Radio SAW went on air on September 8, 1992, broadcasting its very first program out of a converted wallpaper factory in Magdeburg. It was the first private radio station licensed in the newly reunified state of Saxony-Anhalt, and more than three decades later it remains the region's private market leader, a rare feat in German regional radio. This Anhalt/Wittenberg stream carries that same signal into one of the state's most historically loaded corners.
From Wallpaper Factory to Market Leader
Radio SAW's early growth moved fast for a station born the year after German reunification. It relocated to a purpose-built facility in Magdeburg's Hansapark in 1995 and went digital soon after, then in 1997 broadcast one of the first livestreamed radio programs in Germany, an early bet on the internet that most stations would not make for years. The station's commercial break glissando, a synthesizer sweep marking the transition to and from ads, has reportedly stayed unchanged since that 1992 launch.
Reaching the SAW-Land
The station's coverage area, what locals call the "SAW-Land," stretches across Saxony-Anhalt into eastern Lower Saxony, western Saxony, western Brandenburg, and northern Thuringia, helped along by a transmitter on the Brocken, the highest peak in northern Germany. The Anhalt/Wittenberg stream is one of several regional feeds the station runs alongside Halle/Leipzig, Harz/Niedersachsen, and Magdeburg/Altmark, letting listeners tune a broadly consistent hits format to their own corner of the state.
Broadcasting From Luther's City
Wittenberg gives this particular stream unusual cultural weight. The town is where the Lutheran Reformation began, home to the Castle Church, the Lutherhaus, and the university that drew Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, and Lucas Cranach the Elder to the same small city in the 16th century. That ensemble earned UNESCO World Heritage status in 1996, four years after Radio SAW first went on air, meaning the station's regional history and the town's world-famous one have run in parallel almost from the start.
Why Tune In
Radio SAW is built for listeners who want dependable hits, news, and traffic tailored to their own stretch of Saxony-Anhalt rather than a generic national feed. For the Anhalt/Wittenberg stream specifically, that means a hits format broadcasting out of a region whose history, from the Reformation to reunification-era radio, runs deeper than most.