Every household in Germany is required to pay a monthly license fee for public media, amounting to €18.36.

In 2024, revenues from the license fee were approximately €8.74 billion, a decrease of 3.14% compared to 2023. A total of €8.57 billion of this went to ARD, ZDF, and Deutschlandradio. The total budget for ARD in 2023 was €7.25bn, with almost 86% of its revenue coming from the license fee.

In 2024, the ARD regional broadcasters had a total income of €7,152.6 million. This revenue came from three main sources: license fees (this accounted for 84% of the total revenue; net advertising and sponsorship revenues (these made up 6% of the total income); and other income (this category, which includes revenues from program exploitation, cost reimbursements, and financial income, accounted for 10% of the total revenue).

The tenth member of ARD, Deutsche Welle (DW), is funded separately and receives nearly its entire budget from the federal budget. In 2022, DW received a state subsidy of €503.7m.

Editorial independence

The German state governments and the Federal Government do not impose any rules that interfere with ARD’s editorial independence. The broadcaster is known for its strong reputation as a journalism powerhouse, financial stability and independence, and full accountability to the public.

At the same time, the Interstate Broadcasting Agreement requires all broadcasters in Germany to ensure the “free individual shaping of public opinion and the plurality of opinion.”

In Germany, the freedom of the press is guaranteed by the country’s basic law. However, there is no domestic statute that guarantees explicitly the editorial independence of ARD. Despite this, editorial independence is very important for the station. Germans believe that the best way to ensure editorial freedom is through funding and governance. This includes a financial model based on fees paid by the public and a diverse governing body to prevent government interference.

The Deutsche Welle Act regulates DW’s work and is designed to ensure the broadcaster’s editorial independence.

ARD broadcasting organizations have their own programming committees. These committees advise and supervise the programming of their broadcasters and also approve broadcast production contracts above a certain value.

August 2025