Germany’s Broadcasting Board greenlights DW structural reforms
Seven weeks after taking office, Deutsche Welle’s (DW) new Director General Peter Limbourg outlined his reform plans to make DW a leading global information provider.
Chairman of the Broadcasting Board Valentin Schmidt said the Board approved the plan and will support it through its various stages: “The Broadcasting Board unanimously supports the restructuring measures envisaged by Peter Limbourg. We particularly welcome the plan to pool existing resources and to enhance the broadcaster’s current affairs expertise. This will enduringly strengthen Deutsche Welle’s international competitiveness.”
Limbourg wants DW to strive to be a global information provider from Germany. To this end he has proposed a strengthening of DW’s editorial profile: “Through more dialogue and interactivity, DW aims to increase the relevance of its content to global decision makers and political opinion leaders by 2017. For that segment of the target group in particular, we plan to extend DW’s reach on all its platforms, thereby raising the number of regular DW users from the current 101 million to 150 million. In the coming four years, DW aims to position itself as one of the top international broadcasters.”
Limbourg also announced that English-language content will be extended and will play a central role as the ‘flagship’ of all DW offerings. For example, English TV programming is set to significantly expand its news coverage. DW will continue to offer German-language television and online content as well. German-language TV news coverage will also be extended and more clearly structured. Cooperation on news programs with German national broadcasters ARD and ZDF will be strengthened in the coming years. The successful multimedia content available for German learners will be further developed and linked more closely to other content on dw.de.
In order to foster dialogue and interaction with users, DW will create new formats and intensify its connection to bloggers and other online opinion leaders.