Peter Limbourg Selected as Director-General of Deutsche Welle

BONN: Peter Limbourg, currently the senior VP of news and political information of ProSiebenSat.1, has been elected as the new director-general for Deutsche Welle (DW).

The 17-member Broadcasting Board elected Limbourg as the successor to Erik Bettermann, whose term ends on September 30. Bettermann has been in charge of Germany’s international broadcaster since 2001.

Valentin Schmidt, the chairman of the Broadcasting Board, commented: “Peter Limbourg has outstanding qualifications to further strengthen Deutsche Welle as a modern multimedia company and Germany’s international media presence as a result. He is not only a first-rate journalist with an international background and excellent language skills, but also has extensive managerial experience in the media industry.”

Limbourg said: "To have the opportunity to play such a significant role in how Germany is perceived around the world is a challenge that I will make every effort to meet in the coming years. Ever since my youth, which I spent abroad, Deutsche Welle’s programs have been a valuable part of my life experience. Together with my colleagues, I hope to further enhance Deutsche Welle’s journalistic standing and its multilingual and multimedia programming. Intensifying DW’s cooperation with Germany’s public broadcasters ARD and ZDF is another goal I have set myself.”