The meaning of true partnership

DW’s Managing Director of Distribution, Marketing and Technology Guido Baumhauer sees close and trusting partnerships as the key to DW’s significantly growing user reach. Here’s why.

Interview conducted byIvanaDrmić, DW editor

DW has roughly 4,000 partners worldwide who include DW content in their TV and radio lineups, as well as online. Why is it important for DW to work with partners?

Reaching people all over the world with information that matters to them is key for DW. That’s why it’s an ongoing challenge to find new ways and partners to achieve this. DW’s heterogeneous partner network is made up of more than 4,000 online, social media, audio, radio and TV partners. It is as diverse as our target groups.

Our partners are also closer to the target audience than we could ever be. They know and understand the interests, needs and expectations of the users, viewers and listeners. They share valuable insights with us and help us customize our content in 32 languages—to make it as relevant as possible.

Moreover, the platforms and channels we partner with are often very well known in the target regions. It’s like a symbiotic relationship, where we benefit from their reach and popularity and they benefit from our unique, quality content. The numbers speak for themselves: More than three quarters of our reach can be traced back to our partners.

The effective and sustainable cooperation with our partners is therefore the key to DW’s success.

DW’s profile topics include freedom and human rights, democracy and the rule of law, but also the environment and social justice. How does DW deal with partners in states where these rights are not always guaranteed?

In certain target regions, some partners are neither friend nor enemy. We might label some as “frenemies”. However, mutual respect is the essential basis for all our partnerships.

© DW / A. Wißkirchen

We must always find a balance between reaching people in a certain country without giving up our values. It is not as easy and obvious as it seems: Despite the simplistic views shared by some “media experts,” the giant tech companies GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) are not always automatically “evil;” it varies from country to country, from market to market. But our main goal is to reach as many people in our target audience as possible on as many platforms as possible. That is why we do not rely on just one partner per region. And of course, DW retains its editorial independence in all partnerships.

If DW is going to succeed in an increasingly competitive environment, we need to make our content available where our users are. For example, in some countries Facebook is an important partner to reach our audience, in others it is YouTube or a national partner like Dawn in Pakistan. In countries where the government tightly controls its media market, finding the right balance between respectful partnerships and dodging restrictions is definitely one of DW’s biggest challenges.

In the end, more than 250 million weekly DW users in 2020 shows just how successful and effective DW’s partner network has proven to be.

The effective and sustainable cooperation with our partners is the key to DW’s success.

How important is the cooperation with our partners in order to guarantee freedom of information?

In some countries such as China and Iran, the censorship of media and other platforms is particularly advanced, and DW’s online services are blocked. Of course, we also want to provide users in censored markets with free and independent information and try to find different ways to do so. Which means we partner with censorship circumvention services like Psiphon. Additionally, we offer our users in censored media markets the DW website as an onion service, reachable via the Tor network. We also cooperate with popular video platforms (such as Whaley or RenRen in China) that help raise awareness for DW as a brand and increase the usage of our Chinese content in Hong Kong and among Chinese speaking minorities in other countries. Overall, our partnerships made up for more than 40 percent of the traffic for the Chinese service in 2020. If governments are restricting access to our content, we will always try to find a way to get around it.

How does DW choose its partners? What criteria needs to be fulfilled in order to establish a partnership? What kind of content is adapted?

Sharing similar values is always a good starting point. We strive for partnerships built on mutual respect and appreciation. To make sure that our content is relevant for the users, we never simply adapt it, but rather tailor it to the users’ needs and interests. It’s important to listen carefully to our partners’ suggestions and ideas, while always maintaining our editorial independence, responsibility and control. Some of the most successful formats have been developed and co-produced with our partners. For example, the co-productions of Eco Africa (with our Nigerian partner Channels TV), Eco Afrique (with Senegalese partner RDV: EXCAF Télécom) and Eco India (with the Indian digital partner Scroll) show just how effective this approach can be.

What have been the most successful partnerships for DW?

Every partner brings unique opportunities and innovative ideas to the table. In a highly competitive and dynamic international media environment, it is mandatory for DW to constantly expand our partner network. That’s why we are always on the lookout for new ways to reach our target audience. Like with DW’s most successful audio partnership with Google Assistant News or with our acclaimed documentary channel on YouTube. Effective global distribution also means keeping an eye on social media cooperation with platforms like Instagram or Snapchat and influencers around the globe while looking for TV partners in Latin America and radio partnerships in Africa.

With the rise of social media and videoon-demand (VOD), media usage is changing. Do the changes in the media landscape influence the nature of DW’s partnerships or the acquisition of new partners?

Our goal is to remain competitive in an ever-changing media environment, stay ahead of the game and generate relevant, tailored content to our target audience on whatever platform they use. This only works by cooperating with new partners and that is why our exciting work never gets boring: There are always new developments to which we need answers. Many of our users are switching to digital platforms and they expect our content to find them wherever they are. Our on-demand strategy is a response to this shift. I am especially thankful for DW’s energetic and creative sales and distribution team that never stops searching and finding the best possible partnerships. Their efforts are essential to reach DW’s vision in inspiring our target audience with regionally relevant, on-demand content that encourages dialogue. This is an ongoing process and only one thing is sure: We need to keep moving and find the answers to the questions that haven’t been asked yet.

Guido Baumhauer

has been Managing Director of Distribution, Marketing and Technology at DW since 2006. After a journalistic traineeship at DW in 1993, Baumhauer worked as the broadcaster’s correspondent in Brussels from 1995 to 1999. In 2000, he took over management of the Directorate General, and a year later, as editor-in-chief, he expanded DW’s internet presence into a 32-language multimedia platform.