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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. Expansion of supported languages In 1954, Deutsche Welle started to broadcast programming in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In 1960, Deutsche Welle became an independent public body, which on 7 June 1962 joined the ARD as a national broadcasting station. Also in 1962, service was added in other languages: Persian, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Serbo-Croatian (now separate Serbian and Croatian services). In 1963, these languages were joined by Swahili and Hausa, Indonesian, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Slovenian services. In 1964 and 1970, the linguistic plurality was extended another time to include Greek, Italian, Hindi and Urdu, as well as Pashtu and Dari. In 1992, Albanian was added In 2000, DW began its Ukrainian service. German reunification With German reunification in 1990, Radio Berlin International (RBI) of the GDR 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 mid-1989. The fall of the Berlin Wall later that year and German reunification in 1990 meant that RIAS 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 the former independent radio broadcasting service Deutschlandfunk's foreign language programming in 1993, when Deutschlandfunk was absorbed into the new Deutschlandradio. World Wide Web presence In late 1994, Deutsche Welle was the first public broadcaster in Germany with a World Wide Web presence (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. DW-WORLD.DE Recent events In 2001, Deutsche Welle joined with ARD and ZDF to found the German TV pay TV channel for North America. It was announced in 2005 that it would be shut down, after subscriber numbers failed to approach expectations. DW-TV has replaced German TV as a pay service in the United States. Unlike most other international broadcasters, DW TV does not 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, such as the 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 DW-WORLD.DE an equal partner with DW-TV and DW-RADIO. DW-WORLD.DE is available in 30 languages, but focuses on German, English, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese for Brazil and Chinese. Arabic became the seventh focus language in January 2005. Domestic Shortwave Relay Stations Shortwave transmitter Wertachtal, Bavaria Nauen, Brandenburg Shortwave transmitter Jülich External Shortwave Relay Stations Trincomalee, Sri Lanka Kigali, Rwanda Sines, Portugal Relay Stations leasing transmitter time to DW DW leases time on the following relay stations DW output compared to other broadcasters (1950&1996) External total direct programme hours per week of some external radio broadcasters: Notes Source: International Broadcast Audience Research, June 1996. General Directors Deutsche Welle services | |||||||||
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