WDR is in part funded by the limited sale of on-air commercial advertising time; however, its principal source of income is the revenue derived from viewer and listener licence fees. As of 2015 the monthly fee due from each household for radio and television reception was €17.50. These fees are collected not directly by WDR but by a joint agency of ARD, ZDF, and Deutschlandradio.
Television
WDR began its regional television service, Westdeutsches Fernsehen, on 17 December 1965. On 27 August 1967 Germany turned on it first color TV program, WDF used a live broadcast from a Bosch Fernseh outside broadcast van to start broadcasting in color. In 1988 the channel was renamed West3; since 1994, it has been known as WDR Fernsehen. While the programmes are mainly run from their Cologne headquarters, they also have a number of sub-regional studios contributing a regular broadcast called Lokalzeit with the addition "aus Aachen", "OWL", "aus Bonn", "aus Dortmund", "aus Düsseldorf", "aus Duisburg", "Ruhr", "aus Köln", "Münsterland", "Südwestfalen" and "Bergisches Land" for each respective region. WDR has its current affairs and regional-politics studios in Düsseldorf. It has served as the production entity for network shows on Das Erste of ARD, such as Forbidden Love, which over the years introduced many young actors to the German audience, such as Andreas Stenschke, Jo Weil, Luca Zamperoni and Kay Böger. The TV-sport for the “First Channel” Das Erste is produced in Cologne, and WDR contributes to ARD Digital, 3sat and arte.
Radio
A long-running talk show on wheels was Hallo Ü-Wagen, running from 1974 to 2010, begun by Carmen Thomas. WDR's main radio channels are available on FM and digital, as well as via cable and satellite:
1LIVE is a popular music channel modelled on BBC Radio 1 and aimed at a young audience. Its schedules include such non-mainstream night-time programmes as "Heimatkult", focusing on pop music from Germany, and "Lauschangriff", a series of audio-books.
WDR 2, featuring adult-oriented popular music, focuses strongly on national and regional news, current affairs, and sport.
WDR 3, the cultural channel, offers mostly classical, jazz and world music as well as radio drama and spoken-word features dealing with literature and the performing arts.
WDR 4 is a channel aimed chiefly towards an older audience. Its focus is on tuneful music – in particular, oldies and classic hits: popular music of the 1960s to the 1980s or later – with more specialized programming in the evenings. Around 30-40% of WDR 4's musical output is made up of German-language songs.
WDR 5 features spoken-word programming with the focus on present-day culture and society. Between 6.05 and 9.45 each Monday to Saturday morning the channel offers news, background briefing, interviews, and correspondents' reports in a sequence entitled Morgenecho. The main lunchtime and early-evening news and current affairs programmes Mittagsecho and Echo des Tages are both co-productions with Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Hamburg. Additionally, WDR 2's 30-minute round-up of the day's most important news reports, Berichte von heute, is simulcast by WDR 5 on Monday to Friday evenings at 23.30. WDR 5 also carries children's programming from KiRaKa at 19.05–20.00 each evening as well as on Sundays at 7.05–8.00 and 14.05–15.00.
Cosmo is a channel principally aimed at serving immigrants and promoting integration. It features a wide selection of world music. It is not available over-the-air in every part of WDR's broadcasting area.
