More than 90 million listeners and viewers every week

Up to 750,000 written responses per year – in other words, more than 2,000 letters per day: that is the impressive amount of feedback Deutsche Welle has received in recent years on DW-RADIO and DW-TV programmes and the website at DW-WORLD.DE. This is a remarkable indication of how many people make use of the information offered by DW. According to the standards of modern media research, however, the facts and figures from representative surveys are even more precise and indicative.

Owing to DW’s global broadcasting range and the cultural differences within it, obtaining reliable figures on how well-known DW programmes are, how widely they are used and what people think of them is a special challenge. Since 1980, DW media researchers have carried out over 300 surveys, in addition to numerous target-group and qualitative studies, on the success of DW programming, and have offered advice on how it can be optimised and strategically positioned. They have also analysed basic data on the demographics of users of DW services and, on occasion, their specific interests and attitudes, such as the image of Germany in their respective countries.

According to estimates based on current studies of various countries, Deutsche Welle reaches more than 90 million listeners and viewers every week around the globe.

DW-RADIO – 65 million regular listeners

Worldwide, about 65 million listeners regularly get their information – at least once a week – from DW-RADIO. The German and English services – both on the air 24 hours a day and all around the world – reach 25.5 million people. The other foreign language services have a total of 39 million listeners.

The figures for specific regions and countries are impressive. In Pakistan, more than 700,000 people follow DW-RADIO; the majority of them listen to the Urdu language service. In Tanzania, the number of adults who listen to DW-RADIO in Kiswahili is 9.5 million. In Nigeria, 10.5 million people listen to DW each week in Haussa. A study carried out in Kenya in December 2005 shows that Deutsche Welle reaches 16 percent of the adult population each week, or approximately 2.9 million people. 8.8 percent of them listen to DW-RADIO/Kiswahili. In the countries of south-eastern Europe, there are 2.6 million regular listeners. Here – and especially in the Balkans – we see a prime example of how important international broadcasting services are for crisis-stricken regions.

In all of the group discussions and panels, listeners praise the high competence of Deutsche Welle’s news services and emphasize its significance as a respected, objective and credible source of information. This is confirmed by a current survey of listeners to the Russian Service: according to this study, published in December 2005, they also appreciate the variety of topics and the competent journalism presented by DW.

DW-TV: Especially strong in Europe and Latin America

DW’s international television service, DW-TV, is tuned into at least once a week by a good 28 million viewers. In Latin America more than 7.5 million adults watch the service (here, there are two hours in Spanish as well) every week. In EU countries, DW-TV is watched by over 5.3 million people, 1.5 million in Southeast Asia, and 2.3 million in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

It is especially notable that DW-TV has 4.4 million viewers in sub-Saharan Africa. And, even in a very radio-dominated developing country like Tanzania, DW-TV reaches 3.4 million viewers per week, nearly 1.5 in Ghana and over 1 million in Kenya. DW-TV broadcasts bilingual programming – alternating German and English – in Europe, Africa and Asia.

May 2007