Deutsche Welle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the German international broadcaster. For the unconnected German radio company of the 1920s and 30s, see Deutsche Welle GmbH. For information about the musical genre, see Neue Deutsche Welle.

Deutsche Welle or DW is a German international broadcaster. It broadcasts news and information on shortwave, Internet and satellite radio in 29 languages (DW-RADIO). It has a satellite television service (DW-TV) that is available in four languages, and there is also DW-WORLD.DE, a 30-language online news site. Deutsche Welle, which in English means "German Wave", is similar to international broadcasters such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America, and Radio France Internationale.

The Deutsche Welle building in Bonn

Deutsche Welle has broadcasted regularly since 1953. Until 2003 it was based in Cologne, but relocated that year to a new building in Bonn's former government office area. The television broadcasts are produced in Berlin. Deutsche Welle's World Wide Web site DW-WORLD.DE is produced in both Berlin and Bonn.

1 History
2 Shortwave relay stations
3 General Directors
4 Deutsche Welle services
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Deutsche Welle was inaugurated on 3 May 1953, with an address by German President Theodor Heuss as its first shortwave broadcast. On 11 June 1953, the public broadcasters in the ARD signed an agreement to share responsibility for Deutsche Welle. At first, it was controlled by Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR). In 1955, when this split into the separate Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) networks, WDR assumed responsibility for Deutsche Welle programming.

[edit] Expansion of supported languages

In 1954, Deutsche Welle started to broadcast programming in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

In 1960, Deutsche Welle became an independent public body, which on 7 June 1962 joined the ARD as a national broadcasting station.

Also in 1962, service was added in other languages: Persian, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Serbo-Croatian (now separate Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian services).

In 1963, these languages were joined by Swahili and Hausa, Indonesian, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Slovenian services.

In 1964 and 1970, the linguistic plurality was extended another time to include Greek, Italian, Hindi and Urdu, as well as Pashtu and Dari.

In 1992, Albanian was added

In 2000, DW began its Ukrainian service.

[edit] German reunification

With German reunification in 1990, Radio Berlin International (RBI) of the GDR ceased to exist. Some of the staff and personnel of RBI joined the Deutsche Welle, and it inherited some broadcasting apparatus, including the transmitting facilities at Nauen as well as RBI's frequencies.

DW-TV began as RIAS-TV, a television station launched by the West Berlin broadcaster RIAS (Radio in the American Sector / Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor) in mid-1989. The fall of the Berlin Wall later that year and German reunification in 1990 meant that RIAS was to be closed down. On 1 April 1992, Deutsche Welle inherited the RIAS-TV broadcast facilities, using them to start a German and English language television channel broadcast via satellite, DW-TV, adding a short Spanish broadcast segment the following year. In 1995, it began 24-hour operation (12 hours German, 10 hours English, 2 hours Spanish). At that time, DW TV introduced a new news studio and a new logo.

Deutsche Welle took over some of the former independent radio broadcasting service Deutschlandfunk's foreign language programming in 1993, when Deutschlandfunk was absorbed into the new Deutschlandradio.

[edit] World Wide Web presence

In late 1994, Deutsche Welle was the first public broadcaster in Germany with a World Wide Web presence, which at the time was (www.dwelle.de), although for its first two years the site listed little more than contact addresses. This later evolved into the current 30-language Web site. DW-WORLD.DE

The Internet news site offers daily exclusive coverage in seven core languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese for Brazil and Russian) as well as a mixture of news and information in 23 other languages corresponding to Deutsche Welle's radio programs. Persian is scheduled to become DW-WORLD.DE's eighth language with an independent editorial team in 2007.

German and European news are DW-WORLD.DE's central focus, but the site also offers background information regarding Germany and German language courses.

The site can be viewed in a special version for mobile devices and its radio and television broadcasts are available on line.

[edit] Recent events

In 2001, Deutsche Welle joined with ARD and ZDF to found the German TV pay TV channel for North America. It was announced in 2005 that it would shut down, after subscriber numbers failed to approach expectations possibly due to the relatively high subscription fees. DW-TV has replaced German TV as a pay service in the United States.

DW-TV currently broadcasts on satellite television in the United Kingdom (Sky Channel 801). It alternates every hour between English and German with the news (Journal) on the hour.

Unlike most other international broadcasters, DW-TV does not charge terrestrial stations for use of its programming, and as a result its News Journal and other programs are rebroadcast on numerous public broadcasting stations in several countries, such as the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

Deutsche Welle is still suffering from financial and personnel cuts. Its budget was downsized by about €75 million over five years and of the 2,200 employees it had in 1994, 1,200 remain. Further cuts are still expected.

In 2003, the German government passed a new "Deutsche Welle Law", which defined DW as a three-media organization -- making DW-WORLD.DE an equal partner with DW-TV and DW-RADIO. DW-WORLD.DE is available in 30 languages, but focuses on German, English, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese for Brazil, Chinese and Arabic. Persian will become the eighth focus language in 2007.

[edit] Shortwave relay stations

[edit] Domestic Shortwave Relay Stations

Nauen, Brandenburg

4 x 500 kW SW transmitters, each with Thomcast rotating antenna
GDR-era rotatable SW antenna on standby (unique design)

Shortwave transmitter Jülich

[edit] External Shortwave Relay Stations

Trincomalee, Sri Lanka

3 x 250 kW shortwave transmitters
1 x 400 kW mediumwave transmitter
20 antennas (to be verified)

Kigali, Rwanda

site destroyed by 1990s civil war
4 x 250 kW shortwave transmitters

Sines, Portugal

3 x 250 kW shortwave transmitters

[edit] Relay Stations leasing transmitter time to DW

DW leases time on the following relay stations

Novosibirsk, Russia
Irkutsk, Russia
Alma Ata, Kazakhstan
Kranji, Singapore (BBC Far Eastern Relay Station)
Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles (Radio Netherlands)
Talata Volonondry, Madagascar (Radio Netherlands)
Dhabayya, United Arab Emirates

[edit] General Directors

12 October 1960 - 29 February 1968: Dr. Dr. rer.pol. h.c. Hans Otto Wesemann
1 March 1968 - 29 February 1980: Walter Steigner
1 March 1980 - 8 December 1980: Conrad Ahlers
19 December 1980 - 30 June 1981: Dr. Heinz Fellhauer (interim)
1 July 1981 - 30 June 1987: Klaus Schütz
1 July 1987 - 30 June 1989: Dr. Heinz Fellhauer
1 July 1989 - 31 March 2001: Dieter Weirich
1 April 2001 - 30 September 2001: Dr. Reinhard Hartstein (interim as deputy intendant)
1 October 2001 - present: Erik Bettermann

[edit] Deutsche Welle services

DW-RADIO: shortwave, satellite, and digital radio broadcasting in 29 languages, with a 24-hour service in German and English
DW-TV: satellite television broadcasting mainly in German (usually in the odd hours UTC, thus the even hours in Germany), and English (usually in the even hours UTC), with brief segments in other languages (particularly Spanish in the 23 hour UTC)
DW-WORLD.DE: 30 language website