Cologne-based Deutsche Welle (DW) will launch a new European bouquet on AsiaSat 2 on January 22.

Dr Burkhard Nowotny, DW’s director of international distribution, said deals with four TV stations and eight radio stations had been signed. The launch will continue the members of the European bouquet’s distribution in the Asian and Australian media markets, which began in 1996.

The bouquet supplies TV viewers and rebroadcasting organisations such as cable operators, hotels and local stations with a package of unscrambled trans-national quality programmes from top European television and radio broadcasters sharing one transponder (10B) on AsiaSat 2, located in the 100.5 degrees East slot.

Together with DW-tv the television stations are French language TV5 Asie, Italian RAI International, Spanish TVE Internacional, and Portuguese RTP Internacional.

The radio broadcasters are Radiodifusão Portuguesa, Radio Exterior de España, Radio France Internationale, RAI International, Swiss Radio International, Dutch Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, YLE Radio Finland, Radio Canada International, RCI and DW-radio.

The European bouquet is still open for co-operation with interested international broadcasters. Negotiations are still being conducted with MCM International and WRN.