About the RTL Virtual Exhibition

Welcome to the virtual exhibition of the history of Radio Luxembourg / RTL. This exhibition is the result of a research seminar at the University of Luxembourg, curated by students of the Master in Contemporary European History under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Fickers.

Did you know that the history of Radio Luxembourg goes back to the 1920? It was in 1924 when the Anen brothers started the first experimental radio station in Luxembourg. In 1930, the state granted an exclusive license for radio broadcasting to the Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion (CLR), which was to become the Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT) in 1954 and ultimately RTL Group.

We invite you to explore this fascinating history by offering alternative narrative strategies:

• a collection of so-called ‘biographies‘, short research based stories exploring important structures and events of Luxembourgish broadcasting history with rich references to textual, sonic and audiovisual sources.
• a series of ‘storymaps’, experimenting with new ways of visualising the spatial dimension of broadcasting history
• a timeline, presenting a chronological overview of a century of important events in the political, economic, technical and cultural history of radio and television in Luxembourg
• a corpus of oral history interviews, exclusively produced by the students for the purpose of adding living memories to the exhibition project.

The project could only be realised thanks to the support of RTL Group  and the Media Lab of FLSHASE / UL. We are especially grateful for the advice of David Dominguez Muller (corporate historian at RTL Group), the team of curators / archivists at the Centre National de l’Audiovisuel (CNA) and Sascha Helsper (Media Lab / UL).

We hope you will enjoy the virtual exhibition!