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DW marks 50 years of providing quality TV content worldwide

February 14, 2013

In 1963 Deutsche Welle started distributing TV content around the world, reaching an ever-growing viewer base. For more than 20 years now, DW has been one of the key players among international television broadcasters.

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Sudan was the first recipient of DW-distributed film material in 1963. Two years later, TransTel was co-founded by DW and German public service broadcasters ARD and ZDF, with the support of Germany's federal government. Its central task has been making high-quality, German-produced television content available to broadcasters around the world.

Though the original TransTel was dissolved in 1998, DW immediately took over its transcription and distribution services, rebranding the company to DW Transtel. As an industry leader, it offers clients a wide range of quality programs: German shows ranging from science documentaries to music and lifestyle features are transcribed, adapted and dubbed into Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

In 1992 Deutsche Welle launched its own TV network, broadcasting programs via satellite to different continents in German and English. Broadcasting in Spanish began shortly thereafter, starting with two hours of programming per day. Ten years later, DW became the first European broadcaster to offer TV content in Arabic. The next major expansion came in 2012, with a large-scale program relaunch: six dedicated TV channels in German, English, Arabic and Spanish for Latin America, as well as a new design, more shows and new programming formats. Among others, these new formats include talk shows co-produced with DW’s local partners, such as Shababtalk on DW (Arabia) and Claves on DW (Latinoamérica).

In order to reach out to more audiences in its target regions, Deutsche Welle has recently made major strides in the area of regionalized programming. DW produces TV magazines in several additional languages, such as Hindi, Indonesian, Russian and Portuguese for Brazil, as well as several Southeast European languages. These are broadcast by DW’s premium partner stations in Asia, Latin America and Europe.

As Deutsche Welle continues to explore new ground in television production, one thing hasn’t changed: DW remains a provider of reliable quality programming to its target audiences around the world.