Bundespräsident Johannes Rau inaugurated the new Broadcasting House during an official Ceremony

The new broadcasting house in Bonn  
 
The removal of DW-center from Cologne to Bonn is done. Mid of September 2003 the new broadcasting house will be in full operation.

"Hier ist die Deutsche Welle Bonn" – this is the new international announcement since Juli 2003. Though, until so 250 trucks will have to move about 10.000 cubic meters of equipment and furniture from Cologne to Bonn. It will be a logistical masterpiece to move the editorial staff of DW-RADIO and DW-WORLD.DE and the training center DWFZ without beeing able to interrupt their work.

All's well that ends well

The new broadcasting house the relocation finalizes a long story of scandals. In early 1989 construction works began for the building commonly known as the Schürmann Bau. Though, initially the facilities should house new offices for members of parliament. Reunification and relocation of German government to Berlin made the need for the new building redundant even before it was completed. Another impact had mother nature: the high water of the river Rhine flooded the building shell in December 1993 and caused severe damage to the construction. The disaster was perfect.

After all that the building advanced to become Germany's most famous construction ruin. Finally the German federation decided for a costly redevelopment. The new challenge for the architects: a former office building needed adaption to a complex broadcasting house.

The impressive result: bright white, light-flooded rooms, lots of glas and clear line management added up to a harmonized and modern example of architecture. This was the general commendation of German press in 2002, when the building was handed over. A perfect environment for creative work. With view on the Rhine Director General Erik Bettermann comments "It might get difficult to find a broadcasting house in such beautiful scenic environment."

The broadcasting house in Kurt-Schumacher-Straße is a combination of 9 independent building blocks, each of them with 3-4 floors. They are connected via open bridges and hallways. The overall floorspace is 160.000 square meters.

Europe's most advanced broadcasting house

Each of the 7 networks has its own on air suite. They are equally equipped with 2 on air continuity control rooms and 2 announcer booths each. One of each announcer booth is equipped with on air equipment and may also be used as a self op cubicle. The design secures reasonable resilience.

For more elaborate production work there are 9 production suites. One of them may also be used for TV applications. Compared to the old facilities with its 45 studios the new work-flows allow for dramatic reduction of studio space. Many of the journalists now do there own preparations on audio workstations. For this purpose more than 50 AWS (audio workstations) are available in simple office rooms with some acoustical treatment. For general preparation another 150 edit suites exist.

The audio production, scheduling and playout is handled through one of the largest DALET installation worldwide. Thum + Mahr installed the system first in 1996 and since developed and extended the system up to its current size. Complex integration to third party systems has been added since the early days of moving to digital. For instance, Thum + Mahr broadcast gateway technology I.D.O.L. guarantees smooth workflows with third party systems such as an IBM archiving system, newsroom system and Germany's federal broadcasters program exchange system "Sternpunkt".

The relocation is a premier: first time ever a complete public broadcasting house was moved to another place without interruption of any on air service. More than 100 servers, all telecoms, audio workstations needed relocation without any interruption. This was solved by leased multiple broadband connections between the two locations. Users moved step by step and still had access to all systems, whether still in Cologne or already moved to Bonn. Many of them did not even know whether the PBX was already in Bonn or whether they acces an audio server in Cologne - though working on an audio workstation in the new premises. In the background a logistical masterpiece cared about the physical move of equipment.

In early fall 2003 the move was done!

The technolgy of the new broadcasting house at a glance:

• seven on air suits with 2 control rooms and two announcer booths each
• nine production suits, one of them available for TV production 
• central control room for 30 transmission links
• 50 audio workstations
• 150 editing workstations
• 40 satellite dishes