MCB19: In search of Europe’s prime position – Content strategies for digital viewing habits

f.l.t.r.: Georgia Brown (Director of European Prime Original Series Amazon Studios), Tanja Hüther (Head of Distributionsboard at ARD), Marcel Amruschkewitz (editor-in-chief and entertainment division director at VOX)

f.l.t.r.: Georgia Brown (Director of European Prime Original Series Amazon Studios), Tanja Hüther (Head of Distributionsboard at ARD), Marcel Amruschkewitz (editor-in-chief and entertainment division director at VOX)

The digital transformation is progressing and demands radical rethinking on all levels. Video-on-demand and streaming service providers have been functioning and thinking digitally from their inception. Their viewers have been consuming digital content for a long time and are moving naturally through the digitalisation everybody is talking about. 

What are the challenges that film and series providers have to face today to provide attractive content for viewers whose viewing habits are already digital, and who are able to choose from a seemingly unending variety of offered content? 

We are looking forward to discuss with top speakers such as Georgia Brown, Head of European Originals, Amazon Studios, Tanja Hüther, Director of the ARD distribution board and Marcel Amruschkewitz, entertainment division director and editor-in-chief at VOX about their content, distribution and digitalisation strategies.

Big series hits such as Grimme award winner “Beat”, “The Good Omens” or “Six Dreams” bear her signature: since 2017, Georgia Brown has been the woman in charge of Amazon’s plans for Europe. And those plans are ambitious: new series from Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Spain are intended to conquer regional markets and excite a global audience at the same time. Money is apparently not an object in this endeavour. How does Amazon’s regional strategy work? What are the hot subjects? And how is Amazon positioning itself in the face of new competition in Europe? In the exclusive fireside chat "Amazon's European cart", Georgia Brown will be speaking about Amazon’s European content strategy.

The streaming market is growing more and more crowded. YouTube, Facebook and Apple are increasing their video-on-demand investments and established networks increasingly bet on their own streaming services. What can German media houses learn from the strategic decisions of US providers? Tanja Hüther is responsible for BR’s distribution management and has been heading the ARD distribution board since September 2018. On the panel “Game of VoDs: new challengers for Netflix and Amazon?” she will be speaking about digital strategies for the national streaming market. 

Good shows and entertainment formats, however, are still mostly taking place on classic TV. With formats such as “Die Höhle der Löwen” (literally “The Lions’ Den” and the German version of “Dragons’ Den”) or “Sing meinen Song” (“Sing my Song”), small channel VOX keeps showing the big players how innovative entertainment is done. The person responsible for this is Marcel Amruschkewitz, who has been in charge of the entertainment division as well as editor-in-chief at VOX since mid-February of this year. With his presentation “What's Up TV? Television from Abroad”, he will yet again inform his audience about trends and oddities on the global entertainment market this year.

More information about the sessions and speakers of the MCB19