Exclusive Interview: RTL’s Anke Schäferkordt

September 21, 2011 World Screen

PREMIUM: Anke Schäferkordt, the head of the RTL Group’s German operations, tells World Screen Newsflash that quality shows, catch-up TV services, digital channels and diversifying revenues have driven her division’s success.

 

Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland is arguably the core of the RTL Group. It holds free-TV stations, including the German market leader, RTL Television; digital channels; radio stations; production units; and new-media companies, as well as licensing and merchandising and video games. Its brands reach an audience of approximately 90 million viewers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As CEO, Anke Schäferkordt oversees all of this and is quite optimistic about the group’s prospects for further growth.
 
TV EUROPE: What have been some of the keys to the success of RTL Deutschland’s free-TV stations?
SCHÄFERKORDT: Our flagship channel, RTL, increased its audience shares for the third year in a row. The success of RTL is based on its variety of programs. It is the market leader in entertainment as well as in information. Among our shows, our strongest formats are I’m aCelebrity, Get Me Out of Here!,Idols and Got Talent. The real-life show Undercover Boss was strong, as were several of the shows we developed ourselves. CSI: Miami is the most popular American show, and our action series Alarm für Cobra 11 tops the German series hit list.
 
The success of VOX is based mainly on three strong pillars: U.S. feature films, U.S. series, and nonfiction productions. CSI: NY, Law &Order: Criminal Intent and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit delivered reliable ratings, and the introduction of The X Factor to the German market proved to be a success as well. Super RTL is the clear market leader in children’s programs and N-TV has substantially increased its audience shares in its core area of news and business information.
 
WS: How are the digital channels Passion, RTL Crime and RTL Living performing, and what have been some of their successes?
SCHÄFERKORDT: [They] are doing very well. With much more than 2 million subscribers, they are among the most widely distributed and most successful channels in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. On RTL Crime we show a broad variety of high-quality documentaries and drama series like the CSI franchise or Hustle. Recent program acquisitions for RTL Crime have been, for example, the Starz series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and the BBC’s The Shadow Line. On RTL Living we show high-quality lifestyle programs with hosts like Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Heston Blumenthal, Michael Palin and Alan Titchmarsh. The Passion channel targets female viewers with German soaps and international contemporary and period drama.         
 
WS: The German cartel office objected to the proposed joint-venture online platform between Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland and ProSiebenSat.1. What did the two companies want to offer consumers? 
SCHÄFERKORDT: The idea of the proposed joint venture was to establish a single technical platform for all catch-up services in Germany. The joint venture would have been in charge of the technical services only, while every network would have decided independently what programs to offer as a catch-up service and whether and how to sell advertising. Every television station in Germany would have been invited to offer their programs under the umbrella of each station’s brand. Now that the cartel office has turned down our plans, we are concentrating again on our own catch-up sites, RTLNOW, VOXNOW and SuperRTLNOW, which launched last year. On the other hand, we went to court and have appealed the decision of the cartel office.
 
WS: Does RTL Deutschland have plans for other online on-demand services?
SCHÄFERKORDT: We have already established our own online offerings, station by station. We started in 2007 with RTLNOW.de. VOXNOW.de and SuperRTLNOW.de followed in 2009 and 2010. We offer an ad-supported catch-up service, where viewers can watch shows for free within seven days of the TV broadcast. We also offer a preview and a library version, both of which are pay models. We keep on optimizing these services and plan to introduce them soon into the cable market.
 
WS: How popular are the catch-up TV
services, RTLNOW.de and VOXNOW.de?
SCHÄFERKORDT: Keeping in mind that the offer as of today is a web-only offer, the development of unique users and video viewers is more than promising. RTLNOW.de, for example, guarantees approximately 20 million video views per month of full episodes. I expect these figures to increase substantially as soon as our offers will be available on cable, too.
 
WS: What are you learning about how viewers are watching programming online?
SCHÄFERKORDT: We have learned that we are on the right track in offering viewers our content wherever and whenever they want to be informed or entertained by us…. The fast-growing usage of our online and mobile content is not cannibalizing viewing of the linear channels. Last year more people than ever, across all relevant target groups, were watching television in Germany. That leads us to the conclusion that providing shows on the Internet in case viewers have missed them on TV strengthens the relationship between our viewers and our television programs.
 
WS: How willing have advertisers been to move online?
SCHÄFERKORDT: We strongly believe that advertisers will benefit substantially from the combination of TV advertising and online advertising. While online display advertising is a highly fragmented market with huge competition and high price pressure, online advertising has proved to be the driver of our growth. We can offer advertisers the best professional video content in which they can place their advertising.
 
WS: How are you diversifying revenues at RTL Deutschland?
SCHÄFERKORDT: We have a long history of offering all kinds of merchandising related
to our strong brands. In addition, our shows provide a huge variety of call-in and voting opportunities. With Universum Film, our Munich-
based subsidiary, we have the strongest independent supplier of home entertainment through DVDs and electronic sales. Furthermore, our online and mobile offers are highly successful and are steadily increasing their contributions to the core business. Last, but in no way least, our pay channels add a smile to our faces!
 
WS: Has the difficult economy affected the amount of production being done at your stations?
SCHÄFERKORDT: In 2010 and 2011 we invested more in programming than we did during the crisis year of 2009. We have three daily soaps in addition to Idols, Got Talent and The X Factor, the three top shows on our stations, which are all produced by FremantleMedia companies. [FremantleMedia is also owned by the RTL Group.] We have a very successful cooperation with FremantleMedia, but we have also strong partnerships with other production companies, as we are always looking for the best programs.
 
WS: What opportunities for growth do you see in the next 12 to 24 months for Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland?
SCHÄFERKORDT: We have reached record audience shares and have continued to increase our leadership over our main competitor by a record 7.4 percentage points, so further growth in ratings on a group level will be tough to achieve. For RTL, which is so dominant in the German market, our target is to defend this strong position. For VOX and Super RTL we see further growth potential. Since we have not yet capitalized on our ratings growth in the advertising market, there is potential to increase our share of advertising over the next years. And of course, our online and mobile activities will add further growth potential.        
 

 

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