Deutsche Welle (German: [ˈdɔʏtʃə ˈvɛlə] ; lit. 'German Wave'), commonly shortened to DW, is a German state-funded television network and public service international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service consists of channels in English, Spanish, Arabic and Russian. The work of DW is regulated by the Deutsche Welle Act, stating that content is intended to be independent of German 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 centre 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. It is also a provider of live streaming world news, which, like all DW programs, can be viewed and listened via its website, YouTube, satellite, rebroadcasting and various apps and digital media players.
DW has been broadcasting since 1953. It is headquartered in Bonn, where its radio programmes are produced, but television broadcasts are produced almost entirely in Berlin. Both locations create content for DW's news website. As of 2020, Deutsche Welle had 1,668 employees (annual average). In total, over 4,000 people of over 140 nationalities work in DW's offices in Bonn and Berlin, as well as at other locations worldwide.
History
Precursor
A predecessor with a similar name was Deutsche Welle GmbH, founded in August 1924 by German diplomat and radio pioneer Ernst Ludwig Voss in Berlin and broadcast regularly from 7 January 1926. The station was initially owned by 70% by Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft and 30% by the Free State of Prussia. From 1931 onwards, Deutsche Welle broadcast from the Berlin Broadcasting House. On 1 January 1933 Deutsche Welle GmbH was officially transferred to Deutschlandsender GmbH.
The station sees itself in the tradition of the first German foreign broadcaster, the Weltrundfunksender ('World Broadcaster') of the Weimar Republic. The Weltrundfunksender was renamed Deutscher Kurzwellensender ('German Shortwave Broadcaster') by the Nazis in 1933.
Beginnings
DW's first shortwave broadcast took place on 3 May 1953 with an address by the then-West German President, Theodor Heuss. On 11 June 1953, ARD public broadcasters signed an agreement to share responsibility for Deutsche Welle. At first, it was controlled by Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR). In 1955, NWDR split into Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), WDR assumed responsibility for Deutsche Welle programming.
Politically, the creation of a German international broadcasting station was supported by CDU chancellor Konrad Adenauer. To prevent governmental indoctrination in Germany, broadcasting is a matter of the federal states. In a years-long dispute between the Adenauer and the federal states of Germany, the federal government was allowed to create Deutschlandfunk aimed at GDR citizens and Deutsche Welle aimed at foreign audiences. In 1959, Adenauer presented a bill to establish three federal broadcasting companies: Deutschlandfunk, Deutsche Welle, and Deutschland-Fernsehen ('Germany-TV'). The Federal Constitutional Court stopped Adenauer's television plans. Radio, on the other hand, was permitted as a federal institution.
In 1960, Deutsche Welle became an independent public body after a court ruled that while broadcasting to Germany was a state matter, broadcasting from Germany was part of the federal government's foreign affairs function.
On 7 June 1962, DW joined ARD as a national broadcasting station. Deutsche Welle was originally headquartered in the West German city of Cologne. After reunification, when much of the government relocated to Berlin, the station's headquarters moved to Bonn.
German reunification
With the German reunification in 1990, Radio Berlin International (RBI), East Germany's international broadcaster ceased to exist. Some of the RBI staff joined Deutsche Welle and DW inherited some broadcasting facilities, including 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 (Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor, 'Radio in the American Sector') in August 1988; they also acquired the German Educational Television Network in the United States. 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, 2 hours Spanish). At that time, DW (TV) introduced a new news studio and a new logo.
Deutsche Welle took 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 transcripts of DW programming.
Internet presence
In September 1994, Deutsche Welle was the first public broadcaster in Germany with an internet presence, initially www-dw.gmd.de, hosted by the GMD Information Technology Research Center. For its first two years, the site listed little more than contact addresses, although DW's News Journal was broadcast in RealAudio from Real's server beginning in 1995, and Süddeutsche Zeitung's initial web presence, which included news articles from the newspaper, shared the site. In 1996, it evolved into a news website using the URL dwelle.de; in 2001, the URL changed to www.dw-world.de, and was changed again in 2012, to www.dw.de. Deutsche Welle purchased the domain dw.com, which previously belonged to DiamondWare, in 2013; DW had attempted to claim ownership of the address in 2000, without success. DW eventually moved to the www.dw.com domain on 22 June 2015. According to DW, their website delivers information by topic with an intuitive navigation organized to meet users' expectations. The layout offers more flexibility to feature pictures, videos, and in-depth reporting on the day's events in a multimedia and multilingual fashion. They also integrated their Media Center into the dw.de website making it easier for users to access videos, audio, and picture galleries from DW's multimedia archive of reports, programs, and coverage of special issues.
DW's news site is 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 in which Deutsche Welle broadcasts. Persian became the site's eighth focus language in 2007.
German and European news is DW's central focus, but the site also offers background information about German and German language courses. Deutsch, Warum Nicht? (literally: German, Why Not?) is a personal course for learning the German language, created by Deutsche Welle and the Goethe-Institut.
In 2003, the German government passed a new "Deutsche Welle Act", which defined DW as a tri-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, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, and Arabic. Persian became the eighth focus language in 2007.
In March 2009, DW-TV expanded its television services in Asia with two new channels, namely DW-TV Asia and DW-TV Asia+. DW-TV Asia (DW-TV Asien in German) contains 16 hours of German programming and 8 hours in English, whilst DW-TV Asia+ contains 18 hours of English programmes plus 6 hours of German programmes.
In August 2009, DW-TV's carriage in the United Kingdom on Sky channel 794 ceased, although the channel continues to be available via other European satellites receivable in the UK.
In 2011, DW announced a significant reduction of service including the closure of most of its FM services in the Balkans (except for Romani), but that it would expand its network of FM partners in Africa. The radio production for Hausa, Kiswahili, French, and Portuguese for Africa was optimized for FM broadcasts. DW also produces a regional radio magazine in English daily, which is to be rebroadcast by African partners.
Audio content in Arabic is distributed online, via mobile, or rebroadcast by partners.
DW announced it would focus on FM partnerships for Bengali, Urdu, Dari/Pashtu, and Indonesian for South Asia, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
On 1 November 2011, DW discontinued shortwave broadcasts in German, Russian, Persian, and Indonesian and ended its English service outside Africa. Chinese programming was reduced from 120 minutes to 60 minutes a week. As of November 2011, DW only broadcast radio programming via shortwave in Amharic, Chinese, Dari, English, and French for Africa, Hausa, Kiswahili, Pashtu, Portuguese for Africa and Urdu.
Rebranding television news
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'.
Plans for the future
Deutsche Welle has developed a two-tier approach that they are using for the future growth of their company which consists of a global approach and a regional approach. Within their global approach, DW has now made plans to boost its competitiveness market throughout the world with news and television coverage. The plan implements covering almost all regions of the world with two television channels in each region. With some exclusions, the entire world will be covered. Hours covered range throughout regions and the coverage will be in German, English, Spanish, and Arabic.
The regional approach looks at marketing over the Internet to offer news coverage in languages other than the 4 being offered. With updates on DW's website news will be better tailored to each region. Over time, they plan to diversify their online coverage with more regional content being covered.
The budget of the Deutsche Welle for 2016 was 301.8 million euros.
On 25 February 2018, DW-TV published "The Climate Cover Up – Big Oil's Campaign of Deception" (2018) after documents confirmed big oil companies have known the burning of fossil fuels impacts climate since 1957.
Funding
Deutsche Welle is funded from federal grants taken from the federal tax revenue.
Since the reorganisation of broadcasting as a result of German reunification, Deutsche Welle has been the only remaining broadcasting corporation under federal law. In contrast to the national public broadcasters, which are financed by the license fee the ARD state broadcasters, Deutschlandradio and ZDF, it is not financed through the broadcasting fee, but from federal taxes. The Ministry for Culture and Media is responsible for the financing, which in turn allows the DW to offer a broadcast with low to nonexistent advertising time.
Censorship
Venezuela
On 10 April 2019, DW announced that Venezuela's state telecoms regulator Conatel had halted its Spanish-language channel. By 15 April, the broadcasting service was restored.
Russia
In 2019, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused DW of calling on Russians to take part in recent anti-government protests and threatened it would take action against the outlet under domestic law if it made such calls again. Shortly after, Russia's parliament accused DW of breaking election legislation and asked the foreign ministry to consider revoking the German broadcaster's right to work in the country. By November, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared he did not support banning foreign media outlets.
On 3 February 2022, in retaliation to Germany's broadcasting regulator's decision to ban the transmission of the Russian state-run RT Deutsch channel over a lack of a broadcasting license, the Russian foreign ministry said that it would shut down DW's Moscow bureau, strip all DW staff of their accreditation and terminate broadcasting of DW in Russia. The Moscow office of Deutsche Welle was informed that it would be shut at 9:00 on Friday, 4 February 2022. DW made plans to relocate Moscow operations to the Latvian capital, Riga. On 28 March, the Russian Ministry of Justice designated DW as a "foreign agent".
In December 2025, DW was added to Russia's list of undesirable organizations. Shortly after, DW launched a new Russian-language TikTok channel as a response.
Belarus
In March 2022, a Belarusian court recognized the Telegram channel "DW Belarus" and the Deutsche Welle logo as extremist materials. In April 2024, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus labeled DW Belarus as an extremist group.
Turkey
On 30 June 2022, DW was banned in Turkey upon the request of Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK). RTÜK ordered DW in February 2022 to pay the license fee or to terminate their service in Turkey.
Iran
In October 2022, Iran sanctioned DW Farsi for coverage of 2022 Iranian protests. Iran's Foreign Ministry announced the sanctions in a statement, accusing those listed of "supporting terrorism".
Logos
Interval signal
The network's interval signal is a version of the melody of "Es sucht der Bruder seine Brüder" from Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Broadcast languages
* partly by Deutschlandfunk (until 1993)
Broadcasting
The main distribution of DW programs is by satellite transmissions, internet stream and re-broadcasting by local FM radio stations. Historically, shortwave broadcasts were the main distribution channel of international broadcasters, as for Deutsche Welle.
For parts of Africa where DW believes many people can still be reached via radio, DW broadcasts programs via shortwave.