In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR broadcasts for the German states of Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein.

In 1934 it was incorporated into the Großdeutscher Rundfunk, the national broadcaster controlled by Joseph Goebbels's Propagandaministerium, as Reichssender Hamburg.

In 1930, NORAG commissioned the Welte-Funkorgel – a large theatre organ custom-built by the firm of M. Welte & Sons to meet the specific acoustic requirements of radio broadcasting – and installed it in their radio studio (today the world's oldest such facility still in use) on Rothenbaumchaussee 132, Hamburg, where it continues to be played, now maintained by volunteers.

[1] In the British Zone of occupied Germany, the military authorities quickly established Radio Hamburg to provide information to the population of the area.

The British Control Commission appointed Hugh Greene to manage the creation of public service broadcasting in their Zone.

In February 1955, North Rhine-Westphalia decided to establish its broadcaster, whilst Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein continued with the existing joint system.

The NWDR television service also remained a joint operation, from 1 April 1956 under the name Nord- und Westdeutsche Rundfunkverband (North and West German Broadcasting Federation – NWRV).

In 1958 Han Koller became the musical director of Hamburg's NDR Jazz Workshop, which became a popular radio broadcast.

Numerous names in Jazz performed on these broadcasts including; Dave Brubeck, Kenny Clarke, Lucky Thompson, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Griffin, Oscar Peterson, Ben Webster, Sahib Shihab, Carmell Jones, Lee Konitz, Cecil Payne, Slide Hampton, Phil Woods, Jazz Composers Orchestra, Howard Riley, Barry Guy, John Surman, the Kuhn Brothers and Barney Wilen.

On 4 January 1965 NDR, Radio Bremen and Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) began a joint "third channel" television service, Norddeutsches Fernsehen, later Nord 3 and N3.

Roughly around 1983–1984, "Subways of Your Mind" was recorded from NDR2, with the title of the song remaining completely unknown until forty years after it was played on NDR2.

There are also regional studios, having both radio and television production facilities, in the state capitals Hanover, Kiel and Schwerin.

NDR 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.