20/02/2008 - The article presents an interview with Frank Dietz, Head of acquisitions and Co-productions for Super RTL since 2000. He explains that Super RTL’s family positioning combines several target groups: kids, family and adults. In order to reach these groups his company has introduced online and mobile services.

Frank Dietz is Head of acquisitions and Co-productions at Super RTL since 2000.

How are you positioning Super RTL?
Super RTL’s family positioning combines several target groups: kids, family and adults. We have to make sure that we keep the momentum going. We analyse the different slots and we try to programme so that we reach the highest market share. We try to cover the key aspects for kids, from knowledge to fantasy and adventure, school and friendship and sports. And that’s how we try to filter, to pre-select the content we are looking for. We have 20 percent of the shows coming from our partner Disney, the rest comes from almost any part of the world.

Are you working with online services?
Yes, we launched a website dedicated to pre-school kids, called «togolino Club». When we launched it, our two shareholders said that it wouldn’t work, but it does. The way this product is structured is that it is totally advertising free, a paying club for kids. And because of the whole educational discussion going on in Germany, parents are very aware of how to educate their children. Parents can sign on to this club for three to six-year olds. Kids can learn how to calculate, how to learn the alphabet etc. by using the computer. So for those kids it’s their first step towards the online community. The logical consequence was that we introduced the club for the 7 to 10-year olds and we have currently 120.000 subscribers between both clubs. «toni .de» is an example of a local phenomenon in Germany. There is a strong market for audiotapes and recorded story telling. This is now a platform where you can download content on your Ipod or on your computer. We develop this service in cooperation with random House, the publishing company.
We also launched a mobile service, called «toggo Mobile». Parents can track where their kids are, and kids can call in an emergency. We wanted to be careful with the introduction of interactivity and new technologies because the jump for parents in Germany - concerned for security - is greater than in UK or France.

What are your relationships with the producers?
We have a couple of relationships with producers. We develop, we get the rights and afterwards the developed game or whatever we come up with goes back to the producer. The producer can use the content for his Internet site or for the pro- motion of the show in another country. It can be considered as an in kind contribution or like an exchange. You can’t really say that we apply standard models but in most cases it’s a two-way benefit for both parties.

What are the relationships between the TV shows and the online services?
We have a release campaign for a selected number of shows. What we consider as focus are about 5 properties per year and some properties can travel throughout the year as a focus for online activities.
In select cases we do advanced screenings on the Club or we do games or promotions, sweepstakes just to introduce a new character but that’s not the case for every show.
Once we introduced a new character only online just so the kids got used to it before it went on the small screen. Everything you see on «togolino» is bought from TV, except for one show «alfie», the first brand to kick the club off.

Are the mobile operators looking for content?
We target the parents, we are carefully watched, as they still see the chief broadcaster as the safe haven. As a commercial channel with advertising, we have to be careful for image reasons that we don’t introduce something that might be seen as not a safe product. And with talks of frequencies being harmful for the development of children’s hearing, we have to pre-educate about a product and that takes time to introduce.

Do you think on demand offering can work for all kids?
Taking the example of «toni .de» we can say yes. The site will have a selection of some of our shows. For future audio or video it can be the best that’s in the market. The logical solution would be that we introduce selected shows on an episode by episode basis and not overload the market with 20 .000 episodes and people are not sure where to go. We have seen that it is not that easy for viewers to find the material. How to use them technically so you have to educate the consumer, you have to guide them. The editor’s will become even more important to help people through. Also catch up TV would be a logical step but we have to be careful that if they watch the catch up show that they are not too distracted from the main channel because at the end of the day it’s a competitive platform and we have to be careful that we do not distract traffic to areas that are not that important for us.

Televisions are launching a 7-day catch up service for all their content. What can or can’t RTL do with this service?
I think at the end of the day it all comes down to entertaining the audience. For a commercial channel like us we can only get the audience if we deliver high quality content and the right shows. For the BBC they have a kind of mission to feed their viewers with the right portfolio, the right content, because they get the public fees and the public demands that. So, coming back to VOD, I think that producers shouldn’t forget that in most cases there are DVD and video deals in place and the way you consume certain kinds of productions is just a matter of technical stuff, fibres or whatever it might be.
What used to be a DVD deal will be chopped up into VOD or other forms of distribution. It’s like dividing a bottle of water in three glasses, the consumption doesn’t rise. So what we lose in DVD and video sales, we have to make up for in VOD sales. DVD really has a hard time to survive. At the moment, I can’t say that VOD is a success, at least for the time being. These are all fledgling revenues. What you need is promotion power and if you dilute on different platforms or wherever you defocus on the various products you can’t really get the benefit of an orchestrated campaign. I think that in most cases where you have a new show going to make it successful you need to introduce it to a mass market and not take the niche approach. And I think the industry is not on the right track if we dilute it and talk about whatever the long tail is. I think you can do a long tail marketing but it will not give you the revenues you would get if you really carefully promoted one hit.

What kind of participation do children have on the RTL websites? How many do something?
They begin getting acquainted with the computer, how to use the mouse, how to calculate. And later on in the «Clever Club», things like experimental high quality educational productions, we make a local version and they learn biology and physics. It’s a fun way to learn. The interactions they can have with us are via exchanges through the free site, they can send questions, we have five people in our customer editorial department so we are in permanent exchange, receiving letters that we respond too etc. there is a pretty serious effort in that direction, of course it’s not as substantial as the BBC can provide, there is a different kind of staffing there but I think we make a pretty substantial effort to accommodate those kinds of aspects.

Cartoon Master Murcia, Spain, March 2007