Deutsche Welle
 |
|
| Type | International public broadcaster |
|---|---|
| Country | Germany |
| Founded | May 3, 1953 |
| Broadcast area | National and International |
| Owner | Federal Republic of Germany |
| Launch date | May 3, 1953 |
| Website www.dw-world.de |
|
Deutsche Welle ('Welle' pronounced with a 'v' sound, IPA: /'vɛlə/) or DW, is Germany's 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 an online news site. Deutsche Welle, which in English means "German Wave", is similar to international broadcasters such as the BBC World Service, Radio Canada International, Voice of America, and Radio France Internationale.
Deutsche Welle has broadcast regularly since 1953. Until 2003 it was based in Cologne, when it relocated 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 is produced in both Berlin and Bonn.
Contents |
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. In 1960, Deutsche Welle became an independent public body, which on 7 June 1962 joined the ARD as a national broadcasting station.
Expansion of supported languages
- 1953: German
- 1954: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese
- 1962: Persian, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian
- 1963: Swahili, Hausa, Indonesian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Slovenian
- 1964: Greek, Italian, Hindi, Urdu
- 1970: Pashtu, Dari
- 1992: Albanian, Macedonian
- 2000: Ukrainian
Some language services have been discontinued, both due to financial cuts and an allegedly decreasing demand. In 1998, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch and Italian radio services were discontinued, as well as Sanskrit. 1999 was the last year for language services in Japanese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Czech and Hungarian.
German reunification
With German reunification in 1990, Radio Berlin International (RBI) of East Germany 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 August 1988. The fall of the Berlin Wall later that year and German reunification in 1990 meant that RIAS-TV 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.
In addition to radio and television programming, DW sponsored some published material. For example, the South Asia Department published German Heritage: A Series Written for the South Asia Programme in 1967 and in 1984, published African Writers on the Air. Both publications were transcript of DW programming.
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.
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 became DW-WORLD.DE's eighth focus language 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.
Recent events
In 2001, Deutsche Welle (in conjunction with ARD and ZDF) founded the German TV subscription TV channel for North American viewers. The project was shut down after four years due to low subscriber numbers. It has since been replaced by the DW-TV channel (also a subscription service).
DW-TV currently broadcasts on satellite television in the United Kingdom (Sky Channel 794), and cable television (Virgin Media Channel 830). It alternates every hour between English and German with the news (Journal) on the hour.
Unlike most other international broadcasters, DW-TV doesn't 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, including 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 the Deutsche Welle website an equal partner with DW-TV and DW-RADIO. The website is available in 30 languages, but focuses on German, English, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese for Brazil, Chinese and Arabic. Persian became the eighth focus language in 2007.
In April 2007, DW launched its own channel on the video platform YouTube.
Shortwave relay stations
Domestic shortwave relay stations
Transmitter sites
The Jülich radio transmitter site began operation in 1956, with eleven 100 kW Telefunken transmitters.
The Wertachtal site was authorized in 1962 and began service with four 500 kW transmitters. By 1989, there were 15 transmitters, four of which relayed the Voice of America.
The Nauen transmitter site was inherited from Radio Berlin International. RBI's Russian-made three 500 kW and one 100 kW transmitters were replaced by four Telefunken 500 kW transmitters and four rotatable transmitters.
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": A relay station in Kigali, Rwanda, provides coverage for Africa, but the site was destroyed by 1990s civil war
- 4 x 250 kW shortwave transmitters
- Sines, Portugal
- 3 x 250 kW shortwave transmitters
A relay station in Malta has three SW and one 600 kW- MW transmitter and gives partial coverage of the Americas, Southern Asia, and the Far East. [1] It was established in the early 1970s in exchange for a grant of nearly 1 million GBP.
Deutsche Welle shares a transmitting station in the Caribbean with the BBC, and has a relay-exchange with the CBC that allows DW to use two 250 kW transmitters in Sackville. [2]
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
Directors General
- 12 October 1960 - 29 February 1968: 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: Heinz Fellhauer (interim)
- 1 July 1981 - 30 June 1987: Klaus Schütz
- 1 July 1987 - 30 June 1989: Heinz Fellhauer
- 1 July 1989 - 31 March 2001: Dieter Weirich
- 1 April 2001 - 30 September 2001: Reinhard Hartstein (interim as deputy intendant)
- 1 October 2001 - present: Erik Bettermann
Deutsche Welle services
- DW Radio: shortwave, cable TV, 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, English, Arabic and Spanish. French and Italian will be coming soon in 2009. Portuguese and Chinese will be aired on 2010.
- DW-WORLD.DE: 30-language website
Slogan
See also
- Voice of Indonesia
- Radio Canada International
Notes and references
Books used as references in this article
- Wood 2000
- Wood, James. History of International Broadcasting. 2000, IET. ISBN 0852969201
- McPhail 2006
- McPhail, Thomas L. Global Communication: Theories, Stakeholders, and Trends. 2006, Blackwell Publishing. 357 pages. ISBN 1405134275
- Wallis and Baran 1990
- Wallis, Roger, and Stanley J. Baran. The Known World of Broadcast News: International News and the Electronic Media. 1990, Routledge. ISBN 0415036046
External links
- Official site
- How to watch Deutsche Welle via Satellite in North America
- germanizer.com
- study-in-germany.de Study and Research in Germany - Deutsche Welle portal
- The Bobs Deutsche Welle International Weblog Award
- Deutsche Welle as part of Germany's public diplomacy efforts, a compilation on Wikia.com
Video clips
|
||||||||
|
|||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||