detektor.fm Wort streams news, current affairs and in-depth talk from Leipzig, Germany, the spoken-word channel of a station that has spent more than fifteen years turning journalism into a listening habit. It is built for listeners who want discussion and reporting over music, covering politics, culture and society in German.
Started in 2009 With a Simple Idea
Co-founder and managing director Christian Bollert launched detektor.fm in 2009 alongside music chief Gregor Schenk, with a clear idea from the start: pair serious journalism with the kind of music format usually reserved for entertainment-only stations. That combination of reporting and curated sound set the station apart from both traditional public broadcasters and the purely musical internet stations that were multiplying at the same time.
From Online Radio to Podcast-Radio
Over the years the station shifted its center of gravity from live online radio toward on-demand podcasts, rebranding itself as what it now calls Germany's Podcast-Radio. That shift tracked a broader change in how German audiences consume spoken-word audio, moving away from scheduled broadcasts and toward series they can start and stop on their own time, while detektor.fm kept its live Wort stream running alongside the podcast catalog.
Fifteen Years, One Newsroom in Leipzig
The station marked its fifteenth anniversary in November 2024 with a party at Leipzig's UT Connewitz venue, a milestone for an outlet that has picked up recognition including the Grimme Online Award, the Deutscher Radiopreis and the Ernst-Schneider-Preis along the way. That run of awards from German public-interest broadcasting and journalism bodies points to a newsroom taken seriously well beyond its original online-only niche.
Press Play
For German-speaking listeners who want news and ideas discussed properly rather than skimmed in headlines, detektor.fm Wort offers a newsroom built specifically for listening. Tune in live on Radio Shuffle.