Studio Gera
Coordinates: 50 ° 52 ′ 49 ″ N , 12 ° 4 ′ 48 ″ E
The Studio Gera was from 1952 to 1990, a regional studio of the GDR broadcast for the District Gera .
Broadcasting in the region from 1952 to 1964
The dissolution of the states and the establishment of districts as administrative units in the summer of 1952 was accompanied by a restructuring of broadcasting in the GDR with the establishment of the State Broadcasting Committee (SRK).
District studios
As a result of the restructuring of GDR broadcasting, the broadcasting houses and studios in the previous countries were district studios from summer 1952 with a supplier function for the central programs produced in Berlin or partly in Leipzig .
In district towns where there were no radio studios yet, the broadcasting committee set up such studios, for example in Frankfurt (Oder) , Neubrandenburg , Suhl and Gera .
Studio Gera
The structure of the broadcasting studios in Gera began on September 1, 1952. The editors had initially based in the former radio Weimar , which was used at that time as a radio school. Thus the Studio Gera was initially just an editorial office in Weimar without a studio building in Gera. After long negotiations with the Gera District Council, the City Council and the SED District Management, the State Broadcasting Committee used a privately owned residential building (" Villa Bloch "), now a listed building, at Dimitroff-Allee 21 in the Untermhaus district as the seat of the Gera studio. The facility came from the holdings of the former regional broadcaster Weimar . However, the premises were only partially suitable for the work of a studio.
On December 2, 1952, the editorial team moved from Weimar to Gera. The studio's equipment included a provisional sound recording , a cutter room , a workshop, an equipment store, a battery room and workrooms for editing and technology.
A converted Mercedes car (built in 1932), which had been equipped with a V39 amplifier and a "Dora" magnetic tape drive, initially served as the OB van . From December 4, 1953, the studio worked with an OB van from the Ü21 series (Pheno).
In the spring of 1953, the production volume comprised around 40 transmissions of around 260 minutes to Berlin or Leipzig per month.
Own shipments
The first corrections to the program structure were made in the summer of 1953. This resulted in the district studios creating regional windows. Three studios shared a frequency of one of the three central programs and alternately broadcast half an hour on this frequency every day. One studio acted as the lead studio. The connected studios transferred their programs to the master studio, which broadcast the programs. The Erfurt studio acted as the lead studio for the Suhl and Gera studios.
Berlin I
- Erfurt = Gera - Suhl
Berlin II
Berlin III
The Gera studio in the 1950s
The following years were a time of experimentation, both for the central and even more so for the regional programs - with regard to the frequencies, the transmission times and the respective broadcasting network of the regional programs.
The broadcasts from Gera initially took place on the medium-wave transmitter Erfurt, which, however, could hardly be received in Gera. The medium wave transmitter Dresden turned out to be cheaper for the transmission area of the Studio Gera. Therefore, from 1955, Studio Gera used a Dresden frequency of the Studios Dresden and Karl-Marx-Stadt with Dresden as the lead studio for its series "Der Geraer Bezirksreporter", which means that Studio Dresden now also functioned as the lead studio for Gera.
Like all other studios, Studio Gera also produced programs in the central program in addition to regional offers.
In 1955, the GDR radio returned to the system of radio stations co-existing with their own names and directors ( Berliner Rundfunk , Radio DDR and Deutschlandsender ). The larger district studios were again broadcast houses, to which smaller studios were affiliated. The Funkhaus Dresden and the studios Karl-Marx-Stadt and Gera formed a broadcast network.
From the beginning of 1956, radio houses and studios were subordinate to Radio GDR and were integrated into its program structure. Potsdam and Frankfurt were assigned to the Berlin radio from 1958 to 1970.
From February 1956 Studio Gera belonged to the Weimar - Erfurt - Gera - Suhl broadcasting network.
The Funkhaus Weimar had been used as a radio school from 1952 to 1955 and was reactivated in 1955. Broadcasting operations had been relocated from the Erfurt studio back to Weimar.
Studio Gera thus produced supplies for the Weimar program, but also for the central programs in Berlin and Leipzig.
In contrast to Studio Suhl, Studio Gera did not create its own regional windows within the Weimar regional program because there was no suitable frequency for them.
In May 1956, the Gera OB van was moved to Weimar. In Gera there was only one technician left in addition to the editorial staff. The scope of production therefore had to be reduced somewhat. Nevertheless, during this time the studio produced and transferred an average of 23 to 25 recordings with 180 to 200 minutes of broadcasting each month. On December 30, 1957, the OB van was relocated from Studio Suhl to Gera.
Flood damage in the Gera studio
On July 12, 1954, massive rainfall in the Greiz-Plauen region led to flooding of the White Elster, which flows directly near the Gera studio. On July 13, 1954, the river overflowed its banks at around 7 a.m. The basement rooms had to be evacuated, around noon the studio was surrounded by a water surface. The telephone connection collapsed at 2 p.m., and the gas and water supplies went out in the evening. The above-ground line voltage feed, however, withstood until about 10 p.m. The highest water level of these days was later marked at a height of more than 2 meters on the 400-year-old oak in the garden of the property. On July 16, the deputy of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, Gerhard Probst and Wolfgang Kleinert - who later became director of Radio GDR for many years - visited the Gera studio to get an idea of the situation.
The OB vehicle was brought out of the flood area in good time so that the studio staff could create 15 reports and one broadcast in the OB vehicle during the flood and transfer them from the Gera Post Office to Berlin or Leipzig.
By the afternoon of July 17, 1954, the damaged studio cable was repaired by Deutsche Post, and Studio Gera resumed production and broadcasting operations.
The Gera studio from 1960 to 1964
On February 12, 1960, Studio Gera moved from its domicile in Dimitroffallee to Villa Meyer at Julius-Sturm-Strasse 6 ⊙ and started work there on February 15, 1960.
In the old studio building, renovation and expansion work was not possible, which is why the GDR broadcasting company tried to use this Bauhaus villa built by Thilo Schoder in 1923 from autumn 1958 . After tough negotiations with the city council of Gera and with the support of the SED district management, the studio was granted the right of use on April 1, 1959.
After the renovation work was completed, the studio had the following available for its work: a sound recording (for three R28 and one R29), a cutter room, a speaker room, a measuring room, a workshop, a battery room for stationary batteries, a storage room for portable batteries and a device store . The sound recording and speaker room remained a temporary solution for five years. There was no line of sight between the two rooms, which made production operations considerably more difficult.
In 1960 a solution to the frequency problem was found, and Studio Gera used an FM frequency from the Karl-Marx-Stadt studio at Katzenstein. Starting June 14, 1960, the studio broadcast the district magazine "Rund um das Hermsdorfer Kreuz" on Tuesdays and Fridays for 25 minutes outside of the Weimar regional program. The Karl-Marx-Stadt studio broadcast three times a week on this frequency. Nevertheless, Gera still belonged to the Weimar - Erfurt - Gera - Suhl broadcasting network and produced supplies for the Weimar broadcasting company - and of course also for the central programs. In September 1962, for example, there were 42 transfers totaling 376 minutes for Weimar, Berlin and Leipzig. In addition, the studio technology of the studio took over the technical implementation for productions of the central programs - from May 1962 also for the Berlin radio.
Like all other radio houses and studios subordinate to Radio GDR, from January 1963 Weimar, Gera and Suhl broadcast a daily joint regional program uniformly on a Radio GDR II frequency: Mondays to Saturdays from 6:00 p.m. to 6:55 p.m. and Sundays from 7:10 a.m. to 11 a.m. 00 o'clock. The Funkhaus Weimar was in charge of this regional program. The Gera studio discontinued regional broadcasts on the Karl-Marx-Städter FM frequency.
Broadcasting in the region from 1964 to 1990
The 1960s and 1970s were years in which GDR broadcasting achieved a level of continuity in regional broadcasting, which went hand in hand with a gradual increase in regional offers, which were again expanded considerably in the 1980s.
Uniform regional offers from 1964
After twelve years of experimentation, in June 1964 the regional programs were again restructured, which should ultimately lead to continuity in terms of frequencies, broadcast times and broadcast networks. Listener research had shown that the audience ratings were highest in the early hours of the morning and in the morning. On average, most GDR residents listened to the radio for around 40 minutes in the morning. This prompted the GDR broadcasters to broadcast six regional programs from 6:05 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on the frequencies of Radio DDR II - with the exception of Rostock and Cottbus, all of them in a broadcasting network in which one or two studios were assigned to a broadcasting house Neubrandenburg was initially the first studio to broadcast a regional window between 6:05 and 7:57 am within the Schwerin / Neubrandenburg network.
Radio DDR broadcast the following regional offers on its second program:
- Neubrandenburg
- Cottbus (with Studio Bautzen )
- Dresden - Karl-Marx-Stadt
- Weimar (with office in Erfurt) - Gera - Suhl
- Leipzig - Halle - Magdeburg
The Potsdam transmitter and the Frankfurt (Oder) studio continued to belong to the Berliner Rundfunk until 1970 and broadcast on its frequencies - Potsdam on weekdays from 6:05 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. and from 12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. Clock, Frankfurt from 12:30 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. - later at other times, but as the only district station not in the early hours of the morning.
The regional program Weimar / Gera / Suhl
The regional program Weimar / Gera / Suhl was a joint program of the Funkhaus Weimar with the studios Gera, Suhl and Erfurt. The Erfurt studio acted as a correspondent's office for reporting from the district town. Weimar was the only district broadcasting company that was not based in a district town.
Over the years, the Weimar program consisted of an early-morning magazine, usually followed by a music program and an entertaining regional magazine or on-site reports, as well as greetings and wishes.
The Gera, Suhl and Erfurt studios were involved in this regional program with supplies.
In October 1968, the weekday morning broadcasts from Weimar began an hour earlier at 5:05 a.m., and from 1984 the weekday broadcasts started at 4:05 a.m. From May 1986 onwards, Weimar also broadcast on newly allocated frequencies between 10:00 and 13:00.
From 1977 the Funkhaus Weimar broadcast completely in stereo .
Due to a lack of VHF frequencies, the regional program Weimar / Gera / Suhl was the only broadcast network in which the studios assigned to it did not broadcast any regional regional windows in the form of a morning magazine.
This remained so, although in the 1980s the other studios had extended their broadcasting times considerably and in the second half of the 1980s the Thuringian regional program was broadcast over five VHF frequencies, which would have allowed the district to separate. It is possible that the GDR radio even had plans in this regard that could not be implemented due to the events of the 1989/90 turning point .
The other studios - they operated as broadcasters from December 1987 ... - produced regional windows within a broadcast network, the broadcasting times of which increased to three hours by 1978 and again to five to six hours by 1987.
Supplies from the Gera studio for the central programs
In addition to the supplies for the Weimar program, the Gera, Suhl and Erfurt studios also produced for the central programs. For Studio Gera, this included, in addition to the transfer of contributions, live broadcasts in magazine programs and on-demand productions, the design of the two-hour program Today from Studio Gera - until 1986 about once a year in the night from Friday to Saturday from 0:05 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. - and for and with Radio DDR in preparation for special major events such as party conferences or round national holidays, district special programs in the central program of Radio DDR.
Response to broadcasts from Studio Gera
Frequent changes of frequencies, the broadcast network and broadcast times and other circumstances had a very negative effect on the reception of regional offers in the 1950s and early 1960s, which also applied to the productions of the Gera studio.
From June 1964 it also proved to be unfavorable for the acceptance of regional programs that two radio programs had to share one frequency on the allocated frequencies that had nothing in common with each other in terms of the program mandate and its design. The regional programs - including the Weimar program in which Studio Gera participated - were familiar, homely and entertaining, while Radio DDR II, on the other hand, was a cultural and educational channel with a lot of classical and serious music and a high proportion of verbal contributions, so that after switching to the central program at 10:00 a.m. always led to a style break, or the listener switched to another wave and back again the next day. The exclusive broadcasting on VHF and the low level of equipment in GDR households with VHF radio receivers in the 1950s and 1960s and in some cases still in the 1970s also had a negative effect on the reception of regional programs.
Only the expansion of the regional offer from Weimar from 1984 onwards showed a positive effect on listener behavior. Thus, broadcasting on DT 64 frequencies avoided too strong a style break when connecting to this program after broadcasting ended. The meanwhile increased equipment level of VHF radio receivers certainly also had a positive effect on listener behavior. The central programs were left behind in terms of audience ratings.
Since the Studio Gera usually produced supplies - and some of them anonymously - the radio listener of the Weimar regional program, but also the listener of the central programs, hardly noticed the Studio Gera.
Time of political upheaval and after reunification
The time of political upheaval in all GDR districts - the future countries - was characterized by the endeavor to reorganize the entire editorial and technical production potential of radio and television in the region in order to build an independent radio system at the state level, independent of the headquarters in Berlin.
Thuringian radio from 1990
From the summer of 1990 the four radio locations Weimar, Gera, Suhl and Erfurt were called Thüringer Rundfunk and broadcast the Thuringia 1 program from 5:05 a.m. to midnight - primarily from the Weimar radio station. This increased the transmission time from 9 to 19 hours. Only the night tracks for the new program were produced and broadcast by the Funkhaus in Berlin.
MDR-Landesfunkhaus Thuringia from 1992
The state of Thuringia, which by and large emerged from the three districts of Erfurt, Gera and Suhl, reached an agreement relatively quickly with the states of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt in 1991 on the establishment of the three-state company Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk - MDR . Since then, the MDR has maintained a state broadcasting company in Thuringia - it has been based in Erfurt since 2000 - for which Studio Gera still produces supplies.
However, after the fall of the Wall, the Gera studio moved again and left the villa on Julius-Sturm-Straße. The new studio was now again in the former Dimitroff-Allee, which was now called Küchengartenallee again, diagonally across from the first Gera studio in house number 6, the "Villa Nolle". This situation took revenge again when the white Elster flooded in June 2013 . The rooms of the MDR studio and one of the rented TV production facilities were under water and had to be abandoned. Both the MDR regional studio Gera and the TV production moved into new premises in the city center.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Villa Bloch
- ↑ Program part in Der Rundfunk , born 1953 (1–52), © Ed .: State Broadcasting Committee of the GDR via Henschelverlag Art and Society Berlin (GDR) 1953
- ^ LIA archive Wegner, LIA Hamburg
- ↑ Villa Meyer with photos
- ↑ Horst Zänger: Stories from 50 Years of Broadcasting - Chronicle of the State Broadcasting Corporation Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Verlag Reinhard-Thon Schwerin 1995
- ^ Heide Riedel in radio and television in the GDR - function, structure and program of radio in the GDR, published by the Deutsches Rundfunk-Museum e. V., Berlin (West), in Literarischer Verlag Helmut Braun KG, Cologne 1977
- ↑ LIA Wegner, ibid
- ^ Program part in Der Rundfunk, 1952–1964, Ed .: State Broadcasting Committee of the GDR via Henschelverlag Art and Society Berlin (GDR) 1952–1964
- ↑ Christian Handwerck: The forgotten transmitter, in http://www.history-weimar.de/sender/pdf/FG205_Seiten%20148-151_Weimar.pdf
- ^ Collective of authors: Summary of documents on the development of radio technology in the GDR up to 1967 . Ed .: Deutsche Post der GDR, studio technology broadcast. tape 1 . Berlin December 1988, p. 176-182 .
- ↑ Program part and contributions in FF-It. Born 1964–1978, Berliner Verlag Berlin (GDR) 1964–1978
- ↑ LIA Wegner, ibid
- ↑ Program part and contributions in FF-It. Years 1964–1978, ibid
- ↑ LIA-Wegner, ibid
- ↑ Program part and contributions in FF-It. Born 1978–1990, Berliner Verlag Berlin (GDR) 1978–1990
- ↑ LIA-Wegner, ibid
- ↑ Horst Zänger, ibid
- ↑ Program part and contributions in FF-It. Years 1978–1990, ibid
- ^ LIA Archive Wegner, ibid
- ^ LIA Archive Wegner, ibid
- ^ Author collective, ibid