RT’s auf Sendung channel was removed from YouTube without explanation on Thursday, just hours after RT DE launched a round-the-clock TV broadcast in Germany.
The much anticipated German-language channel had gone on air, with RT’s auf Sendung page set up on YouTube to allow the internet audience to watch it live.
However, only five hours later the page had been removed by the platform for reasons as yet undisclosed.
You can WATCH the live broadcast of the new channel on RT DE’s official website.
In September, YouTube removed two German-language channels, RT DE and Der Fehlende Part, over what it claimed was a violation of community guidelines. Following the decision, RT’s editor-in-chief branded it a “declaration of media war against Russia by Germany,” and called on Moscow to respond. Before its removal, RT DE was the fourth-most influential German-language news source on the platform, surpassing Deutsche Welle and a number of other news broadcasters.
The audience for RT’s German language online platform, RT DE, has been steadily growing ever since its launch back in 2014. According to CrowdTangle data, it is currently the top German-language news media on Facebook, based on total interactions over the past 12 months, surpassing such German media heavyweights as the tabloid Bild or Der Spiegel magazine, as well as the public broadcaster ZDF.
Its videos, according to Tubular Labs, are also among the top-five most viewed on Facebook, beating those of such German grandees as Spiegel TV, Zeit Online, and Focus Online. RT’s multilingual family of websites has also turned out to be more popular than that of Germany’s state-owned international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, when it comes to visits from Germany.
