Luxembourg the media country
Did you know that the name of RTL, one of the world’s leading media companies, means nothing more than Radio Tele Luxembourg? I always thought those guys were German but turns up they’re right here in the Grand Duchy. Cool.
There are some historic connections here too… older people in Estonia (maybe elsewhere, but that’s where I’ve picked it up) sometimes nostalgically refer to Radio Luxembourg (“raadio Luksemburg”) as something they could listen to even during the Soviet times as the signal was quite reachable.
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At the beginning, RTL was made for France. It was called RTL because the signal was sent from Luxembourg. Europe N°1, the biggest private comptetitor, was sending its signal from Germany. Why? Because French law didn’t allow private operators to broadcast, at some time…
Luxembourg was chosen because of its legal background for emitting, and because it was close to France…
Today, RTL is German… it is owned by Bertelsmann…
Interesting thing:
Originally, Radio Luxembourg’s English service (launched 1933) was on longwave @ 1293 metres/233 kHz, moving to its legendary 208 metres/1440 kHz medium wave in 1951 thanks to frequency reallocations per the Copenhagen Plan.
And from the start, the British officially never took kindly to Radio Luxembourg, seeing them as “pirates” and worse. But radio audiences fed up with the BBC’s stale, predictable style found “Luxy” more comfortable.
And speaking of Radio Luxembourg: Imagine this as a rather interesting backdrop to a fantasia trans-Atlantic….