international broadcaster . for the unrelated german radio company of the 1920s and 30s see deutsche welle gmbh . for the musical genre see neue deutsche welle . this article has multiple issues . please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . learn how and when to remove these template messages this article includes a list of references but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations . please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations . january 2014 learn how and when to remove this template message this article relies too much on references to primary sources . please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . march 2012 learn how and when to remove this template message learn how and when to remove this template message deutsche welle type international public broadcaster country germany founded 3 may 1953 headquarters berlin bonn germany broadcast area national and international owner ard launch date 3 may 1953 affiliation world radio network official website www.dw.com the deutsche welle building in bonn deutsche welle german pronunciation d t v l ; german wave in german or dw is germany s public international broadcaster . the service is available in 30 languages in order to further promote german culture and interests to an international audience . dw s satellite television service consists of channels in english german spanish and arabic . dw also offers regularly updated articles on its online news website and runs its own center for international media development dw akademie . the broadcaster s stated goals are to convey germany as a liberal democratic state based on the rule of law to produce reliable news coverage and to provide access to the german language . 1 deutsche welle has been broadcasting since 1953 . it is headquartered in bonn where its radio programmes are produced . television broadcasts are produced almost entirely in berlin . the responsibility for dw s news website is shared between the two locations . around 3 000 people work for deutsche welle in over 60 countries . according to dw its output reaches 100 million people worldwide every week . the broadcaster s director general is peter limbourg . contents 1 history 1.1 logos 1.2 broadcast languages 1.3 german reunification 1.4 world wide web presence 1.5 recent events 1.6 rebranding television news 2 shortwave relay stations 2.1 domestic shortwave relay stations 2.2 transmitter sites 2.3 external shortwave relay stations 2.4 relay stations leasing transmitter time to dw 3 directors general 4 dw services 5 dw akademie 6 see also 7 notes and references 8 external links history edit deutsche welle 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 the public broadcasters in the ard signed an agreement to share responsibility for deutsche welle . at first it was controlled by nordwestdeutscher rundfunk . in 1955 when this split into the separate norddeutscher rundfunk and westdeutscher rundfunk which assumed responsibility for deutsche welle programming . in 1960 deutsche welle became an independent public body after a court ruled that 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 . deutche welle had been headquartered in the west german city of cologne until after reunification when much of the government relocated to berlin and the station moved to those vacated buildings in bonn . logos edit original logo 1953 . deutsche welle logo 1992 1995 introduced following the start of deutsche welle tv in 1992 deutsche welle logo 1995 2012 intended to suggest a radio wave although it drew comparisons to the nike swoosh dw logo 2012 present broadcast languages edit language began ceased german 1953 2 english 1954 2 french spanish portuguese arabic 1959 3 persian 1962 4 turkish russian polish czech 2000 5 slovak 2000 5 hungarian 2000 5 serbo croatian 1992 6 swahili 1963 4 hausa indonesian malay bulgarian romanian slovene modern greek 1964 4 hindi bengali urdu italian 1998 7 chinese 1965 8 amharic japanese 1969 8 2000 5 macedonian pashto 1970 9 dari serbian 1992 6 croatian albanian bosnian 1997 7 ukrainian 2000 5 danish 1998 7 norwegian dutch belarusian 2005 10 before 2011 german reunification edit with german reunification in 1990 radio berlin international rbi of east germany ceased to exist . some of the staff of rbi joined 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 august 1988 . 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 over 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 . world wide web presence edit in september 1994 deutsche welle was the first public broadcaster in germany with a world wide web 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 the s ddeutsche zeitung s initial web presence which included news articles from the newspaper shared the site . around 1998 it evolved into a news website under the url dwelle.de ; in 2001 the url later changed to www.dw world.de and switched to www.dw.de in 2012 . deutsche welle purchased the dw.com url which previously belonged to diamondware in 2013 ; dw had attempted to claim ownership of the address in 2000 without success . dw eventually moved to www.dw.com domain on 22 june 2015 . the internet news site offers daily exclusive coverage 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 corresponding to deutsche welle s radio programmes . persian became the site s eighth focus language in 2007 . german and european news are dw s central focus but the site also offers background information regarding germany and german language courses . recent events edit in 2001 deutsche welle in conjunction with ard and zdf founded the german tv subscription tv channel for north american viewers . the project was shut down after four years owing to low subscriber numbers . it has since been replaced by the dw tv channel also a subscription service . 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 programmes are rebroadcast on numerous public broadcasting stations in several countries including the united states australia and new zealand . in the philippines it is shown nationwide on net 25 . deutsche welle is still suffering from financial and staffing cuts . its budget was reduced by about 75 million over five years and of the 2 200 employees it had in 1994 only 1 200 remain . further cuts are still expected . in 2003 the german government passed a new deutsche welle law 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 . 11 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 . 12 in 2011 dw announced a major 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 were optimized for fm broadcasts and dw also produces a regional radio magazine daily in english to be rebroadcast by partners in africa . 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 of 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 . 13 on august 2016 dw has been accused of showing a pro russian bias especially after the head of its moscow office juri rescheto took part in a russian propaganda trip to crimea and then used the hashtag crimeaisrussia on twitter . 14 rebranding television news edit 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 . shortwave relay stations edit domestic shortwave relay stations edit transmitter sites edit the j lich radio transmitter site began operation in 1956 with eleven 100 kw telefunken transmitters . the wertachtal site was authorized in 1972 and began service with four 500 kw transmitters . by 1989 there were 15 transmitters four of which relayed the voice of america . the nauen transmitter site was inherited from radio berlin international . rbi s russian made three 500 kw and one 100 kw transmitters were replaced by four telefunken 500 kw transmitters and four rotatable antennas . today deutsche welle no longer uses any of the transmitters based in germany . external shortwave relay stations edit trincomalee sri lanka 1984 to