Classical music is a proud part of the German cultural tradition and bringing this to a world audience is something DW does very well. The DW classical music concert production Schumann at Pier 2 recently won two awards in Asia and altogether has won 12 prestigious awards at international film and TV festivals.

Schumann at Pier 2 was awarded the Gold Panda Award for most innovative film in the anthropology documentary category at the 2013 Sichuan TV Festival, one of Asia’s largest TV festivals. The DW musical documentary was among 5,000 productions from 77 countries which were submitted this year.

The judges said the film, “showed the beauty of romantic music with incentive scenes” with “gorgeous visual tone plus elegant and rhythmic music.” Director Christian Berger said that he was very pleased about winning the award and “it was our goal from the very beginning to present classical music in a contemporary way.”  In Japan the film also won the 2013 Japan Record Academy Award, a prestigious award in Japan given out for classical music productions.
The film is a two-part series that gives takes you inside the rehearsals for a special presentation of Schumann’s four symphonies at Bremen’s Pier2. You can watch the film here online.

Guest commentary

Laila Harrak, Television Host at DW

Love is tricky business.

Remember the sensational headlines about a NASA astronaut blasting off on an epic 1,400 km cross-country road trip to kidnap a romantic rival? Her meltdown made for a compelling story and an endless stream of tabloid puns. If love can do that to a person subjected to more psychological screening tests than anyone in the world, what does that mean for the rest of us? She isn’t the only lover-turned-stalker that captured the imagination of the world. Rock band the Police had a massive hit with “Every Breath You Take,” aka the perfect stalker song, which makes surveillance, lurking in the shadows to watch a love interest sound deceptively romantic, instead of plain creepy.

Ah, the stuff of romance…

This isn’t an exploration of the highs and lows of matters of the heart.  What got me thinking about love and loss, friendship and – that other sentiment that is as old as time – betrayal – was the cover of a weekly German newspaper. “Goodbye, Freunde!” read the headline on the front page of Die Zeit emblazoned with a broken heart as metaphor for a ruptured relationship between Germany and the U.S. – or at least that’s the paper’s take on recent leaks of American spying operations on its allies.

As I write this, Germany is still reeling from details disclosed by Edward Snowden about the National Security Agency’s worldwide surveillance programs that allegedly gather phone records and track Internet activity. When German newsmagazine Der Spiegel broke the story that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal cellphone had been allegedly tapped, its scoop revealed that as far as the NSA is concerned – nobody is above suspicion.

From the start German media covered the agency’s controversial wiretapping practices relentlessly and information revealed by the NSA whistleblower continue to dominate the news cycle. Gripped by controversy over who knew what, when and where, fierce debates have erupted and most reflect the sensibilities of a country and a public fiercely protective of privacy rights. A recent poll conducted by public broadcaster ARD revealed the German public is not feelin’ the love and trust in the U.S. is at a record low.

The NSA spying scandal was the story of the month and is shaping to become the story of the year, if not the decade. And although reports rife with accusations about scheming and counter-scheming, beyond the pale practices and dueling visions of the world – this story transcends countries, governments and boundaries and the outcome affects everybody.

Whether you live in Bombay, Berlin or Bogota, this story taps into the implications of connectivity and the privacy we have all lost in a digital era where our devices are now our stalkers. And just as the story continues to unspool with each revelation, DW as an international broadcaster with a unique perspective recognizes this is a defining story of our time. Not only does it capture our zeitgeist and some of the biggest challenges facing us all when it comes to privacy sharing information online, but also how government deals with data.

The good news is that DW’s focus is to inform an international audience providing sober and detailed analysis. We ask probing questions and delve into issues that have far-reaching social and ethical ramifications. So no matter where you are, we’ve got this story covered.

 

You can catch Laila on Business Brief and World Stories.

Finding new and creative ways to teach the German language is something that DW has focused on heavliy over the last few years, with formats like Jojo sucht das Glück and the new Bandtagebuch. This weekend, DW’s language team will be in Berlin for the the leading language learning convention in Germany, Expolingua.  They will be presenting DW’s award-winning interactive learning tools and will also be presenting the successful learning format, Ticket nach Berlin. The presentation at the convention will introduce the format and its didactic concepts on November 16 at 3 pm. The series is a game show featuring learners of German as they complete different challenges on a trip across Germany.  DW’s language learning services are very popular worldwide. The Facebook page DW-Learn German, has over 230,000 fans and the language course websites get around 6 million clicks every month. Every year around 13,000 people visit Expolingua to check out the 150 displays from 25 countries. Around 50 languages are there to be sampled. If you can make it to the convention, be sure to pay us a visit.

 

Guest commentary

Maja Braun, Coordinating Editor, Programs for Africa

Along with providing global audiences with quality news and information, we think international broadcasters should also be responsible for education, especially on social issues and topics that are a part of what Deutsche Welle stands for, such as democracy, civil rights and intercultural dialogue. And that is why we are always looking for new, innovative ways to make education work in different regions around the world – like, for example, in Africa.

Unlike other regions around the globe that have seen FM, shortwave and AM lose tremendous amounts of users in the last 15 years, radio has remained very important to people in Africa looking for information. It’s a big part of the media landscape and continues to draw listeners week in and week out. We have also seen a huge boom in mobile usage – the number of subscribers has increased by at least 20 percent in each of the last five years.

When we first developed Learning by Ear in 2008, we wanted to give young Africans – even those who cannot read or access the Internet – the opportunity to get information on important issues that would improve their lives immediately and in the future. It was important for listeners to learn, but we also wanted to keep them entertained. That is why we mainly use radio dramas to deliver the message of topics that are not taught in school.  Learning by Ear now plays a big role in the lives of many young people in Africa, offering radio dramas and feature stories on a variety of topics, ranging from political and societal issues to economic, health and environmental issues.

By working with mobile partners in Africa in the last few years, we have also been able to reach out to a new demographic and, hopefully, increase the level of social education among their customers. The unique, audio-based content is split up into individual series and segments – which makes it great for mobile consumption.

After five years and 42 different series with ten episodes each covering everything from health and hygiene to globalization, entrepreneurs and African success stories, we felt it was time for a change. We wanted to improve on the already successful format by providing a narrative that would help these young listeners in their daily lives; a story which accompanies them throughout the year instead of changing the scene every ten weeks.

With Crossroads Generation, we have created a Learning by Ear series which follows four characters as they confront challenges and learn from their mistakes. Listeners can get to know the characters better and will be more invested in what happens to them on the show. The episodes will deal with many issues simultaneously and the storyline will build on itself throughout the season.

The new format will also inspire young listeners to reflect on what they’ve heard and form their own opinions. One episode for example confronts teenage pregnancy and the actress decides to have an abortion. This decision is presented in a non-judgmental manner that allows for listeners to decide where they stand for themselves. There will also be a discussion platform available on Facebook where the audience can voice their ideas and opinions.

Other improvements include an online video-blog that will accompany every second episode and also adds a visual flavor to the series for the first time. The audience gets a look  behind the scenes and insight into how the characters feel. The video-blog will be included on the website and Facebook page. Their will also be a Learning by Ear theme song featured in each of the program’s six languages.

We are hoping that with this new series, we will be able to win over even more listeners and give them insights into how to help shape their own lives to be successful.

 

North America

The website of Radio Canada International’s radio program, Eye on the Arctic, is now a DW partner. Since October, content from DW’s Ice Blog, created by DW editor Irene Quaile, has been featured on the Canadian broadcaster’s website blog. The radio program features issues affecting the Arctic such as climate change. The content is normally limited to contributors from Arctic states– however the quality of the information from DW’s Ice Blog convinced Eye on the Arctic to widen the circle of those allowed to contribute.

 

Europe

After the discontinuation of its Russian radio service, DW’s presence in Georgia was interrupted. Now after realigning its multimedia content, DW has managed to revive its presence in the country. The first step was the addition of the leading Georgian online news service, News.ge, as a premium partner.  News.ge launched English and Russian language news sites on October 1 which both exclusively feature DW news content. More projects in Georgia are currently being prepared.

 

Asia

DW has added CTH, one of the largest cable TV providers in Thailand, as a partner. The country’s second largest cable provider brings national and international programming to over 2.5 million households. DW’s flagship English channel can now be received 24 hours every day via the new partner’s digital cable network.

DW’s English channel is also now available in Vietnam via DVB-T. The provider, Audio Visual Global (AVG), has also integrated DW into its satellite packet with 350,000 subscribers.

DW has a new partner in Pakistan.  Radio Chiltan in Quetta will now be broadcasting DW programming in English and Urdu. The station also broadcasts in regional languages.

 

Africa

DW has added one of the largest private radio broadcasters in Eastern Zambia as a premium partner. BreezeFM has a range reaching from Eastern Zambia to Western Malawi. Since the beginning of October, the new partner has been taking on content from DW’s worldwide English language radio programming and also broadcasts the popular program, Africa link from DW’s English for Africa service everyday via VHF.

DW’s World Stories has a new partner in Mozambique. The private broadcaster, TIM (Televisão Independente de Moçambique) has been airing reports from World Stories since September and will be contributing their own stories as well.

 

Online

As a new part of the longtime cooperation between Sony and DW in the area of Smart TV, Sony will now be including DW content on its mobile devices. The news App Socialife comes preinstalled on cell-phones, tablets and notebooks and news reports from DW in 12 languages will be integrated into the App and prominently displayed.

On October 15, Albanian was added to DW’s Media Center. That increases the number of available languages to 26.

The multimedia project, Wagner 200 – Bayreuth Backstage , has been available online in English, Spanish and Russian since October 15.

DW’s online cooperation with @ Verdade Mozambique is proving to be a quick success. In just a month, the number of clicks on DW’s Portuguese for Africa website has clearly increased