01 March 2012 week 09 Explosive Dynamics How Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland’s new channel targets its audience France United States Nicolas de Tavernost The X Factor auditions on the future of TV kick off Germany The Netherlands RTL Interactive launches RTL 4’s hosts tweet RTL Inside from behind the scenes week 09 the RTL Group intranet Cover: Montage with RTL Nitro formats: Modern Family, Nurse Jackie, 24 and Rome 2 week 09 the RTL Group intranet RTL Nitro stands for dynamism Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland announces the launch of RTL Nitro, a new channel to complement the portfolio of the family of channels. Backstage explains the rationale behind the new channel. Germany - 1 March 2012 RTL Nitro will add a new premium entertainment channel to the Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland portfolio. It will cater for a broad public, but take the interests of male audiences into account more than RTL Television and Vox. In the long term, this will make the portfolio of channels even more complementary. “RTL Nitro perfectly complements Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland’s programme line-up,” explains Anke Schäferkordt, CEO of Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland. “With its pure entertainment line-up, the new channel addresses a broad Nurse Jackie audience, with programme highlights for male The hit dark comedy series Nurse Jackie shows viewers.” RTL Nitro stands for a dynamic, the rough-and-tumble everyday life of Nurse explosive programme mix. The claim ‘TV for Jackie Peyton (Edie Falco, The Sopranos), who heroes’ further underlines this message. works in the emergency ward of New York’s All Saints’ Hospital. She pops pills, corrects the The new TV channel makes its debut on misdiagnoses of Dr. Cooper (Peter Facinelli, Sunday 1 April 2012: RTL Nitro will show Twilight Saga), commits adultery with the clinic’s high-end German free-TV premieres and crime pharmacist and has everything else under and sitcom classics, as well as riveting movies. control as well. “We are especially pleased to be able to present outstanding free-TV premieres such as the multi-award-winning US sitcom Modern Family, the Showtime series Nurse Jackie and the new Bruckheimer crime series Chase right from the channel’s launch,” says Schäferkordt. With Modern Family, RTL Nitro is premiering a current favourite with US audiences on German TV. The new comedy format has won scores of prizes, most recently fi ve Emmy Awards. For Ed O’Neill, the role of the listless head of household Jay Pritchett marks a celebrated comeback Chase to comedy after his iconic role as Al Bundy in Married With Children. Modern Family tracks In the new action crime series Chase which is the everyday lives of three completely different also a premiere on German TV, viewers join a families with a tongue-in-cheek approach that is special unit from Texas on the high-speed chase by turns moving and emotional but always close for the most wanted criminals in the US. The to the bone and distinctly original. team led by astute investigator Annie Trost (Kelli Giddish) is called in whenever an exceedingly dangerous criminal has escaped. The US series is the brainchild of multiple Emmy-winning producer Jerry Bruckheimer. (CSI franchise, Pirates Of The Caribbean). 3 week 09 the RTL Group intranet MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY 20:15 20:15 20:30 20:30 Modern Family ChaseIce Road Truckers Rome 20:45 20:45 21:00 21:00 US Movie 21:15 21:15 24 21:30 Nurse Jackie Whale Wars Rome 21:30 Mayday 21:45 21:45 22:00 22:00 24 22:15 The Office 22:15 US Movie Docu US Movie 22:30 22:30 Modern Family Chase 22:45 22:45 SITCOM / COMEDY US MOVIES SERIES ENTERTAINMENT Schematic programming schedule for prime time from Monday to Friday Says Schäferkordt: “RTL Nitro is a long-view project. The fi rst few years will be mostly about building technical reach and introducing viewers to the new programme.” RTL Nitro can be received for free with a digital satellite receiver. Cable customers will have to wait for RTL Nitro to be fed into their cable networks by their respective carriers. Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland will work with the cable networks to continually build the channel’s reach once Modern Family RTL Nitro goes on air. Other highlights to be featured on RTL Nitro include the US version of iconic British comedy The popular British Band The Overtones series The Offi ce, the spectacular historical have been recruited to promote RTL Nitro. drama series Rome, the real-time action series They are behind the channel’s modern launch 24 and movie highlights including King Kong and soundtrack and will provide acoustic and visual The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. accompaniment for its launch. Their hit Gambling Man in a hip ‘Vintage Pop’ style is the channel’s Each day and each timeslot will have its signature tune. The fi ve musicians are all cool, own unmistakable programming theme. For yet very different and they visually represent instance, there will be a day for gripping factual modern men at different ages – precisely the entertainment like Whale Wars and Anwälte viewers that the programming is meant to cater der Toten and for crime classics such as Balko, to, though not exclusively. Alarm für Cobra 11 and all three CSI franchises, but also for cult series such as Knight Rider, The video-on-demand site RTLNitroNow.de Charlie’s Angels and The Rockford Files. Access will launch simultaneously with the channel, as prime time belongs to sitcoms such as Home will the RTL Nitro homepage at RTLNitro.de, Improvement and Who’s the Boss? which features trailers, comprehensive information about the channel, and its current programme line-up. 4 week 09 the RTL Group intranet “Viewing time has never been so high” Les Echos published an interview with Nicolas de Tavernost in its “Monday interview” column. Among other things, he talked about M6’s 25 years and his future in the group. Nicolas de Tavernost France - 28 February 2012 The Chairman of the Executive Board of and that “competitive programmes” would Groupe M6 began the interview by be the solution. M6 also counts on favouring explaining that the channel M6’s growth French productions, and “freeing itself further of throughout the 25 years occurred in four stages, US series,” which still weigh too heavily saying that even if the fi rst stage, the “setting in the programme schedules of French up”, was “probably the most exciting one,” channels, unlike in other European countries. in reality “success could not be presumed; it A change has already been felt in part on the had to be fought for. The French audiovisual channel, according to its CEO, by eliminating landscape was the Wild West at that time, and “US fi ction series at 18:00, 19:00 and 20:00 we had to cross the ‘great plains’ to make a every day and replacing them with French place for ourselves” before becoming the group programmes,” he explains, before specifying that it is today. that for evening programming, “It has to be done gradually,” as “all this takes time, and As for the lessons he learned during all these it won’t happen overnight.” years with the group, “the analyses by so-called audiovisual experts, and the major stances they As for the question of competition from the take regarding the future of the sector, one can international giants such as Google for be quite sure that they will be contradicted.” purchasing US series, de Tavernost estimates He thus confi rmed that the future of TV is TV. that this phenomenon “affects pay-TV more “To me, fl at screens, high defi nition, tablets, than free-TV.” According to him, the best way of mobiles and now social networks help television resisting is “to produce our own programmes.” in general, especially the general-interest He goes on to say that “I don’t worry too much channels. All these new technologies increase about M6. We already have our own brands: the number of occasions to watch television, so Capital, Zone Interdite, Top Chef and Scènes de viewing time has never been so high.” Ménages.” Nicolas de Tavernost estimates that, “M6 can Finally, when asked about his own succession, still grow,” even if the goal is not to achieve the the CEO replied, “I don’t own the mandate, but ratings of TF1, as “that would be a pipe dream,” my enthusiasm to continue remains intact.” 5 week 09 the RTL Group intranet RTL Interactive expands its app business The new, free RTL Inside app for smartphones gives users video clips, live news to accompany select RTL Television programmes, and interaction via social networks. RTL Inside app on I-Phone Germany - 24 February 2012 Right on cue for the start of the Deutschland sucht Matthias Büchs, Head of the Online/Mobile/ den Superstar (Idols) live shows, RTL Interactive Teletext department and a member of the has released the new RTL Inside app for RTL Interactive management board, says: I-Phones and smartphones based on the “As well as our offers for PC and Smart TV, the Android operating system. The app can now be offers for mobile devices are an important part downloaded for free from the apple app Store of Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland’s portfolio and the Android Marketplace. As a special of digital products. Our experience has shown feature, beyond an extensive range of as many that some viewers use mobile devices to seek as 1,000 recent video clips a month from the out further information during the TV programme programme and the Top News of the day, the and to interact about the TV programme while it new app offers users interactive tie-ins to select is showing.