Guest Commentary

Petra Schneider, DW’s Director of Sales and Distribution

If you wanted to watch your favorite show 20 years ago, it was like catching a train: You had to be on-time. If you were in part of the world with limited entertainment options, maybe a global broadcaster could provide you with a trickle of content. Now fast forward to the Internet age where an endless amount of content covers literally everything imaginable. Things are changing fast and big broadcasters are constantly adapting to make as much available as possible.
Technology has once again triumphed over geography. Producing media that can be adapted to succeed in diverse global markets is imperative as distribution and consumption have become less affected by borders. It has never been easier to access content globally and for media providers like DW, competition is growing in a market sector that was once exclusively occupied by international broadcasters.

These are some of the big issues that will be covered at this year’s MIPCOM global entertainment conference. According to MIPcube, broadcasters providing many gateways which guide and facilitate their audience’s access to content are those who will succeed. Audiences are quickly changing from passive consumers to active users who demand flexibility in choosing what and when they watch.

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is a medium providing on-demand content that is really set to take off— especially in developing markets. According to a study by Digital TV Research, IPTV is projected to add 98 million new subscribers globally by 2018. 71 percent of these new subscribers will be in the Asia-Pacific market.

DW has established brand recognition in markets like Asia and can play off its traditional strengths with content provided on new mediums. Programming packages that are internationally successful, such as DW Transtel, are already available on-demand but they can also be packaged to fit the growing IPTV market and even be connected with other DW media and networked by users on platforms.

The disruptive effect of social media and content sharing on broadcasters and studios should instead be seen as an opportunity. When thinking about how to best use social media, many large broadcasting companies are still stuck on the idea of a sender-receiver dichotomy. Rather than trying to create a dialogue between “us and them”, broadcasters should be providing platforms where users can network and share news, video and multimedia content. The interactivity of IPTV packages could allow for this user generated distribution and there is no reason why platforms cannot be managed by large broadcasters. The more flexible broadcasters are in distributing content with rapidly changing mediums, the more successful they will be in growing and maintaining an audience.

Starting September 30, audiences in Asia and Latin America will be able to enjoy an expanded DW television lineup in Spanish and German. DW (Latinoamerica) will be increasing its Spanish language programming from 20 to 24 hours a day and DW (Asien) will also feature a full 24 hours of German language programming. The change is a part of a strategy to provide programming that it suited to the demands of different global markets. The success of DW’s Spanish programming in Latin America has dictated the change to a full 24-hour program. In Asia, DW already offers 24 hours of English language programming on its flagship channel. Increasing DW (Asien) programming to 24 hours in German will make DW the go-to channel for a complete selection of German language television in Asian markets.

But that’s not all, PopXport, DW’s trendy music magazine featuring all the best music and bands from Germany, will now be aired once every week.

Asia

The Forever Group have picked up 170 hours of DW Transtel programming. Myanmar’s largest media company and the country’s first Pay TV provider, chose a wide variety of programming to be broadcast on the Readers Channel, a free-to-air educational channel that encourages audiences to read more. This contract represents the largest volume of programming that has ever been sold by DW Transtel in Myanmar. The Forever Group has also been acquiring DW’s complete programming line-up since 2011.

Audiences all over Afghanistan can now watch DW’s Euromaxx, Arts.21 and Drive it on one the country’s leading television stations, OneTV (1-TV). This rapidly growing private broadcaster, newly founded by Afghani investors hoping to promote principals of human rights and freedom of speech, specializes in covering news and current affairs. It has a very good reputation in Afghanistan with a target audience of young, educated information seekers. On the Afghani TV popularity index, OneTV ranks third.

 

Latin America

It’s primetime for DW in Uruguay as DW (Latinoamérica) grows more and more popular. The terrestrial broadcaster Río Uruguay TV is now a part-time programming partner broadcasting the DW formats Claves, Al volante and Visión futuro Sunday evenings from 8:00 to 10:00 pm. The broadcasting area covers the city of Fray Bentos and the province of Río Negro. Around 200,000 viewers can receive Río Uruguay TV and this new partnership features DW in the evening primetime slot.

 

Middle East

DW has forged a new partnership in Lebanon. A memorandum of understanding was recently signed with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC Group) that is paving the way for cooperation with DW’s World Stories. The Lebanese broadcaster will soon be contributing segments to the successful DW show. DW is also confident that cooperation will be expanding in the near future to include program acquisitions from DW (Arabia). The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir has also begun to include full articles and video boxes from DW on its online platform. As-Safir is a pan-Arab publication with readers from all over the Arab world.

DW has also taken steps to increase its social media footprint in Iraq. The very popular news and social media site Shakwmakw, which boasts 430,000 Facebook fans, will soon be posting new links to selected DW articles on a daily basis. The website was started during the Iraqi civil war as an online forum with the goal of encouraging positive exchange and communication between Iraqis regardless of their religious or ethnic backgrounds. Another popular social media platform biraqi, with over 350,000 Facebook fans, has signed a cooperation agreement with DW and are integrating links and teasers into their online content.

 

Online

The Kick off! Competition is now off and running in German, English, Spanish and Arabic – a great chance for soccer fans to show their knowledge of the German Bundesliga. DW is also now offering a free Tour of the German Parliament with a new multimedia project that takes you on an virtual tour of the plenary chamber in Berlin.

Europe

Clicks on DW’s Polish-language site have gotten a major boost thanks to partnerships with Poland’s three leading online portals, Gazeta.pl, Wirtualna Polska (wp.pl) and Gazetapraca.pl. The click count jumped from 251,000 in April 2012 to 2.5 million in June. Working in tandem with Distribution, the three Polish sites posted links to selected articles about society and politics as well as DW’s “Studying in Germany” series.

 

Asia

A new Asian partner has gotten on board with TV magazine “Inovator,” which is produced in Bonn. Indonesia’s Tempo TV started broadcasting the show nationwide in August. “Inovator” is the seventh DW TV magazine the education-oriented station has picked up since August 2011. Tempo TV will broadcast “Inovator” via DTH satellite provider Aora, which has about 450,000 subscribers in Indonesia and is one of the country’s main television platforms.

In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, teachers at the respected Deutsche Zentrum have received supplementary learning materials to use DW’s online German course in the classroom.

DW has begun using a new monitoring station in Sydney to keep track of satellite broadcasts and live streams in the region. Technical Distribution has set up a system for monitoring Asiasat 3S as well as a StreamMon system at Australian national broadcaster SBS. Distribution entered negotiations with SBS once the establishment of a relay station in Tincomalee, Sri Lanka made the previous monitoring station for Asiasat 3 obsolete. DW now has StreamMon systems operating on every continent.

Last but not least, leading Pakistani outlet Raml Media Services is now a DW partner. The firm, which has been in operation 30 years, will help distribute DW live streams and content boxes to other partners.

Asia
DW has further developed its partnership with Ariana FM in Afghanistan and is now broadcasting its Dari service every evening. DW can now be heard in primetime in 33 of the 34 provinces in Afghanistan. The independent radio station is among the most successful in the country and is dedicated to the development of a civil society.

DW has once again added a new partner in Indonesia. DW-TV ASIA+ will now be broadcast by the DTH provider Yes TV, headquartered in Jakarta. Yes TV has a line-up that includes more than 50 international TV channels and has more than 300,000 subscribers.

In Australia, the community TV sender QCTV has included one of the Future Now webdocs on its website. Users can now watch “Methane – energy of the future” and learn about untapped resources.

Latin America
To ensure the quality of its live stream, DW has further developed its monitoring system in Latin America by installing StreamMon systems in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Toluca (Mexico). The new additions bring the worldwide total to 12 monitoring stations that are responsible for monitoring DW’s live streams around the clock.

A new partnership in Brazil is bringing Global Ideas to the classroom. Ninety of the short documentaries will be shown in Portuguese in more than 5,000 schools in Brazil starting this march.