With the closure of DW-TV’s German feed, it’s time for a quick recap on its history:
The channel, which launched on April 1992, inherited the facilities of RIAS-TV, a part-time German-speaking television station launched by the American-financed West Berlin broadcaster RIAS, back in August 1988, with test programmes airing from July 3 during eight consecutive Sunday mornings. The service aired during the regional opt-out slots on Sat.1 (both terrestrially and on cable), and not only targeted West Berlin viewers, but also the GDR regions (including East Berlin). The RIAS-TV schedule aired from 6 to 10am on weekday mornings, from 8:00am to 12:45pm on Saturdays and from 5:50 to 6:30pm daily,
The fall of the Berlin Wall the following year and German reunification in 1990 led to changes in the German media landscape, including the winding down of the former GDR broadcaster DFF and of RIAS, as the states gained more power in the control of media regulation. As a result, a deal was signed in 1992, which led to the breaking up of RIAS into three: the first radio station would exist for a while and became focused on cultural programming (it merged with former GDR radio service Deutschlandsender Kultur and the Cologne-based Deutschlandfunk on New Year’s Day 1994 to form Deutschlandradio), whilst the second radio station (oriented as a CHR/Hot AC pop music service) was privatized; it still exists under the name 94,3 rs2. As for the TV service, the infrastructure was given to DW to establish a TV service, inheriting RIAS-TV’s history eventually. RIAS-TV ended in mid-March 1992 to finalise preparations for DW-TV.
By April 1, DW-TV was up and running as a satellite service from the Eutelsat II-F1 satellite, airing a daily schedule of mostly German programming for 16 hours a day from 15.00 to 07.00 UTC. The core of the schedule was a back-half-hour format, with the top of the hour focusing on the well-known Journal newscast, with German and English newscasts initially airing each up to six times a day. During the half-hour, the service aired a mostly-German schedule of feature and lifestyle programming, with emphasis on German and European issues. By 1993, the schedule was enhanced with the launch of two new Journal slots in Spanish, targeting Latin American viewers which were by then embracing subscription TV at the time.
From the outset, and unlike other broadcasters, DW-TV has allowed broadcasters, both public/state-owned and commercial, to rebroadcast its content, on a barter permission basis or through partnerships. Hence, its programming can be seen on numerous public broadcasting stations in several countries, including the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.
By 1995, the service had started 24-hour broadcasting, with German occupying 12 hours daily, English 10 and Spanish 2. In 1999, a relaunch of the service was made, with all lifestyle programming being dropped in favour of a focus on news and current affairs with a German focus, plus a modular structure for Journal, which allowed for dynamic insertion of longer-form segments and commercial breaks at the discretion of the operator. The channel also got a new look from English & Pockett, which brought the station an international feeling to it.
A refresh of the brand was made in 2003, also done by English & Pockett, and became the channel’s longest-used presentation, surviving a switch to 16:9 when German TV switched to widescreen fully in 2008. In 2007, DW-TV expanded to have Arabic programming, and, in 2009, separate feeds were launched for Asian viewers, with the DW Asien focusing on mostly German content, and Asia+ for mostly English content.
By 2012, as part of a larger reform of DW content strategy and a corporate-wide rebrand, DW feeds were revised again, with Arabic and Spanish feeds receiving a dedicated schedule with more language-specific programming (whilst retaining some space for English and German programming). In 2015, with Peter Limbourg arriving as DW Director General, the English feeds were relaunched to inch more closer to a dedicated news channel; the news service also dropped the Journal name to reflect the new English schedule mixing hourly news (DW News) with back half-hour programming.
