BC-DX 841 04 Jan 2008 Private Verwendung der Meldun

about the world tends to rely on the BBC or CNN. And this will be the case
in future, too.
Director Bettermann mentioned as a model for DW amongst others France 24.
A bit surprising because France 24 for its part mentions DW TV as model.
Another model he mentioned is Russia Today, a station that has not
succeeded in becoming a primary source of information for English-speaking
"information elites" and lacks journalistic distance to its own
government.
Management says that empirical evidence is the foundation for the intended
reorientation of DW. But so far no such data has been presented. Allegedly
it says that there is hardly a need for German-language programming
abroad. So far we have not seen even the weakest proove for this claim.
Instead we got over the years an abundance of feedback from politicians,
embassies and consulates, universities and institutes, companies,
businessmen, artists, journalists, students and other people all over the
world. They all say that it is good and important to have German-language
programming.
About the target audience: So far it is officially defined as
multiplicators abroad, people outside free media markets and in regions of
crisis (i.e. beyond the multiplicators also a broad audience), people
learning German, Germans abroad, either on travel or permanently.
Apparently this definition is now considered obsolete: Changing the
preference from German to English neglects German-learning people and
Germans abroad. This way DW not only looses faithful viewers but also
important messangers and its identity.
The management only wants to get more viewers. It is planned to achieve
this by expanding English-language programming because on a global scale
more people speak English. But that's a wrong strategy. DW TV already
broadcasts 12 hours a day in English. It is higly doubtful if even more
English can attract more English-speaking viewers, but in any case German-
speaking audiences will get lost.
The globalized world requires something else: Focussing on a neglected
group, the Germans acting worldwide. The number of travellers continues to
rise. German architects work in Shanghai and Dubai, German companies
invest in Russia, Brazil and India, German managers live for years abroad,
German students are immatriculated worldwide. They all form a growing,
intensively networked and interested target audience. During the last
years DW failed to position itself in this group. It is startling how many
people do not know that DW exists at all. DW should finally work harder on
attracting these people instead of writing off millions interested as well
as interesting viewers. Beyound that it should be hard to explain to the
citizens of Germany that the station they pay for with their taxes
explicitely does not want them as audience.
About the distribution: Reducing the German-language TV programming is
part of a strategy that has already progressed far on the radio side. Here
both the programming and the distribution on shortwave have been much
reduced during the last years. In part of the worlds DW radio is already
no longer audible. Even in Europe the German program of China Radio
International can be received much better than DW's one. It is planned to
drastically cut back the coverage of current events in autumn. Beyond that
it is planned to greatly reduce the shortwave distribution of the German
program in next year. Most of the money saved this way will be used for
the online offerings. However, it is well-known that all German websites
can be accessed worldwide. But those without access to the internet have
to rely on DW for informations about Germany in German language, and these
people will be let down.