Who would have thought that my university had a real journalistic powerhouse?

I didn't know it until last year, and neither did my friends - in fact, very few people on campus know that campus media exist.

Your own video production, for example.

Or university radio, which broadcasts with 30 watts but perhaps reaches more lost taxi drivers than students.

All this is financed by our semester contribution.

1.50 euros per semester go for it in Düsseldorf, so a pretty cheap, albeit involuntary, mini-subscription.

My radio consumption is limited to a few driving hours a month.

Most of the time I listen to my own music there too.

Nevertheless, at the beginning of my studies I reported to the campus radio in Düsseldorf.

I urgently wanted to try radio, meet new people, hear my own voice in a post.

I then produced one, at one of ten production sites, in one of two radio studios.

I was impressed by the technology there – the radio is state-of-the-art.

The editorial office is in the middle of a dormitory next to the campus and occupies two flat shares.

But when my contact person proudly told me that a special program had an estimated audience of more than twenty, I was taken aback.

Wait, all those two studios, all the tech, all the effort of like 40 cast members, all for audiences that low?

And then I did the math.

There are around 34,000 students at my university.

If the campus media gets one and a half euros per head, that's about 51,000 euros per semester.

For more than twenty listeners on a good day?

Plurality almost without an audience?

Andreas Meske is a campus media professional and has been on the board of university radio for many years.

His last contribution was broadcast in 2006, at the end of his studies.

Today he helps with the organization and training of around 40 student hobby editors.

He says: The quota, the number of listeners and viewers is actually not that important.

Production is also done to create plurality in the media landscape.

Campus media would have an effect both internally and externally.

They not only create programs for the people in the universities, but also carry topics from the university to society.

Then Meske lists an achievement that I hadn't thought of before: Every enrolled student can take part and get involved.

In the media landscape that doesn't have much space or patience for beginners, this is a great opportunity.

According to Meske, he feels that about half of the participants then go into the media.

With the campus media, they can bring what they want to, kill boredom, get to know people and acquire radio skills on the radio and online without any pressure on ratings.

The hierarchies would be very flat.

How many clicks a post gets on the web is not recorded, says Meske.

Nobody knows exactly how many actually listen to the programs.

To do this, the campus radio in Düsseldorf would have to take part in listener surveys, like all the major broadcasters do.

But that would be far too expensive.