“The way they fought with us and continue to fight in Germany, they did not fight with us in any country in the world.
At the same time, the German audience was very grateful.
This is evidenced by the RT DE indicators on the website and in social networks, which they managed to achieve without launching the TV channel as such.
We will do everything so that our audience in German does not disappoint, ”said Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT TV channel.
The broadcast will expand to Europe, including countries with a potentially large German-speaking audience - Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The channel will air the analytical program Fasbenders Woche with the famous German journalist Thomas Fasbender, the culinary and political show Kartoffelmus with the host Tsukaina Gruno, as well as other talk shows and documentaries.
The well-known German media manager, producer and writer Oliver Brendel has previously joined the RT DE team.
“We see growing interest in RT in Germany, and we are glad that now our content can not only be read and listened to, but also watched.
Our viewer is interested in how Russia lives today and what it is like from the inside, ”said the head of RT DE Dinara Toktosunova.
RT in German was launched in 2014 online and on social media.
Now RT DE is number one among German-language media in terms of the number of interactions on Facebook over the past twelve months, bypassing Bild, Spiegel, ZDF, Tagesschau (data from Crowdtangle).
RT DE's Facebook page is in the TOP 5 German-language media by video views in the News and Politics category, ahead of Spiegel TV, Zeit Online and Focus Online (data from Tubular Labs).
The website of the TV channel RT (RT.com) bypasses Deutsche Welle (DW.com) in terms of the number of visits from Germany (data from SimilarWeb).
The launch of RT DE in Germany was preceded by an unprecedented attack from the German authorities and the media. In the report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the work of German counterintelligence in 2020, RT was mentioned in the section "Espionage and other intelligence activities." At that time, the head of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said: "With the help of the TV channel Russia Today, Moscow is trying to purposefully manipulate Germans with Russian roots." Rheinische Post: “Russia's media power in Germany is growing. According to the assessment by the expert on Eastern Europe Suzanne Spahn, RT DE overtook Deutsche Welle in the number of Facebook subscribers in early November. "
In August 2021, RT received an official refusal to obtain a broadcasting license from Luxembourg, which referred to "information and analysis of the German authorities."
In September, YouTube removed two RT DE channels without the right to recover, for alleged "violations of community rules."
At the same time, RT DE was in fourth place in terms of influence among German-language media, bypassing Deutsche Welle and other German media (data from Tubular Labs).