DW-TV

DW-TV (pronounced in German as `day-vay-tay-fow) is a set of television channels provided by Deutsche Welle. The channels concentrate on news and information and first started broadcasting 1 April 1992. They are broadcast on satellite and produced in Berlin.

History

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 the following 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, two hours Spanish). At that time DW (TV) introduced a new news studio and a new logo.

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 owing to low subscriber numbers. It has since been replaced by the DW-TV channel (also a subscription service).