WDR

WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) is a German public-broadcasting institution serving the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, headquartered in Cologne with ten further regional studios. It was created in 1955 when the post-war Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR) split into Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), covering Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg, and WDR. WDR is a constituent member of ARD, the consortium of German public broadcasters, contributing to the national channel Das Erste alongside its own regional television service, WDR Fernsehen, and six regional radio networks. It is funded chiefly by the German broadcasting licence fee, supplemented by limited on-air advertising.

This week WDR's sports desk, WDR Sportschau, was named among the IBC 2026 Innovation Awards nominees in the agentic-editing field, alongside Limecraft and the Formula E/Google entry, for its work with deliver.media. WDR Sportschau is tracked as a separate entity; this record covers the parent broadcaster.