week 27 the RTL Group intranet “Only the first step” Last week, RTL Group and John de Mol agreed on an asset deal in the Netherlands. Fons van Westerloo, Chief Executive Officer of RTL Nederland, gives Backstage his view on the deal and its consequences. Fons van Westerloo Sardinia - 04.07.2007 The Dutch Newspaper "De Telegraaf" thinks bourg, we managed to close the deal. But we still that the deal between RTL Group, RTL have to make it a success. So far, we only made Nederland and Talpa is "one of the most nota- the first step, the next step is even bigger. We ble deals in television history". Is the deal real- have to outsmart the competition again. ly that big? It's definitely not the biggest thing in TV history - What is the impact for the employees? that was probably something like the switch from For the RTL employees, there won't be a new black-and-white to color TV. But it is a big deal in situation at all. If good people from John de Mol’s the Netherlands, especially because John de Mol channel Tien become available, they of course is involved. He is an excellent entrepreneur, a bil- can apply for jobs at RTL Nederland on our lionaire, a force in the Dutch market. We are terms. See: If you start a channel, you have to proud that a man of his stature is joining our pay more than the standard salary, so they earn ranks as an important shareholder. a lot at Tien. But if we hire people from Tien, there will be no difference in salary for people who stayed loyal to us two years ago and those who What is the rational for this deal? took the adventure. A radio station with the target group and the reach of Radio 538 perfectly fits in with the exis- ting activities of RTL Nederland. Second, the deal Why did Tien not turn out to be a success? will help to secure and strengthen the position of There are many reasons. Clearly, just money is the RTL family of TV channels in the Dutch not enough. It's also about the balance of costs audience and advertising market. The number of and profits and about the profile of a channel. It's big channels that will sustain is not unlimited. a different thing to be a producer than a TV broadcaster, and the economics of TV and radio are quite different as well. What will be the role of Radio 538? Radio 538 is the market leader. It is very profitable while delivering very nice quali- ty programmes. That's quite something. They are also doing extremely well in terms of events, marketing and billboar- ding. There are so many possibilities to do things together, both with RTL 4, but especially with RTL 5, given the young target audience. Your strong TV market position is now secured? Together with all the people in Luxem- Fons van Westerloo among other winners of the “Bertelsmann Award for Outstanding Achievements” at the Management Meeting 2007 1 week 27 the RTL Group intranet “Only the first step” - continued What about your possible new channel? ped a lot of drama series which were not so suc- We plan to launch a fourth Free-TV channel cessful on Tien. We have access and will see under Luxembourgish broadcasting license, cal- whether these programmes might have more led RTL 8. success on one of our channels. Can you already say something about the pro- What will the future cooperation with John de file of RTL 8? Mol look like? The profile should be slightly female and we I think it will be pretty simple: First, he has the expect a market share of roughly three per cent right to take one seat in the supervisory board of as we do not want to cannibalise our other chan- RTL Nederland. This means that he has no say in nels. In terms of programming, there will be a lot the day to day operations of our company. Not of second chance viewing opportunities. that I am afraid, but it is a legal fact that his role I hope we will develop it into a channel will be in the supervi- with a few interactive possibilities. The sory body of the average TV viewer is still a lazy animal management. who wants to sit on the couch and enjoy watching his favorite programmes. But Further, our pro- clearly, they also use more and more the gramme directors internet, searching, creating and distri- will have regular buting their own story. That also could meetings with him happen on a small TV channel like RTL 8. based on the content agreement. We will obtain a first look in Can you give some examples of the the Netherlands of all TV assets which will be acquired by formats developed RTL Nederland? by his Creative Unit, First of all, we talk about football: For one we even contribute year at least, we will have the Dutch to the creative pro- Premiere League. For four years, we cess. Also, we could have secured the Dutch cup and the receive a share in the Dutch national team whenever they play potential worldwide in foreign countries. In addition, we will profits such formats broadcast summaries of almost all might generate. foreign football, Spanish, German, English, Italian and French football, almost everything. The Premiere League and the national team will be broadcast on RTL 4, the rest goes to RTL 7. Also, we gained the biggest lottery, the postcode lottery. We have now Deal or no deal and One against 100 with Linda de Mol. All these programmes move to RTL, financed by the Lottery. John de Mol developed the drama, Gooische Vrouwen, a quite good and successful series about four women and their friendship with Linda de Mol. This will be coming to us. They also develo- 2 week 27 the RTL Group intranet RTL Aktuell attracts more viewers than public news- cast “heute” With average weekday viewing figures of 3.66 mil- lion in June, RTL Aktuell came in ahead of ZDF's main news bulletin (3.65 million viewers). Peter Kloeppel, RTL Aktuell Germany - 04.07.2007 For the first time, therefore, RTL Aktuell also stro- is particularly meaningful when ratings are com- de ahead of one of the main two public service pared. competitors for total audience share over the age of three. The show, anchored by Peter Kloeppel, RTL editor-in-chief Peter Kloeppel said: "We are has already been the most popular information clearly able to attract an ever growing number of source by far among younger viewers for many viewers of all ages with our news programme. years. We aim to not only highlight urgent problems but go one step further and also present solutions for In terms of market share, RTL Aktuell is a clear those who are affected and help keep up their leader of the main news bulletins in German tele- spirits. Our successful Hartz IV project during vision. The half-yearly average (January to June) June has encouraged us to continue this for RTL Aktuell was 19 per cent, clearly head of approach. We are therefore currently starting an Heute (18 per cent), Tagesschau (17.5 per cent) RTL training offensive, due to run for several and Sat 1 News (11.5 per cent). Since main news weeks, where we will help young people find a bulletins are aired at different times, the overview training placement." Atomic Wedgie now available on Helio FremantleMedia and mobile entertainment deve- loper Mobliss have announced that their comedy channel, Atomic Wedgie, will now launch on the mobile operator Helio. United States of America - 04.07.2007 Atomic Wedgie offers hours of original and innovative content and enjoy the humor that repurposed short-form comedy programming, our channel provides,” said Keith Hindle with a menu of 12 different programs to choo- Executive Vice President for FremantleMedia’s se from, including more than 150 mobile shorts. North American licensing team. “The launch is also perfectly timed to the premiere of some “This is a pivotal moment for Atomic Wedgie. new hilarious programming and an intensive Helio brings the channel to a targeted group of marketing campaign that will kick off this early adopters who we feel will embrace its month.” 3 week 27 the RTL Group intranet RTLnow.de focuses on free Video on Demand More than half of all formats are now available free of charge from www.RTLnow.de. More RTL programmes available for free from RTLnow.de during summer 2007 Germany - 03.07.2007 RTLnow.de, RTL's video on demand service, "We want to make video on demand popular in will add at least five more TV formats to its free Germany and offer a real service. Our guiding download service over the next few weeks. principle is that RTL viewers will not miss any- thing ever again because they can download The digital programme library only recently their favourite programmes free of charge from expanded to include Oliver Geissen, RTLnow.de and catch up whenever they want," Staatsanwalt Posch and Mein Baby and the explains Beatrice Züll who is in charge of the new RTL Entern oder Kentern (Board or online service provided by RTLnow.de at RTL Capsize) show. In recent weeks, it has also Interactive. "Our objective is to offer as many been possible to download Exclusiv - Das Star- RTL programmes as possible free of charge via Magazin and RTL aktuell from www.RTLnow.de online streaming." minutes after they have been aired on televi- sion.