DW is teaming up with 63 radio stations throughout Pakistan to broadcast DW’s Leaning by Ear program in Pashtu and Urdu. Learning by Ear is a distance education program with a lively mix of in-depth reports, radio dramas and feature stories targeted to 12- to 25-year-olds. Fifty-three Pakistani stations are initially set to begin broadcasting the program, with ten more getting on board in the coming months. Learning by Ear will reach more than 90 percent of radio listeners in Pakistan, which has a total of about 120 independent radio stations.

“We are thrilled so many Pakistani stations wanted to broadcast Learning By Ear,” said DW’s Head of Distribution for Asia Anne Hufnagel. “We hope it will enhance their programming line-up, and win some new fans for DW.”
DW will send Learning by Ear content to partner stations via CD. Learning by Ear covers topics from children’s rights and family planning to conflict resolution and the media, and comes in series of ten-minute-long installments.

Pakistani fans of Learning by Ear will be able to participate in quizzes put on by partner stations, as well as receive supplementary books provided through DW’s distribution office in Pakistan.

Along with Hufnagel, the Head of Asia Programming Alexander Freund was in Islamabad, Pakistan, to officially announce the Learning by Ear for Pakistan at a press conference. FM 100 Pakistan, a leader in Pakistani FM radio, is the first partner to start broadcasting.

As all 63 stations start using Learning by Ear, DW will make the program available to NGOs, educational institutions and other organizations in Pakistan interested in the show.

DW is now working with TRT Türk to broadcast “DW ile Avrupa” – a program that delves into German and European politics, business and culture. “DW ile Avrupa” has reports and features produced by DW’s Turkish department and will be aired every Friday, with repeats on the weekend. The show is supplemented by individual segments from DW’s television magazines European Journal, Made in Germany and People and Politics to fully accommodate Turkish audiences’ needs. Moderator Özlem Coskun hosts the show.

Following Polish, Romanian, Albanian, Croatian, Bosnian and Macedonian editions, the Turkish show is DW’s seventh to be produced in its Bonn studios for the central and southeastern Europe target area.

DW’s Turkish department has been on the air for 50 years.

DW has signed a new partnership with Watchup to deliver its video content to iPad users in the United States. In DW and Watchup’s agreement, Watchup will regularly link to the latest 10 clips of DW’s in-depth, video coverage and analysis of German and international affairs. Other news organizations available via Watchup include al Jazeera, CNN, PBS Newshour and The Wall Street Journal.

Download the App from iTunes.

DW and the Indira Ghandi National Open University’s (IGNOU) School of Journalism and New Media Studies have begun nine days of training aimed at equipping IGNOU instructors with the latest teaching skills. The Aug. 6-14 program marks the fourth such collaboration between DW and IGNOU since their partnership started in 2008.

DW Akademie instructors flew to New Delhi, bringing cutting-edge teaching methodologies with them. IGNOU participants included teachers and researchers, media trainers and project managers.

The goal of the training was for the participants to communicate more effectively in their own teaching. DW previously put on three similar sessions, while IGNOU broadcast DW programming over campus radio stations.

With 3.5 million distance learning students, IGNOU is the world’s biggest university. In keeping with its special charge to provide education for disadvantage parts of Indian society, “The People’s University” offers basic and general education as well as professional training.

America
OPMA in Mexico has expanded its partnership with DW by including another 200 hours of programming from DW Transtel. OPMA has been a DW partner since the end of 2011 and is broadcast nationwide.

Programming from DW Transtel was also picked up by Mexico’s Green TV. The cable channel agreed to a deal with 100 hours of programming. The channel focuses on environmental issues and therefore was interested in programming like DW’s Global Ideas.

Online
The DW Media Center continues to expand – now including programming in both Russian and Farsi. The Media Center is now offered in six languages and is planning on expanding that to 14 within the next few months.
Asia
DW is now available on Skynet in Myanmar. The DTH provider just started broadcasting this past February and will include DW’s English feed. Skynet is available nationwide and offers telephone and Internet services in addition to television.

DW has a new online partner in Indonesia with Okezone. The new online portal is a subsidiary of cable giant Indovision and is available to approximately 1 million users. Also in Indonesia, DW’s English channel is now available in the satellite package from Topas TV. The up-and-coming network is looking to add 500,000 subscribers in the next three years.