Radio LOTTE Weimar: New license ensures local reporting until 2027!

Radio LOTTE Weimar: New license ensures local reporting until 2027!

The local radio Radio LOTTE Weimar can look forward to a positive development: On November 4, 2025, the Thuringian State Media Authority (TLM) unanimously decided to grant the station a new broadcasting license for two years. This license secures broadcasting operations until at least 2027 and gives the team around program director Maria Antonia Smalley and managing director Stefan Schmidt the opportunity to comprehensively revise the program.

The new license period follows a turbulent period in which the previous license was shortened to two years due to organizational ambiguity and staff turnover. In addition to Smalley and Schmidt, the management team brings experienced personalities such as Gerhardt Klein and Dr. Dieter Ehrle with different skills. Dr. Mathias Buss acts as an advisory board and supports the redesign of the program.

Restructuring of the program

The goals of the new license period are ambitious: a comprehensive restructuring of the program and organization as well as new formats for activating listener participation are planned. Radio producers focus on cultural policy, local reporting and innovative participation formats. Because it is precisely the involvement of the community that is essential for Radio LOTTE, which has been a non-commercial local radio and citizens' medium since 1999.

The program is designed by a dedicated team of full-time and more than 120 volunteers. This diversity makes it possible to offer interesting articles on culture, local politics and social issues on a daily basis. Special formats, such as the open-access “Okay Window”, give interested citizens the opportunity to participate creatively.

From the past to the future

Radio LOTTE Weimar has made a name for itself over the years. The station is not only anchored locally, but also caused a stir nationally through its reporting on the NSU trial until July 2018. The idea behind the name of the station refers to the novel “Lotte in Weimar” by Thomas Mann and is at the same time a homage to the Weimar river Lotte.

In order to provide listeners with access, Radio LOTTE broadcasts terrestrially on 106.6 MHz in Weimar and the surrounding area and on cable on 107.9 MHz. The contributions can also be received via live stream on the Internet. The radio is financed primarily through the Lotte Club, which has over 500 members, and funding from the Thuringian State Media Authority. To this day, the station remains advertising-free and pursues its own, advertising-independent concept.

With this new license a breath of fresh air is blowing in Weimar's radio landscape. Radio LOTTE Weimar has the potential to continue to grow as an essential medium for the local community and tell relevant stories.

If you would like to find out more about the current developments and the program, you can read about it on the [Radio LOTTE Weimar] website (https://www.radiolotte.de/radio/radio-lotte-weimar-erhaelt-neue-sendeLICense-44001.html). Further background information can also be found at Wikipedia.