Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor

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The RIAS building, now the headquarters of Deutschlandradio Kultur (April 2005)
The RIAS building, now the headquarters of Deutschlandradio Kultur (April 2005)

Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor (Radio in the American Sector), or RIAS was a radio station in the American Sector of Berlin during the Cold War. It was founded by the US occupational authorities after World War II to provide the German population in and around Berlin with unbiased news and political reporting. Listening to it in Soviet-controlled East Germany was discouraged. After the workers' riots in East Germany in 1953, which were the end result of the government's raising of food prices and factory production quotas, the Communist government blamed the incident on the RIAS and the CIA.

The orchestra also established by the US forces, called RIAS Symphonie Orchester, exists still under the name Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.

Its most important transmitter was the transmitter Berlin-Britz. For a better reception in the southern parts of Eastern Germany, RIAS had a second transmitter in Hof, Bavaria.

While the transmitter in Berlin-Britz is still in use, now transmitting the program of RIAS successor DeutschlandRadio Berlin (now known as Deutschlandradio Kultur), the RIAS transmitter in Hof no longer exists.

Coordinates: 52°28′51″N, 13°20′14″E