Deutsche Welle

Deutsche Welle (German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃə ˈvɛlə]; "German Wave" in German) or DW is Germany's state run international broadcaster. The service is aimed towards audiences outside of Germany and is available via television, radio and the Internet. DW Radio broadcasts news and information in thirty languages and the satellite television service consists of channels in English, German, Spanish and Arabic.

DW also offers regularly updated articles on its online news website and runs its own center for international media development, DW Akademie. The broadcaster's stated goals are to convey Germany as a "liberal, democratic state based on the rule of law", to produce reliable news coverage and to provide access to the German language.

Deutsche Welle has been broadcasting since 1953. It is headquartered in Bonn, where its radio programmes are produced. Television broadcasts are produced almost entirely in Berlin. The responsibility for DW's news website is shared between the two locations.

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 It has since been replaced by the DW-TV channel (also a subscription service).