Thursday, February 25, 2021
Reorganization at the top
RTL is merging TV and streaming
More own content and a stronger focus on the in-house streaming platform: Mediengruppe RTL is reorganizing several business areas. This also involves personnel changes at the top.
Reorganization at Mediengruppe RTL: The Cologne-based media company is further merging the TV and streaming areas. At the same time, the media group is investing even more in its own production of local content. To this end, the RTL STUDIOS subsidiary will be set up even more broadly. All content for which the program and streaming brands are responsible will in future be orchestrated even more strongly across platforms and played out specifically for the respective audience.
The aim of the reorganization is to expand leadership positions in both linear television and streaming in Germany and to strengthen the RTL programming brand across all platforms and distribution channels. Just recently, the company announced that it would also rename its rapidly growing TVNOW streaming service to RTL + as part of the upcoming repositioning of the RTL core brand.
These strategic objectives will also be accompanied by a personnel reorganization on March 1, 2021: Henning Tewes, Managing Director TVNOW and COO Program Affairs & Multichannel of Mediengruppe RTL, will also take over the management of RTL Television.
Transferring leading position to digital
The previous RTL Television managing director Jörg Graf is moving to the production house RTL STUDIOS in the same role. There, together with RTL STUDIOS managing director Inga Leschek, he is expanding his own production of high-quality program content in the entertainment, factual and, in the future, fiction genres for all of the company's TV and streaming offers and other partners. As COO Program Affairs, Jörg Graf was responsible for the German and international production business for many years and brings his extensive expertise and network to the ambitious growth plans of RTL STUDIOS.
The new TVNOW program director will be Frauke Neeb, previously co-director of Fiction at Mediengruppe RTL. She will succeed Frank Trösken, who will become RTL Television's new program director, on May 1, 2021. Jan Peter Lacher, Head of Program Strategy and Planning at RTL Television, will be responsible for the cross-platform orchestration of all content as Chief Planning & Cooperations Officer. In addition to content delivery, this also includes content scouting and creative exchange within the Bertelsmann Content Alliance and with other cooperation partners.
Stephan Schäfer, Managing Director Content & Brands of Mediengruppe RTL says: "We want to permanently transfer our leading position from the TV market to the digital world. The prerequisites for this are excellent, because we are consistently strengthening our core brand and are continuing to invest specifically in our own content and organize their perfect cross-media interaction. This is served by the organizational reorganization. And that's why the new team is at the top: great creatives and program designers who have developed in-house and are now taking on additional responsibility. "
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