Anke Schäferkordt

April 2008

Anke Schäferkordt is responsible for all the German businesses of the RTL Group and is president of Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland (Media Group RTL Germany). This includes a bouquet of services: RTL Television, VOX, RTL II, Super RTL, n-tv, RTL Shop, and the digital channels RTL Crime, RTL Living and Passion. She is also the CEO of RTL Television, the number one station in Europe’s most competitive media market.

WS: TV viewing has recently dropped in Germany, and yet the RTL stations have actually seen their audiences increase. What have been the strengths of the RTL stations?

SCHÄFERKORDT: Each station has a clear and strong profile and positioning in the German TV market. During the last few years, we have enhanced the collaboration amongst the channels, especially in terms of programming in each time slot. We avoid competing against each other in the same program genre and we optimize our schedules permanently to beat the competition. On RTL, in the last couple of months, we focused on prime time and access prime time successfully. Especially in prime time, we have developed very clear lineups for every single day of the week. People know what they get when they switch on RTL. And we began the year with strong formats like Pop Idol or I’m a Celebrity. Looking at the young target group, RTL is the market leader as well as we are the number one with our group of channels, ahead of ProSiebenSat.1.

WS: How have the digital services RTL Crime, RTL Living and Passion been received by viewers?

SCHÄFERKORDT: We are more than happy with the development of our digital channels. We substantially increased our subscriber base within the last few months and we have grown our technical reach since we launched the new digital services in December 2006. We bring more and more fresh programs on air. And we are happy about getting more and more advertisers who use our digital channels to reach very specific target groups.

WS: Are there plans for more digital services?

SCHÄFERKORDT: Currently we are focusing on growth within our existing portfolio in terms of audience and advertising. As digitization picks up speed, we will offer more services in the coming years.

WS: What are the major challenges facing the German television market, and how are the RTL stations facing them?

SCHÄFERKORDT: As a result of digitization we are facing fragmentation within the TV industry but also new competition from other industries like the telcos. For some people it’s popular these days to see television as old media whose best times were in the past. My opinion is quite different, and our strategy is clear: we want to be on any screen, whether it’s at home in the living room, on a PC screen in the office or on a mobile device. With our strong brands we want to be available to our audience whenever and wherever they want to be entertained and informed by RTL and our other channels. And if you consider that websites or portals like YouTube, or our own clipfish, are mostly driven by TV content, it’s not a bad position for us to be in.

WS: Would you give some examples of how RTL Television has extended its offerings through websites, IPTV and mobile phones?

SCHÄFERKORDT: Today we offer our content on entertainment portals like RTL.de or news portals like n-tv.de. We launched our video portal clipfish a year ago, and we offer a VOD service with highly
successful brands like CSI or home-grown soaps like Good Times, Bad Times. For the past two years, our news has been available for mobile or iPods. And just a couple of months ago, we announced that we acquired a 49-percent stake in one of the fastest-growing social communities in Germany. No doubt, of course, there are risks in digitization, but there are many more opportunities, and we are very keen to take them and build new business models.

WS: What role do American series have on the RTL stations?

SCHÄFERKORDT: As we offer a wide range of genres within our family of channels, American series play an important role on RTL and VOX. We are very happy to have the majority of the most successful series, like House or the CSI franchise, on our channels.

WS: What impact did the Writers Guild of America strike have on RTL stations?

SCHÄFERKORDT: Luckily, the strike is over. But because of the dubbing process in Germany we are going to face the consequences of having fewer episodes available the next season. We will then have a higher number of rerun episodes.

WS: Several RTL shows have raised considerable amounts of money for various charities. How do you view the social responsibility of a commercial broadcaster?

SCHÄFERKORDT: It’s our philosophy that as a company we have to take social responsibility. That is why we founded our own Foundation RTL—We Help Children in 1997. The aim of our foundation is to improve the living conditions of children in need all over the world. So, during a period of 12 years, together with our audience and with the help of sponsors, we have raised more than €50 million for such projects.

WS: What are your main priorities for 2008?

SCHÄFERKORDT: In terms of programming, we have to find the right balance of proven and successful shows on the one hand and program innovations on the other hand. For Germany as well as for some other European markets, the challenge will be to develop nationally produced fiction like one-hour dramas that are able to compete with the American series.

WS: What do you consider to have been your most important accomplishments so far?

SCHÄFERKORDT: There is no single accomplishment I am proud of. As success is always based on good teamwork, and as you can never take a rest and enjoy yesterday’s success, I am not able to give a ranking of [what I am most proud of]. We were really happy with last year’s accomplishments of our Media Group RTL Germany, as all our stations increased their audience shares and we had the biggest advantage ever over our direct competitors—the stations in the ProSiebenSat.1 Group.

WS: Have you had mentors in your career?

SCHÄFERKORDT: To be honest, no. But, of course, I have been impressed by some people and I’ve always tried to learn from others.

WS: What kind of atmosphere do you create for the people who work for you and with you?

SCHÄFERKORDT: The first key to success is a strong team. I’ve always looked for people with strong opinions and the courage to contradict. On the other hand, they have to be team players and not have self-centered egos. The atmosphere I try to create is open but clearly focused on the success of our Media Group.

WS: What do you enjoy most about your work?

SCHÄFERKORDT: The wide range of responsibilities and the freedom to translate ideas into action. The most fun part is working on the programming.