DW Director General Erik Bettermann is currently in Latin America, presenting DW’s new television schedule for the region, with stops in Mexico, Chile Paraguay, Brazil, Panama and Colombia. Starting in February 2012, DW will expand its Spanish-language programming from two hours to 18 hours daily.

“Latin America is a continent with a lot of potential. Due to its political, economical and cultural relevance, it is one of our main target regions,” said Bettermann. “DW is already very important for information seekers and partners between Mexico and Argentina – and we want to expand this with more programming in Spanish.”

In Mexico, Bettermann and Germany’s Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, spent more than an hour with participants of the “Young Voices” Media Dialogue. They answered questions posed by up-and-coming journalists from Germany and Latin America. Participants included prominent young media workers who are bringing their ideas, stories and projects to the public forefront – often in unconventional ways. They posted their impressions, ideas and questions regarding the Media Dialogue on the event’s blog. “A positive culture shock”, “A successful exercise in collective intelligence”, “The beginning of a sustainable network,” was how they described the meeting.

In Guadalajara, Bettermann met with officials from La Red – the largest public broadcasting network in Spanish-speaking Latin America – to sign a Memorandum of Understanding. The agreement solidified the two broadcasters cooperation in the future, with La Red integrating audio, video and online content into its line-up.

In Chile, Bettermann met with the country’s President, Sebastian Pinera, who said that DW could fill an important gap with programming and information from Europe.

Alicia Barcena, General Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), also sees the potential of the expansion of programming in Latin America. She said that Germany and Latin America have a lot to offer each other – especially in the transfer of knowledge in the areas of technology and innovation. Barcena and Bettermann signed a Memorandum of Understanding for DW’s participation as media partner in next year’s Latin America-Europe Summit in Santiago de Chile.

Bettermann appeared on “Media and Human Rights” a DW coproduction with ARTV. Host Gonzalo Caceres led the discussion with human rights activists and prominent journalists, as the talked about the relationship between the media and the government in dictatorial countries.

Pakistan’s largest private radio network, Radio FM 100, is now integrating news from Deutsche Welle into its line-up. News from DW’s Urdu service will be broadcast eight times daily, as well as including several magazines and English-language programming.

Nadeem Siddiqui, DW’s sales representative in Pakistan, is convinced this partnership will lead to success. “This step wil definitelyl increase DW’s brand recognition. DW is the first international broadcaster to sign such a major cooperation agreement for news in Pakistan. That puts us a step ahead of the competition.”

FM 100 has quickly become one of the largest radio networks in Pakistan, with coverage in major cities like Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Hyderabad. The station is also looking to expand into Multan, Gujrat, Jhelum, Abbottabad and Rahim Yar.

 

Interactive
DW and its team from New Media has developed a new WebDoc that takes the user on an interactive journey through the Favelas in Brazil. Christoph Kober shows the other side of Rio de Janeiro, with illegally-constructed houses, horrible supply of power and water, and streets that are normally controlled by violent gangs. Manguiera – Life in a Rio de Janeiro Favela is the latest infotainment application from Global Ideas. And, speaking of Global Ideas, the series recently won three design awards from the PromaxBDA World Gold Awards, including gold for “Art Direction & Design: Topical Campaign – News” and silver for “News, Open/Titles” and “Total Package Design – Print”.

Europe
Two weeks after the successful start of the cooperation with the Russian business TV channel RBC, DW started a similar project with the Russian IPTV channel Dozhd. Experts from the Russian editorial department in Bonn will be reporting three times each week on current topics and events. The broadcaster has been live since March 2009 and attracts a predominantly younger target audience.

DW-TV is now also part of the Turk Telekom network in Turkey. DW will be included in the Web-TV platform TivibuWeb which offers more than 90 channels and serves more than one million subscribers in Turkey. DW will also be included in Turk Telekom’s newly-launched IPTV service Tivibu Ev, which offers 113 channels and already has more than 22,000 subscribers.

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is in full gear in Germany – and a special project from DW-AKADEMIE is helping to provide more coverage to the feminine side of soccer. DW-AKADEMIE invited eight TV journalists – from Bhutan, Egypt, Palestine, Ghana, Nigeria, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico to take part in a workshop in Berlin. The results from “Reporting the Women’s World Cup 2011” have already been broadcast on ZDF (in German) and Phoenix and are now also available on the DFB website. The team also includes trainees in media design (audio and video) and will produce a total of 20 stories surrounding the Women’s World Cup.

Find out more about DW-AKADEMIE or check out DW’s coverage of the Women’s World Cup.

 

Our teams from both International Marketing and Sales worked with partners to help design some of this year’s panels at the DW Global Media Forum.

International Marketing worked with the University of Passau to help coordinate the panel looking at “International economic cooperation, human rights and the media – Business journalism as an early warning system”. Around 80 conference guests took part in the discussion, which examined how journalists in China, North Africa and Russia can act as a warning system.

Our Sales team responsible for the Americas also help organize the panel titled “Woman and human rights – Giving a voice to the voiceless”, which brought together a range of noteworthy women’s rights activists from Latin America – including Enriqueta Estela Barnes de Carlotto from the Association of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

Here is the full schedule of events for the Global Media Forum on Tuesday and Wednesday.

For photos from the event, check out our gallery on Flickr.