Description
Deutsche Welle or DW is a German public international broadcaster. The service is available in 30 languages. DW's satellite television service consists of channels in English, German, Spanish, and Arabic. While funded by the German government, the work of DW is regulated by the Deutsche Welle Act, meaning that content is intended to be independent of government influence. DW is a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
DW offers regularly updated articles on its news website and runs its own center for international media development, DW Akademie. The broadcaster's stated goals are to produce reliable news coverage, provide access to the German language, and promote understanding between peoples. DW has developed a two-tier strategy to service their audience in the upcoming years: "a global approach aimed at disseminating information to a larger worldwide audience through expansion of international television services in English, Spanish, Arabic, and German and a regional approach focused on providing information tailored to the needs of particular regions, primarily through the Internet."[7]
DW has been broadcasting since 1953. It is headquartered in Bonn, where its radio programmes are produced. Television broadcasts are produced almost entirely in Berlin. Both locations create content for DW's news website.
It is also a provider of live streaming world news which can be viewed via its website, YouTube, and various mobile devices and digital media players.
As of 2018, around 1,500 employees and 1,500 freelancers from 60 countries work for Deutsche Welle in its offices in Bonn and Berlin. The Director-General of DW is Peter Limbourg.
On 22 June 2015, DW TV launched a 24-hour English-language news channel with a new design and a new studio as part of a rebrand to DW News. Previously, DW's news programmes were called Journal and broadcast in English in 3-, 15- and 30-minute blocks. The new channel offers 30-minute updates every hour and 60-minute programmes twice a day on weekdays. DW News broadcasts from Berlin but frequently has live social media segments hosted from a specially-designed studio in Bonn. The German, Spanish and Arabic channels also received a new design.
At the same time, DW's news website moved from a .de URL to .com and added a social media stream to its front page. The refreshed DW services were launched under the tagline 'Made for Minds'.
