The Media Region North Rhine-Westphalia

FILM
&MEDIA
NRW
The Media Region
North Rhine-Westphalia
German Comedy Award
Carolin Kebekus
Best female comedian 2013/14
Pina
The Physician
Stromberg – The Movie
Media Region NRW
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Contents
Welcome
Editorial
Media Region NRW
Film
Television
Radio
Publishers
Music
Adver@sing
Games
Internet & Web
Mobile
Telecommunica@on
Cabel & Satellite
Start-ups
Educa@on
Events
Funding & Financing
Contacts
Imprint
Contents > 3
Cologne Cathedral and Hohenzollern Bridge
Welcome
Film, TV, radio, Internet, games, print - the media region
of NRW oﬀers the best condi@ons for start-ups. 414,000
employees in 25,000 media and communica@on companies
and an annual turnover of 130 billion Euros have made us
into the leading hub for the media industry in Germany.
The basis for further growth in this sector is a good course
of training and intensive support of the next genera@on.
The North Rhine-Westphalian colleges and universi@es
oﬀer a broad range of specialised courses for no less than
around 200 diﬀerent professions in the media sector.
Our talent labs and funding programmes open up diverse
possibili@es for those newcomers with a penchant for
innova@on to enable them to realise their ideas.
One of our programmes is the lead market compe@@on
„CreateMedia.NRW“ under the auspices of the new
funding tranche of the European Regional Development
Fund. This compe@@on is a way for the regional state
government to support media and crea@ve enterprises
4
in realising new ideas. In addi@on, we can support outstanding media projects which further improve the compe@@veness of NRW as a media centre.
The Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW, one of Germany’s
largest ﬁlm funds, has been playing an important role in
this respect for many years. The local TV sta@ons WDR
and RTL as well as ZDF and the media authority Landesanstalt für Medien NRW also par@cipate here along with
the Land. The S@,ung is the top address in North RhineWestphalia not least because of its regional marke@ng
and the funding of innova@ve media content.
You can ﬁnd up-to-date informa@on on everything about
NRW as a media region in the following pages. I wish you
an entertaining read!
Hannelore Kra), Prime Minister
of North Rhine-Westphalia
St. Anne’s Fair Düren
Editorial
34,000 square kilometres, 18 million inhabitants, located
in the western half of Germany and at the heart of Europe,
dominated by the Rhine and its ci@es steeped in history
and also the industrial landscape of the Ruhr area – North
Rhine-Westphalia is this and much more.
Once the stronghold of coal and steel, NRW is now known
for its highly qualiﬁed media, crea@ve and digital industries.
Whether it is ﬁlm and television, telecommunica@ons and
publishing houses, adver@sing and communica@ons, Internet or games – the media world’s major players are based
here: Bertelsmann and the Funke Media Group, Telekom
and Vodafone, WDR and RTL, Ubiso, and Electronic Arts.
With them, a highly professional and lively scene of crea@ves, producers and service-providers has developed, now
numbering a total 414,000 employees, 25,000 companies
and 130 billion Euros turnover. An impressive success
story, a successful structural change – made in North
Rhine-Westphalia.
At the centre is the media metropolis and TV capital Cologne
with its unique mixture of tradi@onal and innova@ve,
established companies and start-ups, the market leaders
of entertainment as well as ambi@ous, interna@onally
opera@ng ﬁlm and TV producers. In addi@on, there are
other centres just as vibrant like the adver@sing and fashion
stronghold of Düsseldorf or the Ruhr region which has
developed into a hotspot for games and Internet startups. On top of this, there are interna@onal trade fairs and
media events, a unique higher educa@on landscape with
excellent training courses and, not least of all, an art and
cultural scene with world-famous museums, theatres,
ballet troupes and concert houses – all this is North
Rhine-Westphalia.
Now in its fourth edi@on, the „Media Region North RhineWestphalia“ brochure provides an overall picture of the
media and communica@ons industry and compact informa@on about the region. Facts and ﬁgures about the
most important sectors and the contacts from the world
of poli@cs and ins@tu@ons as well as tes@monials from
businessmen prove: NRW stands for economic success as
well as for innova@on and crea@ve excellence.
The Film- und Mediens@,ung is making its own contribu@on here. It is one of the leading funding ins@tu@ons for
ﬁlm and television in Europe and has consistently opened
up to new media. In coopera@on with the Land, new
funding instruments were developed for innova@ve and
interac@ve content, new networking opportuni@es and
communica@on pla?orms created, thus aArac@ng a new
kind of aAen@on for a young and cosmopolitan loca@on.
Perhaps you are already living and working here, or you
would like to become beAer acquainted with the Land
and its possibili@es. In both cases, the following pages
are highly recommended!
Have fun!
Petra Müller, CEO
Film- und Mediens<)ung NRW
Welcome|Editorial > 5
Cologne Cathedral
Media Harbour Düsseldorf, Gehry Buildings
Media Region NRW
Television
WDR
RTL
VOX
Super RTL
n-tv
Phoenix
QVC
Landesstudios
SAT.1 Landesstudio
ZDF Landesstudio
Radio
WDR
Deutschlandfunk
Deutsche Welle
radio NRW
Producers Film/Televison
ac@on concept
Ansager & Schnipselmann
AZ Media
Brainpool TV
Broadview
Endemol
elsani ﬁlm
Eyeworks Germany
ﬁlmpool
gﬀ Geißendörfer
Heima?ilm
I&U
ITV Studios Germany
LiAle Shark Entertainment
Lichtblick Film
Made In Germany
MMC Movies
Network Movie
Pandora Filmproduk@on
Redseven Entertainment
Raab TV-Produk@on
Seapoint Produc@ons
Senator Film Köln
Sony Pictures FFP
Tresor TV
UFA Show & Factual
Westside Filmproduk@on
Wüste Film West
Zeitsprung Pictures
Zentropa Interna@onal Köln
Zieglerﬁlm Köln
Studios
blueBox Studios
Cubic Studios
infostudios
MMC Studios
Moviepark Studios
nobeo
WDR-Studios Köln-Bocklemünd
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Welcome to North Rhine-Westphalia, the federal state of
media, communica@ons and the crea@ve industries. With
around 18 million inhabitants, NRW is not only the most
populous of the German federal states, but it is also one
of the most economically powerful metropolitan regions
in Europe. The media and communica@ons industry plays
a crucial role in this. With 25,000 companies in the media
and communica@ons sector (2013), approximately 414,000
employees (2013), and a turnover of 130 billion Euros (2012),
the federal state has developed into Germany’s leading
media and crea@ve hub and one of the strongest in Europe.
An incomparable cultural landscape ensures that the
region is aArac@ve and oﬀers a high quality of life as well
as produc@ve synergies between media, art and culture
that guarantee its crea@vity and innova@ve vitality.
Interna4onally opera4ng media companies
Two global players lead the ranks of the most inﬂuen@al
media companies in North Rhine-Westphalia. Bertelsmann,
the largest media concern in Europe and the number eight
in the world, has its headquarters in Gütersloh in East
Westphalia. The media giant operates in the following four
main business ﬁelds in more than 50 countries around the
world: television (RTL Group), books (Penguin Random
House), magazines (Gruner + Jahr) and media services
(arvato). Bertelsmann employs more than 110,000 people
globally and posted turnover of 16.4 billion Euros in 2013.
The city of Bonn, located some 200 kilometres southwestward from Gütersloh, is home to Deutsche Telekom. With
142.5 million mobile phone customers, 31 million landline
Bertelsmann is based in North Rhine-Westphalia and interna@onally. The media business is
experiencing rapid transforma@on. Digitaliza@on and crea@vity ﬁnd the perfect innova@ve
environment to par@cipate in these changes in
North Rhine-Westphalia.
Thomas Rabe, Chairman of the Board
Bertelsmann
and more than 17 million broadband connec@ons, it is one
of the world’s market leaders. The company oﬀers products
and services for landline telephones, mobile communica@ons, Internet and, increasingly, moving images via IPTV and
ICT solu@ons for corporate clients; it has a presence in
some 50 countries and has a workforce of 230,000
throughout the world. In 2013, the turnover of Deutsche
Telekom amounted to 60.1 billion Euros. The Essen-based
Funke Media Group also plays in the inter-na@onal media
league. It publishes no ﬁgures , but is
considered by the industry as one of the most proﬁtable
media companies in Germany. Newspapers and magazines
are the tradi@onal focus of opera@ons for this company
in the heart of the Ruhr region.
Publishers with a future
Along with Bertelsmann and the Funke Media Group, the
DuMont Schauberg Media Group, the HandelsblaA newspaper from Düsseldorf and the Ippen Group in Hamm are
among the most important na@onal players in the whole
of Germany. Nowadays, what used to be classic publishers
has now evolved into broad-based, interna@onally ac@ve
media corpora@ons facing up to the challenges of new
digital distribu@on and aware of how to take advantage
of them. The book publishers are also ﬁt for the future.
More than 500 publishers from NRW generated a turnover
of 3.8 billion Euros in 2012, headed up by the German
market leader in the ﬁeld of hardcover ﬁc@on, Bastei Lübbe,
and the renowned publisher Kiepenheuer & Witsch
in Cologne.
Deutsche Telekom is not only providing society
with infrastructure. We are also a reliable companion in the digital world. Both privately and
professionally. Any@me and anywhere. Simplifying and enriching people’s lives – that is our
mission. NRW is the home from where we take
on this responsibility – also in partnership with
the media.
Timotheus Hö=ges, CEO
Deutsche Telekom
Facts and Figures
Dortmunder U, centre for art and crea<vity
Germany’s number one television loca4on
WDR, RTL, VOX, Super RTL, n-tv, Phoenix and several others:
North Rhine-Westphalia is one of the biggest TV hubs in
Europe and the undisputed number one loca@on in Germany. The TV capital of Cologne is not only home to WDR,
Europe’s largest public broadcaster, and RTL, the most
successful commercial television sta@on in Germany, but
also to the majority of Germany’s most important TV producers. Their entertainment formats dominate the ra@ngs
ﬁgures: major players like UFA Show & Factual, ITV Studios
Germany, Brainpool, Endemol Deutschland and Eyeworks
produce such successful formats as Idol, I’m a Celebrity,
Get Me Out of Here!, Let’s Dance, Come Dine with Me,
Henssler – The Restauran=ester, Who wants to be a millionaire?, TV Total, Beat your Host. ZDF is also a successful
producer in NRW. Germany’s second na@onal channel
has a presence in Düsseldorf with the editorial oﬃces for
the regional studio and the programme Volle Kanne, the
market leader of the morning magazine programmes.
Moreover, the ZDF audience favourite heute-show is r
ecorded in Cologne each week.
What’s more, there is also succesful ﬁc@on produc@on –
TV events like Genera<on War, The Adlon, Hindenburg
and The Krupps, television ﬁlms like Schimanski, Mord in
Eberswalde, Nichts mehr wie vorher and George, series
such as Lindenstrasse, Stromberg, Die Anrheiner, Alarm
for cobra 11 and The last cop, daily soaps such as Verbotene Liebe and Alles was zählt, sitcoms and comedy like
Pastewka, Switch reloaded, Ladykracher as well as the
NRW is one of Germany’s most important media
loca@ons. Cologne is especially important, above
all in the ﬁeld of major entertainment shows and
long-running series. We see the func@oning network of crea@ve minds, producers and service
providers as well as the RTL Deutschland media
group’s geographical proximity to a large number of produc@on companies as being a key
factor of our success.
Anke Schäferkordt, Managing Director
RTL Group
> Germany’s leading media and communica@ons loca@on
> 25,000 companies, 414,000 employees, 130 billion Euros turnover
> Interna@onally opera@ng media and telecommunica@ons companies
> Bertelsmann, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Funke
> Strong newspaper and book publishing sector
> Leading TV broadcasters WDR, RTL, VOX, Super RTL, n-tv, Phoenix
> Cologne: German TV capital No. 1
> Majority of Germany's leading TV producers in Cologne
> Highly professional service-providers
> One-third of domes@c television programming produced here
> Lively and crea@ve ﬁlm scene
> Financially strong ﬁlm funding ins@tu@on
> Booming games cluster, strong Web scene
> Düsseldorf – adver@sing loca@on with the biggest turnover,
mobile capital
> Diverse art and cultural scene
> Highly qualiﬁed specialist personnel
> Excellent universi@es and colleges
highly popular NRW Scene of the Crime series from Münster, Cologne and Dortmund. The professional and produc@ve environment of North Rhine-Westphalia
generates an output unmatched elsewhere: more than
a third of the TV programming produced in Germany
comes from NRW.
German ﬁlms and interna4onal star cinema
Cinema from NRW – we are talking about award-winning
produc@ons and box oﬃce smashes as well as arthouse
highlights. Outstanding movies for the cinema have been
produced here con@nuously for the past 20 years, including Til Schweiger’s Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Tom Tykwer’s Run, Lola, Run, Sönke Wortmann’s The Miracle of
Bern, Michael „Bully“ Herbig’s Manitou’s Shoe, Wolfgang
Becker’s Good Bye, Lenin!, Wim Wenders’ Oscar-nominated Pina, Philipp Stölzl’s The Physician, and Margarethe
von TroAa’s Hannah Arendt. On top of this, many interna@onal produc@ons beneﬁt from the federal state’s ﬁrstclass infrastructure, ideal produc@on condi@ons and a
wide variety of unusual loca@ons for shoo@ng. Thanks to
the crea@ve and ﬁnancial input from North Rhine-Westphalia, Michael Haneke (Hidden), Ken Loach (The Wind
That Shakes the Barley) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul
(Uncle Boonmee) have won Golden Palms in Cannes,
Semih Kaplanoglu (Bal) has won a Golden Bear in Berlin,
Samuel Maoz (Lebanon) a Golden Lion in Venice, Philip
Gröning (Into Great Silence) the European Film Award, Gérard
Corbiau (Farinelli) and Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now) a
Golden Globe each, and Kate Winslet an Oscar. >
The diversity of the aArac@ve media region of
NRW is unique in Europe. With its crea@vity
and passion for cinema, WDR is an excellent
partner for exci@ng and modern projects. This
is where risks are taken and experiments carried out. We support the next genera@on of
ﬁlm-makers and media crea@ves and oﬀer
them a fer@le home at WDR.
Tom Buhrow, Director of
WDR
Zollverein Coal Mine
Industrial Complex
Postproduc@ons
ACT Videoproduk@on
ARRI Film & TV Services
Chaussee SoundVision
cine plus Köln
Industriesauger-TV
LAVALabs Moving Images
PICTORION das werk
RuhrSoundStudios
digital postproduc@on
ScanlineVFX
Torus
Distribu@on
Auten@c Distribu@on
The Match Factory
media luna new ﬁlms
New Docs
Games
astragon So,ware
Blue Byte
Electronic Arts
Piranha Bytes/Pluto 13
RTL interac@ve
Turtle Entertainment
Ubiso,
Mobile
Coupies
E-Plus
Ericsson
Glanzkinder
KIT digital
netSTART Venture
Nokia
Seven Principles
RTL interac@ve
Sevenval
T-Mobile
Vodafone
WDR mediagroup
Internet
AdAudience
arvato
Bassier, Bergmann & Kindler
buch.de/bol.de
Clipﬁsh.de
denkwerk
favsol
kalaydo.de
Pixelpark
RTL interac@ve
T-Systems Mul@media Solu@ons
UFA LAB NRW
WDR mediagroup digital
Media Region NRW > 7
RTL Group, Cologne
Funke media group, Essen
Media Region NRW
Publishers
Bertelsmann
HandelsblaA
Ippen Gruppe
M. DuMont Schauberg
Rheinische Post Verlagsges.
Funke Mediengruppe
Book Publishers
Bastei Lübbe
Emons Verlag
Random House
Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Taschen Verlag
Adver@sing/PR Agencies
BBDO
DDB Tribal
Grey
Grayling
Hering Schuppener
Jeschenko
Ketchum Pleon
McCann Erickson
MEC
MediaCom
Media Concept
muehlhausmoers
Ogilvy
Oliver SchroA Kommunika@on
OMD
Op@media
Publicis
Saatchi & Saatchi
Scholz & Friends
Ströer
TBWA
Vok Dams
Weber Shandwick
Zenithmedia
Telecommunica@ons
Deutsche Telekom
Vodafone
E-Plus
Huawei
QSC
Ericsson
Nokia
LG Electronics
Samsung
Cable & Satellite TV
Unitymedia
NetCologne
Tele Columbus
Eutelsat
ASTRO Strobel
Kommunika@onssysteme
8
Radio
NRW's radio sta@ons are at the forefront as well: four
of the ten sta@ons with the highest audience ﬁgures in
Germany come from NRW, including the na@on's No. 1,
radio NRW. Large public broadcasters are also based here,
headed up by WDR, Germany's largest broadcaster with
six FM channels, as well as Deutschlandfunk and Deutsche
Welle. Nowhere else in Germany do more listeners tune
into their radios, and there is no comparably dense network of public and private sta@ons.
Games, Mobile, Internet, Start-up scene
NRW’s games industry also gets high scores: its turnover is
one of the highest in Germany. Electronic Arts and Ubiso,,
two of the world’s leading games developers, are based
on the banks of the River Rhine; moreover, a quarter of
all German games developers and arvato, one of the most
important distributors for the domes@c industry, operate
from here. The gamescom in Cologne is one of the three
biggest games trade fairs worldwide, and young talent in
the crea@ve ﬁeld of game development has access to a wide
range of training opportuni@es. An ideal infrastructure is
also in place for the new mobile sector that is especially
involved in developing apps and beneﬁts from the proximity to all of the market players: apart from the games
producers, there are numerous telecommunica@ons
companies, crea@ve developers, innova@ve so,ware companies and the top TV sta@ons as content-providers. In
total, 40 per cent of the companies involved in the mobile
sector in Germany are based in NRW. The Internet indus-
As a media loca@on, NRW is crea@ve, successful,
exci@ng, varied and lively. Here you will ﬁnd the
biggest TV and radio broadcasters, more than 40
daily newspaper publishers, more than 10,000
adver@sing companies, and numerous growing
start-ups from the games and Internet scene, all
next door to each other. That is a very interesting and exci@ng crea@ve pool which generates
mutual inspira@on and new ideas!
Dr. Angelica Schwall-Düren,
Minister of Federal Aﬀairs, Europe and Media
Bertelsmann, Gütersloh
try with such players as Clipﬁsh.de, Kalaydo.de, Mediakra,,
RTL interac@ve and WDR mediagroup digital is also highly
apprecia@ve of these ﬁrst-class structures. A crea@ve and
conﬁdent start-up scene with one of the highest enterprise birth rates in Germany, leading Internet agencies
and important associa@ons for the digital economy are
addi@onal posi@ve factors for the region.
Music
Music is well posi@oned in NRW. A crea@ve scene in the
Rhine-Ruhr Region as well as four state-run music colleges
provide the basis. The concentra@on of extraordinary
venues is unique within in Europe, aArac@ng major ar@sts
from the worlds of pop and classical music. Music companies like Rhingtön, Rough Trade, Al!ve, Medion and
Denon operate out of NRW where a total of around 2,400
companies are ac@ve in the music industry, genera@ng
around 2 billion Euros per year.
Adver4sing
The top address for the adver@sing and communica@on
business is Düsseldorf, Germany's adver@sing hub with
the largest turnover. The federal state capital is the base
for the largest network agencies BBDO, Grey and Heimat,
home to ﬁve of the ten biggest media agencies in Germany
(incl. MediaCom and OMD), the biggest event agency (Vok
Dams) as well as the na@on's second-largest PR agency
(Ketchum Pleon). Agencies and crea@ves appreciate the
interna@onal character, the large companies and media,
the quality of life, and the relaxed combina@on of lifestyle
North Rhine-Westphalia is an aArac@ve loca@on for the crea@ve and cultural industries –
and thus also for the media sector. This is
where global players, an innova@ve SME sector
and a crea@ve, produc@ve start-up scene are
working closely together. For NRW oﬀers
companies the complete package: brains,
capital and coopera@ons .
Garrelt Duin, Minister for
Economics, Energy, Industry and Commerce
of the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia
Deutsche Telekom AG, Bonn
and business. In addi@on, the cultural environment provides a strong crea@ve input.
Cables, Connec4ons, Networks
Three of the four German mobile phone operators are
based in Bonn and Düsseldorf: Vodafone, T-Mobile and
E-Plus. Close to 90 per cent of the mobile phone market
in Germany is covered by the companies from NRW.
Major ITC companies and leading universi@es are present
throughout the whole of NRW. Thanks to its Entertain
TV service, Deutsche Telekom has become a player in the
cable market which is also well represented in NRW.
Unitymedia in Cologne is the second-largest cable network
operator in Germany, and NetCologne the largest city
carrier. They all beneﬁt in turn from the presence of the
leading content providers.
Events and Awards
With so many professionals from the ﬁelds of media,
communica@on and crea@vity being located in NRW, there
is also a need for communica@on pla?orms and industry
events. A permanent ﬁxture in the calendar for all in the
media industry is the Media Forum NRW in Cologne. In
2014, it was staged for the ﬁrst @me in coopera@on with
the conference for ANGA COM, Europe's leading trade fair
for cable, broadband and satellite. Each year, the Media
Forum is a venue for thought leaders from ﬁlm, television,
radio, print, games, telecommunica@ons and media policy
to come together and exchange views. The gamescom is
one of the most important interna@onal trade fairs for
I put my faith in the media loca@on NRW
because it is so diverse, so exci@ng, so crea@ve
and so challenging. It never gets boring here
because things are moving all the @me.
Dr. Jürgen Brautmeier, Director
State Media Authority of NRW
West German Broadcas<ng, Cologne
interac@ve entertainment. It is held at the koelnmesse trade
fair grounds, the same venue as for the photokina and
dmexco fairs.
As far as ﬁlm fes@vals are concerned, North Rhine-Westphalia has a variety of events. Almost 30 events of regional
and interna@onal signiﬁcance are organized during the
year for cineastes and ﬁlm professionals. Europe’s largest
reading fes@val, lit.Cologne, has been making reading
into a popular event for the past 14 years. More than 200
individual events aAracted around 101,000 visitors in 2014.
And not least of all, NRW as Germany's centre of television
also serves as the venue for the most important German
television awards. The broadcasters WDR/ARD, ZDF, RTL
and SAT.1 have been presen@ng the German Television
Award (Deutscher Fernsehpreis) at the Coloneum in Cologne
each year since 1999. The awards ceremony for the German
Comedy Award (Deutscher Comedypreis) is held during
the Interna@onal Cologne Comedy Fes@val which underscores Cologne’s status as Germany's comedy capital anew
each year. Since 1964, works for television of outstanding
ar@s@c and journalis@c quality have annually been awarded
the Grimme Prize in Marl. And the venerated German
Camera Award (Deutscher Kamerapreis) is also at home
in NRW along with the enormously popular German Web
Video Award (Deutscher Webvideopreis) and the renowned
German Developers Award (Deutscher Entwicklerpreis)
from the ﬁeld of digital media. <
We have been based in NRW since 1956. With
good reason: Düsseldorf is one of the leading
German centres of adver@sing with a strong
business environment. And there are numerous
TV and media companies in neighbouring Cologne. The region stands for communica@on and,
at the same @me, for a lively art and cultural
scene. All of this aAracts crea@ve talents. This is
an environment where we can work successfully.
Frank Lotze, CEO
BBDO Germany
Events
1LIVE Krone
Advance
c/o pop Fes@val
Cologne Conference
Deutscher Comedypreis
Deutscher Entwicklerpreis
Deutscher Fernsehpreis
Deutscher Kamerapreis
Deutscher Webvideopreis
Duisburger Filmwoche
DW-Global Media Forum
Eurovision Song Contest 2011
GDC Europe
Grimme Online Award
Grimme Preis
Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden
Int. Köln Comedy Fes@val
Int. Kurzﬁlmtage Oberhausen
Int. Frauenﬁlmfes@val
Dortmund|Köln
Interac@ve Cologne
Karlsmedaille für Europ. Medien
Kinofest Lünen
Kinoprogrammpreis
lit.Cologne
Living Games Fes@val
Medienforum NRW
Radio Adver@sing Summit
red dot award
Rheinkultur
Ruhrtriennale
Summer Jam
Fairs
ANGA COM
Art Cologne
digi:media
drupa
dmexco
gamescom
photokina
Financing/Subsidies
Mediengründerzentrum NRW
Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW
Mediencluster NRW
NRW.BANK
NRW.Invest
Contacts
[email protected]
www.ﬁlms@,ung.de
www.ikt.nrw.de
www.medien.nrw.de
www.nrwbank.de
www.nrwinvest.com
www.mediengruenderzentrum.de
Media Region NRW > 9
Pina
Film
Rush
German ﬁlms and interna4onal star cinema
Pina
Director: Wim Wenders
Prod cos: Neue Road Movies,
Eurowide Produc@on (F), ZDF,
ZDF Theaterkanal, Arte
Rush
Director: Ron Howard
Prod cos: ac@on concept, Egoli
Tossell Film New, New Revolu@on
Films (GB), Cross Creek (US)
With Daniel Brühl, Chris
Hemsworth, Alexandra Maria Lara,
Russell Crowe u.a.
Stromberg – Der Film
Director: Arne Feldhusen
Prod cos: Brainpool TV
With Christoph Maria Herbst,
Bjarne Mädel, Oliver K. Wnuk u.a.
Cloud Atlas
Directors: Tom Tykwer,
Andy & Lana Wachowski
Prod cos: A Company, X Filme,
Anarchos Produc@on, Degeto Film
With Tom Hanks, Halle Berry,
Jim Broadbent u.a.
Producers
2Pilots Filmproduk@on
58FILME
ac@on concept
Ani Magix Media
aquaﬁlm
Arepo Media
augenschein Filmproduk@on
Bavaria Fernsehproduk@on,
Niederlassung Köln
Belle Epoque Films
Bilderstumm Fimproduk@on
Blinker Filmproduk@on
Boogieﬁlm
Broadview TV
Busse & Halberschmidt
CAMEO Film- und
Fernsehproduk@on
Cinema Ergo Sum Filmproduk@on
COINFILM
Conradﬁlm
D&D Film & Fernsehproduk@on
dagstar ﬁlm
Dubini Filmproduk@on
10
The success stories of the ﬁlm The Physician (round about
3 million german movie audience) and Cloud Atlas (1.1
million movie audience in Germany) as well Hannah Arendt
by Margarethe von TroAa (465,000 German admissions,
more than 300,000 in France, 1.2 million Dollars US boxoﬃce) and Pina by Wim Wenders (500,000 German cinema
admissions, more than 3 million Dollars US box oﬃce, Oscar
nomina@on) say a lot about the quality of North RhineWestphalia as a produc@on loca@on: Von TroAa and Wenders are just two of many world-class directors who have
turned their stories into great cinema with the help of the
region’s skilled labour and ﬁrst-class studios. Most recently,
Ron Howard, Lars von Trier, Jim Jarmusch, Sam Garbarski,
Tom Tykwer and XavierKoller were among the directors
shoo@ng their ﬁlms here. And they were supported by
the Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW.
Financially strong regional ﬁlm funder
The Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW has been opera@ng since
1991 as a reliable partner for the ﬁlm industry for ﬁnancing
and strategic coopera@on. It supports ﬁlms for cinema and
television in all phases of produc@on and exploita@on: from
story development through screenwri@ng and produc@on
to distribu@on and sales. It has supported around 1,800
ﬁlm produc@ons with a total of 580 million Euros during
the past 24 years. Alongside the state of North RhineWestphalia, the shareholders include WDR, ZDF, RTL as
well as the regional media authority, Landesanstalt für
Medien NRW.
Based at the media harbour in Düsseldorf, the Film- und
Mediens@,ung has an annual funding budget of around
I have made three ﬁlms in NRW over the last ten
years, gathering shoo@ng experience in Cologne,
Düsseldorf, Wuppertal, Essen and other places
in the Ruhr region, and working a lot with local
crews, and I can only say one thing: things are
never made this easy anywhere else! And it is
simply amazing what fantas@c loca@ons you
can ﬁnd in NRW.
Wim Wenders, director and ar<st
31 million Euros, making it one of Germany’s ﬁnancially
strongest regional ﬁlm funders. In 2013, around 20 million
Euros were invested in feature ﬁlms and 4.1 million Euros
in TV ﬁlms more than 3.4 million Euros in low budget ﬁlms
and experimental ﬁlms as well as newcomer projects and
short ﬁlms. In addi@on, funding was made available for,
among others, development and preproduc@on (1.1m),
distribu@on, sales and release campaigns (2.8m), cinemas
and digi@sa@on (743,300 Euros), fes@vals and loca@on
promo@on projects (442,000 Euros) as well as innova@ve
audiovisual content (67,500 Euros).
Funding is subject to the principle of the NRW eﬀect, i.e.
producers must spend at least 1.50 Euros in NRW for
every Euro of support received – investments beneﬁCng
the whole industry in the region. The uncapped funding is
awarded as a condi@onally repayable, interest-free loan.
The funding decisions are made by a commiAee on a
selec@ve basis ﬁve @mes a year and thus con@nuously
support the produc@on of outstanding ﬁlms by the diverse
and crea@ve scene in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Interna4onal co-produc4ons
The renowned company Pandora Film (The Congress,
Only Lovers Le) Alive, 1001 Grams, The Cut), for instance,
has developed a unique brand over the past 30 years by
making remarkable interna@onal co-produc@ons, maintaining a con@nuous presence at the major ‘A’ fes@vals, and
winning numerous prizes. Heima?ilm has successfully
focused for more than ten years now on a high-quality
mix of interna@onal co-produc@ons and German in-house
produc@ons (Hannah Arendt, Bal – Honey. The Lies of the
Making ﬁlms in NRW means for me now: an
evolved, comprehensive competence in all departments .... Many-faceted, contradictory and
consequently interes@ng images of Germany
.... The readiness to take ar@s@c risks, face
crea@ve challenges .... and good blood sausage.
Tom Tykwer, director
Stromberg – The Movie
Victors). With Zentropa Interna@onal Cologne, it has also
served as the co-producer on ﬁlms by such directors as
Lars von Trier (An<christ, Nymphomaniac I&II). Ac@on
Concept/hands-on producers also takes part in interna@onal
co-produc@ons, such as Rush and Autobahn with Sir Anthony
Hopkins and Sir Ben Kingsley. Numerous NRW producers
are regularly involved in interna@onal co-produc@ons: from
Coin Film (It’s All So Quiet by Nanouk Leopold) through
Gringo Films (Bethlehem by Yuval Adler) and Ta?ilm
(Paradise trilogy by Ulrich Seidl) to unaﬁlm (Heli, Cannes
Director’s Award 2013). Moreover, the Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW supports other high-proﬁle produc@ons
featuring interna@onal stars, such as Cloud Atlas and
The Physician.
German cinema
But, above all, German cinema would be unthinkable
without the contribu@on from NRW. Support from the
Films@,ung, for example, contributed to the making of
outstanding produc@ons by Maren Ade, Feo Aladag,
Fa@h Akin, Florian David Fitz, Dominik Graf, Philip Gröning,
Michael Bully Herbig, Christoph Hochhäusler, Sherry
Hormann, Caroline Link, Sandra NeAelbeck, Oskar Roehler,
Margarethe von TroAa, Tom Tykwer, Sönke Wortmann,
and many more. Important companies like LiAle Shark
Entertainment (Wrecked, The Miracle of Bern, Deutschland – Ein Sommermärchen) Westside Filmproduk@on
(The Crocodiles), and Wüste Film West (Emma’s Bliss, Kill
Me) produce box-oﬃce hits. NRW also has a long history
of successful comedy ﬁlms, with Stromberg – The Movie
(Brainpool), 00 Schneider (Senator Film Cologne) and Not
My Day (Westside) being current examples. >
We had a very successful shoot in Germany.
I very much look forward to ﬁlming in Germany
again some@me in the near future.
Ron Howard, director, producer,
author and actor, 2012,
during the shoo<ng of “Rush”
Facts and Figures
> one of Germany`s ﬁnancially strongest regional ﬁlm
funders with an annual budget of € 31m
> About 1,000 movie shoo@ng days per year
> 34,000 workers in the ﬁlm and TV industry
> 4,000 companies from the ﬁlm and TV industry
> First-class infrastructure from produc@on to
post-produc@on
> Highly qualiﬁed specialist personnel
> Large variety of unusual shoo@ng loca@ons
> Award-winning and highly popular produc@ons
for the cinema
> Lively cinema culture: the largest number of screens
(860) in Germany
> Varied fes@val scene
> Film-Messe Köln, Film & Cinema Conference NRW,
German Camera Award, Filmpreis Köln
If you ever get the chance to
shoot here, do it.
Dame Helen Mirren, actress, 2010,
during the shoo<ng of István Szabó's
“The Door“ in the MMC studios
A great land for ﬁlmmaking.
Ari Folman, director and ar<st,
2011, during the shoo<ng of “The Congress“
I’m really happy to be here in NRW because I
think it’s important that germany invests in ﬁlms
which have the huge ambi@on that we had with
the physician. It shows that germany can produce these huge movies on a big scale and they
can be very successful. I hope that it opens the
door for more produc@ons like the medicus because I think the crews are here and the talent
is here to make it happen.
Tom Payne, actor
Thanks also to MMC Studios and their excellent
facili@es here in Köln. And, most personally, I
want to thank all the amazing members of our
crew and produc@on for all their hard work,
their invaluable contribu@ons, and their incredible spirits. I will deeply miss working together
with all these truly wonderful collaborators.
Jim Jarmusch, director and ar<st,
2012, a)er the shoo<ng of
“Only Lovers Le) Alive“
Cloud Atlas
Producers
eastart pictures
elsani ﬁlm
EM+Cox Filmproduk@on
ena Film
Engs?eld Film
enigma ﬁlm
Ester.Reglin.Film
Produk@onsgesellscha,
European Mo@on Pictures
Film- und Medienproduk@on
Eyeworks Germany
Filmfabrik
ﬁlmproduk@on loekenfranke
Filmpunkt
Florianﬁlm
gﬀ Geißendörfer
Film- und Fernsehproduk@on
Gi,ed Films West
gilles.mann ﬁlmproduk@on
GRINGO Films
Heima?ilm
Homo Ludens Pictures
HUPE Film- und Fernsehproduk@on
Karibuﬁlm
Lichtblick Film
Lich?ilm
LiAle Shark Entertainment
Made in Germany
MMC Movies
Network Movie
Neue Cameo Film
Palladio Film
Pandora Filmproduk@on
Philip Gröning Filmproduk@on
Propellerﬁlm Köln
Rif Film
schneider+groos ﬁlmproduk@on
Senator Film Köln
Splendid Film
SteelWorX Film Produc@on
Tag/Traum Filmproduk@on
Ta?ilm Produk@onsgesellscha,
Thevissen Filmproduk@on
Tradewind Pictures
TrickStudio LuAerbeck
unaﬁlm
W-ﬁlm
Westendﬁlme
Westside Filmproduk@on
Weydemann Bros.
Wüste Film West
Zeitsprung Pictures
Zentropa Interna@onal Köln
Zieglerﬁlm Köln
Film > 11
Nymphomaniac
Film
Nymphomaniac
Director: Lars von Trier
Prod cos: Zentropa Interna@onal
Köln, Zentropa (DK), Slot Machine
(F), Memﬁs Film (SE), Zentropa (SE)
With CharloAe Gainsbourg, Stellan
Skarsgård, Shia LaBeouf and others
The Physician
Director: Philipp Stölzl
Prod cos: UFA Cinema
With Tom Payne, Sir Ben Kingsley,
Stellan Skarsgård, Olivier Mar@nez,
Elyas M’Barek and others
Beltracchi – The Art of Forgery
Director: Arne Birkenstock
Prod cos: Fruitmarket,
Tradewind Pictures, Telepool,
Senator Film Produk@on
Nowitzki. The Perfect Shot
Director: Sebas@an Dehnhardt
Prod cos: Broadview TV
Studios
blueBox Studios
Cubic Studios
infostudios
MMC Studios
Moviepark Studios
MP Medienparks NRW
nobeo
Studio450
Anima@onsstudio/
3D-Visualisierung
3DHandwerk
AKIKA Kommunika@on
animagix ﬁlm
Anima@onsfabrik
Blanx Eﬀects Interac@ve
Blickﬁscher
blueBox
Chamaeleon Digital Vision
Daywalker Studios
DigitalArtCore
The Physician
Strong documentaries
A strong documentary scene has been developing in North
Rhine-Westphalia for several years with support from the
Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW. Apart from Wim Wenders’
3D dance ﬁlm Pina, the most recent successes include
Arne Birkenstock’s Beltracchi – The Art of Forgery (German
Film Award 2014), Corinna Belz’s Gerhard Richter Pain<ng
(German Film Award 2012), Taste The Waste by Valen@n
Thurn (around 130,000 admissions), Sebas@an Dehnhardt’s
Klitschko (numerous interna@onal sales) and Nowitzki – The
Perfect Shot. Companies ranging from Lichtblick (Forget Me
Not) through Blinkerﬁlm (Szenario, Revision) to Tag/Traum
(Charlo=e Rampling – The Look) and Hupe (15 Corners of
the World) represent a proliﬁc and constantly growing
documentary scene.
Successful children’s ﬁms
The Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW has been suppor@ng
the produc@on of successful ﬁlms for children and young
people for many years. This has led to the produc@on of
commercially successful literary adapta@ons such as Pe=son & Findus, Knight Rusty, Pinocchio, The Adventures of
Huck Finn, Ruby Red, Sapphire Blue and Vampire Sisters 1
and 2 as well as original stories à la Pa=y’s Catchup.
TV movies
Whether it is event mini-series like Genera<on War and
The Adlon, docu-dramas such as Charlemagne or commiAed
TV movies like Mord in Eberswalde and Auslandseinsatz:
the produc@on of TV ﬁc@on has a centre in North Rhine-
In the last twenty years, a highly compe@@ve
ﬁlm and media industry with a unique proﬁle
has developed in NRW.
Sönke Wortmann, CEO
Li=le Shark Entertainment
12
Westphalia. High-quality television is developed, shot
and also funded targeted here by the Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW.
Young cinema in NRW
A new genera@on of crea@ve and well-trained ﬁlm-makers
is emerging from NRW’s talent labs such as Cologne’s
interna@onal ﬁlm school (ifs) and the Academy for Media
Arts (KHM). Thanks to the excellent training situa@on,
an ac@ve promo@on of young talent by the Film- und
Mediens@,ung NRW, and the bursaries awarded by the
Films@,ung and the Mediengründerzentrum NRW, young
cinema from NRW is ﬂourishing, as is also shown by the
prizes and fes@val invita@ons. The feature ﬁlm debut Los
Ángeles by Damian John Harper, which was produced by
the Gründerzentrum bursary-holders Weydemann Bros.,
screened at the Berlinale in 2014 and won the First Steps
Award the same year. Sutor Kolonko won important
awards with its debut produc@on Soﬁa’s Last Ambulance
(dir: Ilian Metev) and The Chambermaid Lynn (dir: Ingo
Haeb). The ifs gradua@on ﬁlm The Swing Of The Coﬃn
Maker by Elmar Ivánov won the Student Oscar in the
category of Foreign Film in 2012. And the Films@,ung
also supports the NRW talents for their “second ﬁlm”:
for example, Imanov and Engin Kundag who were invited
to Cannes in 2014 with Torn. Georg Maas's second feature
ﬁlm Two Lives, which was also backed by the Films@,ung,
managed to reach the Oscar pre-selec@on for the best
foreign language ﬁlm in 2013. KHM graduate Jan Schomburg followed his highly praised debut Above Us Only Sky
with his new ﬁlm Lose My Self with Maria Schrader and
Ronald Zehrfeld.
NRW is more varied than any other region in
Germany. As a consequence, I am constantly
coming across extraordinary shoo@ng loca@ons.
I think, though, that the special thing about
shoo@ng in NRW is also the people who live
here. I have never heard of a complete ﬁlm
crew being provided with barbeque sausages
by a local resident at half past one in the middle
of the night. But I've experienced this in NRW.
Wolfgang Groos, director
Beltracchi – The Art of Forgery
Wim Wenders Scholarship
A further opportunity recently opened up for young ﬁlmmakers: Wim and Donata Wenders founded the Wim
Wenders Founda@on in Düsseldorf at the end of 2012.
In co-opera@on with the Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW,
the Founda@on launched the Wim Wenders Scholarship
in February 2014. Applica@ons are accepted from young
ﬁlm-makers whose goal is to enrich ﬁlm language through
new aesthe@c and technical means. The ﬁrst four scholarship holders were awarded a total of 95,000 Euros in 2014.
Anima4on
Anima@on from NRW has many facets. Leading agencies
like Parasol Island in Düsseldorf set standards in adver@sing,
while studios such as the Cologne-based Anima@onsfabrik (Keinohrhase and Zweiohrküken) or the TrickStudio
LuAerbeck (Molly Monster – The Movie) produce feature
ﬁlms and TV series. The MMC studios hosted Ali Samadi
Ahadi’s feature ﬁlm Pe=son & Findus, which features
animated segments, as well as Anna Jus@ce’s TV twoparter Pinocchio, which was animated by LAVAlabs Moving
Images from Düsseldorf. LAVAlabs Moving Images was
also involved in Tom Tykwer’s Cloud Atlas.
State-of-the-art studios
Studios opera@ng in NRW oﬀer top-notch services for
ﬁlm produc@ons. The MMC Studios, for example, provide
one of Europe’s largest and state-of-the-art studio lots
with a ﬂoor space of 157,000 square metres. The Coloneum
in Cologne-Ossendorf has a total of 19 sound stages
available, some of them up to 2,600 sq m in area and with
a height of up to 23 metres that is unrivalled in Europe. In
My decision about loca@on was made according
to two principles: the patrio@c local anthem sung
by the Höhner, Dat Hätz vun de Welt, jo dat es
Kölle (“Cologne is the heart of the world”, which
I am quite happy to apply to the whole of NRW),
and applying Ar@cle 3 of the Cologne “cons@tu@on”
to ﬁlm: Et häA noch immer jot jejange “Things
have always turned out OK”. No ﬁlm would ever
be made without this basic convic@on.
Be>na Brokemper, CEO, Heima;ilm
Dirk Nowitzki: The Perfect Shot
addi@on to ren@ng out studios and loca@ons and building
sets, the company is also ac@ve through MMC Movies as
a ﬁlm producer and ﬁnancing partner. Produc@ons hosted
by MMC in recent years include The Physician by Philipp
Stölzl, Rush by Ron Howard, A Dangerous Method by
David Cronenberg and The Reader by Stephen Daldry.
Other studios are Cubic Studios in Düsseldorf and infostudios in Monheim as well as MP Medienparks NRW
in Hürth where, for example, Lars von Trier shot parts
of his ﬁlm Nymphomaniac. >
In
recent
NRW has
become
considerably
NRW
ist inyears,
den letzten
Jahren
als Medienstandmore
aArac@ve
as a media
[email protected]
TheFilmFilmort erheblich
aArak@ver
geworden.
s@,ung NRW has
played einen
a key role
in this devehat hieran
erheblichen
lopment.
our produc@ons,
always
Anteil. WirWe,
undand
unsere
Produk@onenare
kommen
happy
to come
to North Rhine-Westphalia.
gerne nach
Nordrhein-Wes?alen.
Mar<n Moszkowicz, President
Vorstand
Constan<n Film AG
German ﬁlms would be unthinkable without
NRW. And the same goes for X Filme. This is
obvious in the case of many produc@ons such
as “Run, Lola run”, “Good bye, Lenin!” and,
most recently,“The Sources of Life” and
“Cloud Atlas”.
Stefan Arndt, President
X Filme Crea<ve Pool
PANDORA has grown up with the media loca@on NRW and the Films@,ung, and we look
forward to making more great ﬁlms together
as Best Agers.
Christoph Friedel, producer
Pandora Film
Anima@onsstudio/
3D-Visualisierung
Elevision Anima@on Studio
Graﬁk-Film
JEP-Anima@on
Trickﬁlmproduk@on
Parasol Island
Power-Toons
Radl Anima@on
REBUSmedia
Stefan Eling Moving Pictures
Toonsisters
TrickStudio LuAerbeck
Associa@ons/Networks
dﬁ Dokumentarﬁlmini@a@ve
im Filmbüro NW
Dokumentarﬁlm-FrauenNetzwerk Köln
ﬁlm- und fernsehproduzentenverband NRW e.V.
Filmbüro NW e.V.
ﬁlmothek der jugend nrw e.V.
Netzwerk Filmkultur NRW
Netzwerk Kinderﬁlmfeste NRW
Verband der Fernseh-, Film-,
Mul@media- und Videowirtscha,
VFFVmedia e.V.
Postproduc@on
ACT Videoproduk@on
ARRI Film & TV Services
cine plus Köln
Chaussee SoundVision
CuCng Crew
Daywalker Studios
Die Colorie
Edit Sta@on
EinschniA Video- und
Postproduk@on
HeadQuarter
Industriesauger TV
LAVALabs Moving Images
LogoSynchron
MMC Movies
Pictorion Das Werk
Pixellusion
digital postproduc@on
Scanline VFX
Scope VFX
SchniAwerk
Splendid-Synchron
Think Global Media
Torus
WeFadetoGrey
Ymagis
Film > 13
Halbe Brüder
Film
Halbe Brüder
Director: Chris@an Alvart
Prod cos: Bavaria Pictures,
Conrad Film
With Fahri Yardim, Sido,
Tedros Teclebrhan u.a.
PeAson and Findus
Director: Ali Samadi Ahadi
Prod cos: Tradewind Pictures
With Ulrich Noethen, Marianne
Sägebrecht, Max Herbrechter u.a.
Frau Müller muss weg
Director: Sönke Wortmann
Prod cos: LiAle Shark Produk@on
With Anke Engelke, Ken Duken,
Justus von Dohnányi u.a.
Tod den Hippies –
Es lebe der Punk!
Director: Oskar Roehler
Prod cos: X Filme
With Tom Schilling, Frederick Lau,
Emilia Schüle u.a.
Global distribu@on
The Match Factory
Media Luna New Films
New Docs
Pandora
Distribu@on/marke@ng
3L Filmverleih
Atlas Film + Medien
Auten@c Distribu@on
Europe’s Finest
Film Kino Text
Filmlichter
Mindjazz Pictures
Pera Film
Rapid Eye Movies
Real Fic@on Filmverleih
Rif Film
Schwarz-Weiß Filmverleih
Splendid Film
Turbine Mediengroup
W-ﬁlm Distribu@on
Pe=son and Findus
Top-level postproduc4on
The infrastructure in North Rhine-Westphalia also includes
many highly qualiﬁed service companies which have seAled
in the region to meet all of the requirements for ﬁlm and
television produc@on. High standards are guaranteed, in
par@cular, in the area of post-produc@on by such serviceproviders as Chaussee SoundVision and Torus. There is
now a concentra@on of post-produc@on know-how in
North Rhine-Westphalia – with ACT Videoproduk@on,
ARRI Film & TV Services, CinePlus, Scanline VFX and many
others – with all of them mee@ng the most stringent of interna@onal standards for ﬁlm and television as well as
new media. The renowned providers have been joined by
such new players as LAVAlabs Moving Images, a branch of
Gradient Eﬀects & Anima@on, the well-known studio for
visual eﬀects and 3D anima@on from Los Angeles.
Inspiring loca4ons
Haus Stapel in the Münsterland for Beloved Sisters by
Dominik Graf, the night shoot in the Hansa coking plant in
Dortmund for Ari Folman’s The Congress, a miners’ estate
in the style of the 1950's for Sönke Wortmann’s The
Miracle of Bern, dark forest moods for Lars von Trier’s
An<christ, the elevated railway in Wuppertal for Tom
Tykwer’s The Princess and the Warrior and Wim Wenders’s
Pina: from the Rhineland to Porta Wes?alica, from the
Ruhr region to the Münsterland, North Rhine-Westphalia
can oﬀer a huge variety of inspiring and striking loca@ons.
The Film Commission NRW, which is based at the Film-
Producing in NRW – what o,en used to be
pure risk is nowadays almost always sheer
pleasure. What has grown up here in the last
20 years, with most of it having been planted
and tended by the Films@,ung, is what one
calls a success story.
Regina Ziegler, CEO
Zieglerﬁlm
14
und Mediens@,ung NRW, provides an extensive ini@al
service to help ﬁnd the suitable shoo@ng loca@on in NRW.
It has compiled a list of more than 4,500 loca@ons together
with the contact details of the responsible local authority
or loca@on scout at [email protected]. 39 ci@es and
rural districts in North Rhine-Westphalia, professional
loca@on scouts and the Film Commission form a collabora@on which is unparalleled in Europe.
Lively cinema culture on 860 screens
NRW’s ﬁlm landscape is sustained by the vibrant cinema
culture in the Rhine and Ruhr region. In 2013, around 860
screens aAracted audiences into cinemas in North RhineWestphalia, making it top of the list in a na@onal comparison.
One of the best-known and most impressive cinemas in
Germany is the Lichtburg in Essen: It was built in 1928
and renovated with me@culous aAen@on to detail in 2003
thanks to ﬁlm funding, and, with sea@ng for 1,250, it is
Germany’s largest movie theatre. In 2012, the old Residenz
cinema in Cologne reopened a,er extensive conversion
work as the Astor Filmlounge, adding another luxury ﬁlm
theatre to the cinema scene in NRW.
But the industry is not le, alone on its diﬃcult and costly,
but necessary, path to digi@sa@on. The Films@,ung NRW
has supported the conversion of 43 cinemas with one million
Euros since 2010. In addi@on, there is the annual Cinema
Programming Award as well as the funding of measures
for the modernisa@on, new construc@on and marke@ng
In my opinion, NRW/Cologne is the perfect
media hub because the extensive arts scene
means that there is a plurality of talents here
who are crea@ng new media content for a
large and interested audience.
Andreas Klein, CEO
Splendid Film
Frau Müller muss weg
Tod den Hippies – Es lebe der Punk!
of cinemas: In 2013 alone, the Film- und Mediens@,ung
NRW provided the region’s cinemas with 740,000 Euros
for various kinds of support. Since June 2012, the State of
North Rhine-Westphalia has collaborated with the Filmund Mediens@,ung NRW to oﬀer a new programme
suppor@ng the conversion of smaller cinemas to digital
projec@on technology as a way of relieving the cinemaowners. The state government makes 3 million Euros
available for this from the European Fund for Regional
Development (EFRD) within the framework of its Digital
Media State NRW ini@a@ve. Cinema digi@sa@on will be
largely completed within NRW by the end of 2014.
A varied fes4val scene
The diverse range of ﬁlm fes@vals in NRW is closely linked
to the local cinemas. This extremely lively scene is characterised by a high degree of professional specialisa@on. For
example, Germany’s most important short ﬁlm fes@val is
based in NRW: the Interna@onal Short Film Fes@val Oberhausen, the world’s oldest and most tradi@onal fes@val
for short ﬁlms is host each year to industry delegates from
50 countries and present awards amoun@ng to 40,000
Euros. Other ﬁelds covered by renowned fes@vals include
the German-language documentary (Duisburger Filmwoche), ﬁlms by women (Interna@onales Frauenﬁlmfes@val Dortmund|Cologne), interna@onal ﬁlm and television trends (Cologne Conference) and the German cinema
(Kinofest Lünen). Apart from some two dozen ﬁlm fes@vals
in NRW, the scene also boasts special industry events,
The Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW, major
broadcasters, ﬁrst-class ﬁlm schools, and
funding for up-and-coming ﬁlmmakers unlike
any other – if we hadn't been born here, we
would have had to move here …
Jonas Katzenstein, producer
augenschein Filmproduk<on
including the Film-Messe in Cologne and the Film & Cinema
Conference NRW. Furthermore, Cologne is the venue for
events which are unique in Germany by concentra@ng on
par@cular aspects of ﬁlm-making cra,: cinematography
(Deutscher Kamerapreis), edi@ng (Filmplus) and ﬁlm scores
(SoundTrack_Cologne). <
Detmold is where I was born, Herne where I
grew up, Cologne where I'm now living, Dortmund has the world's best football club and
Düsseldorf the greatest ﬁlm funding team led
by Petra Müller. This here is home for me, and
that's also because of the people. There isn't
any whining here, people just get on with
things. And that's why really special ﬁlm projects are regularly being made.
Wotan Wilke Möhring, actor
I lived in Munich for 10 years and in Berlin for
10 years, and didn’t regret a second about
moving back to NRW. Within a very short @me,
I got to know lots of highly mo@vated, professional and fun people and am already looking
forward to the next joint projects.
Peter Thorwarth,
director
For ARRI, it was an important and correct
decision to become involved in the provision
of services in Cologne. Major TV and movie projects are made in NRW, and the Films@,ung’s
commitment to those projects, not
only the regional ones, deserves great credit.
Film fes@vals/Awards
Bielefelder Kinderﬁlmfest
Blicke – Filmfes@val
des Ruhrgebiets
Cinepänz
Cologne Conference
Deutscher Kamerapreis
doxs! – Dokumentarﬁlme
für Kinder und Jugendliche
Duisburger Filmwoche
Exposed – Fes@val für erste Filme
Fantasy Filmfest
Filmplus – Forum für FilmschniA
und Montagekunst
Film- und VideoweAbewerb
Bielefeld
Filmfest Düsseldorf
Filmfes@val Münster
Filmpreis Köln
Gerd Ruge S@pendium
Int. Kurzﬁlmtage Oberhausen
Int. Stummﬁlmtage Bonn
Int. Frauenﬁlmfes@val
Dortmund|Köln
Kinderﬁlmfest Bonn
KinderFilmFest Münster
Kinderﬁlmtage Ruhrgebiet
KinderKinoFest Düsseldorf
Kinofest Lünen
Kinoprogrammpreis
kurzundschön
Short Film Fes@val
SoundTrack_Cologne
Unlimited Kurzﬁlmfes@val
Videonale Scope
Funding
Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW
Crea@ve Europe Desk NRW
Contacts
www.ﬁlms@,ung.de
nrw.germanﬁlmﬁnance.com
[email protected]
[email protected]
Josef Reidinger, CEO
ARRI Film & TV Services GmbH
Film > 15
Frank Plasberg
Ma=hias Opdenhoevel
Ranga Yogeshwar
Dieter Bohlen
Hape Kerkeling
Mar<na Hill
Christoph Maria Herbst
Steﬀen Henssler
Peter Kloeppel
Anke Engelke
Bülent Ceylan
Shaun – the sheep
Be>na Bö>nger
Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen
Caroline Peters
Jan Boehmermann
G. Alsmann & C. Westermann
Television
Dieter Nuhr
Germany’s number one television loca4on
Broadcasters
WDR
RTL
RTL Nitro
VOX
Super RTL
n-tv
Phoenix
Landesstudios
SAT.1 Landesstudio
ZDF Landesstudio
TV Providers/
Special Interest Channels
BonGusto
Collec@on
Dctp.tv
Dügün TV
Kanal Avrupa
RTL Crime
RTL Passion
RTL Living
Türk Show
TV Persia1
Einsfes@val
Teleshopping
QVC
Pali
Türk Shop
MediaSpar TV
Regional Windows
RTL West
SAT.1 17.30 Live aus Dortmund
Regional/
Local Broadcasters
NRW.TV
Center.tv
CityVision
Studio 47
wm.tv
Producers
20:15
a&0 büro ﬁlmproduk@on
Ac@on Concept
Ansager & Schnipselmann
augenschein
AZ Media
Badini
Bantry Bay Produc@ons
blue tandem ﬁlmproduc@on
coconut media
16
North Rhine-Westphalia has been Germany’s undisputed
No. 1 TV hub for around 20 years, and it is set to increase
in the future. This is where the major channels are located,
this is home to the most important producers supplying
all of the TV sta@ons na@onwide: one-third of all the TV
minutes produced in Germany comes from NRW.
WDR
Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Europe’s biggest public
broadcaster and the largest sta@on in the ARD network,
has its headquarters in the heart of Cologne’s city centre.
WDR not only produces around 22 per cent of the programming for ARD’s joint schedules in Das Erste, but also
provides content for the KI.KA children’s channel, the Arte
cultural channel, the Phoenix documentary channel as well
as the 3sat cultural channel and ARD’s digital services. In
2012, the largest ARD sta@on spent 85.7 million Euros on
commissioned produc@ons and co-produc@ons. A good
Two-thirds (67 per cent) of WDR's commissions to producers
went to North Rhine-Westphalia. WDR’s most successful
formats include the Sportschau, the ARD Morgenmagazin,
Monitor, Menschen bei Maischberger, hart aber fair, DiAsche
and the Tatorte from NRW. Moreover, with its produc@on
complex in the Cologne suburb of Bocklemünd, the broadcaster is also an important address for German TV entertainment – this is where shows like Frag doch mal die Maus
and Hirschhausens Quiz des Menschen are made as well
as such chat show formats as Kölner Treﬀ, Domian and
Zimmer frei.
RTL, VOX, Super RTL, n-tv, RTL Nitro
Germany’s most successful commercial television is produced
today in Cologne's Rheinhallen. Over 20 million viewers
WDR is an important part of NRW. Every day,
we are looking for ideas of how to best inform
and entertain the people in the region. This
isn't possible without a vibrant and diverse
produc@on landscape. We want to share ideas
with the producers and be the ﬁrst address
for crea@ve minds.
Jörg Schönenborn, Director Television
WDR
tune in each day to RTL’s schedules. RTL has been the clear
market leader for younger viewers for 20 years in a row.
The channel is always seCng new standards the produc@on of light entertainment with such formats as Idol, I’m
a Celebrity.. Get Me Out of Here!, Got Talent, Let’s Dance.
New ideas are also regularly developed in the ﬁeld of documentaries with such programmes as Team Wallraﬀ and
Das Jenke-Experiment. RTL’s sister channel Vox also provides important impetus for the development of entertainment with such formats as X Factor, Die Promi-Kocharena,
Come Dine with me, Shopping Queen and Der Hundeproﬁ
– Mar<n Rü=er. Super RTL, n-tv and the latest oﬀshoot
RTL Nitro are further channels from the RTL family based
in Cologne. Taking these channels together, the television
group comes out as the top player among the private
broadcasters throughout all of Europe.
Phoenix and QVC
Following the major broadcasters, numerous other sta@ons
with their own specialisa@ons have located and established
themselves in NRW. In Bonn, Phoenix has now been operating for 17 years from what was once ZDF’s capital studio.
Phoenix is run as a co-opera@on between ZDF and ARD, as
represented by WDR. Düsseldorf, for its own part, is home
to QVC Deutschland, the clear front-runner in the German
teleshopping market.
12 regional studios, NRW.TV, Center.tv
WDR has a regional presence all over the federal state with
11 studios, and ZDF with one studio. The providers of
commercial regional television include NRW.TV. From
its headquarters in the Düsseldorf harbour district, the
channel provides a framework schedule for all of NRW.
RTL has been at home in NRW for 25 years. The lion’s share
of our programming is produced in Cologne: from news
and magazine programmes, which we broadcast live from
our broadcas@ng centre each day, through big shows like
‚Deutschland sucht den Superstar‘ and ‚Let’s Dance‘ to
ﬁc@on produc@ons like ‚Alarm für Cobra 11‘ and daily series
‚Alles was zählt‘ and ‚Unter uns‘. Cologne’s oﬀers ideal
condi@ons with a professional infrastructure and a lively
crea@ve scene.
Frank Hoﬀmann, Managing Director Programming
RTL Television
Stefan Raab
Sandra Maischberger
Sonja Zietlow
Oliver Welke
Olli Di=rich
Günther Jauch
The local broadcasters Center.tv, CityVision and Studio 47
supply individual ci@es and regions with their own range
of programming.
Entertainment
NRW is certainly the front-runner when it comes to producing entertainment – with impressive market shares of
75 per cent for comedy, 54 per cent for docu-soaps, 45 per
cent for game shows and 40 per cent for shows. Almost
all of the entertainment highlights in German television
are produced in the TV capital of Cologne. Broadcasters,
producers and interna@onal networks can take advantage
of the professional competence which has been established
here over the past decades. Prac@cally all of the major
na@onal and interna@onal entertainment producers have
their headquarters or a branch oﬃce here. 2014 saw another
two important addi@ons to the scene in Cologne with the
arrival of Seapoint Produc@ons and Bantry Bay Produc@ons.
ITV Studios Germany and Eyeworks Germany
The Bri@sh ITV group has also chosen Cologne as the headquarters for its German opera@ons, with ITV Studios Germany
being the most successful TV producer of 2013. With Produc@on like I’m a Celebrity.. Get Me Out of Here!, Let’s
Dance, The Bachelor, The last cop and Come Dine with
Me. Eyeworks Germany (Warner) is another globally
opera@ng produc@on group based in NRW and producing
a wide range of entertainment like e.g. Henssler – The
Restauran=ester, switch reloaded and successful TV
series (Wilsberg, Marie Brand).
At VOX, we as a channel depend on the crea@vity of our highly qualiﬁed personnel – this
applies as much within the RTL Germany Media
Group as it does in the collabora@on with produc@on companies. This is par@cularly relevant
at a @me when we are wan@ng to transform
the digital challenges into chances. And precisely those people able to do this are based
here in Cologne.
Bernd Reichart, Managing Director VOX
Facts and Figures
> Germany’s number one TV hub for around 20 years
> One of the biggest TV hubs in Europe
> WDR, RTL, VOX, Super RTL, n-tv, Phoenix
> QVC: Germany’s market leader for teleshopping
> Cologne: Germany’s undisputed TV capital
> One-third of domes@c television programming
minutes produced here
> As many TV minutes as Bavaria and Berlin put together
> Germany’s top three TV producers based in Cologne
> Broad spectrum: entertainment, shows,
series, comedy, sitcoms
> First-class studio structure
> MMC: one of the biggest state-of-the-art studio
complexes in Europe
> German Television Award, Grimme Award,
German Comedy Award, German Camera Award
Endemol Germany
The same applies to Endemol Deutschland which, as part
of the Dutch Endemol Group, produces such formats as
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, The Quiz Show as well as
the reality show Big Brother for the past 14 years. With its
headquarters in Cologne, the company has also set new
trends in comedy on all the channels in recent years with
such popular formats as the Kaya Yanar Show as well as
new developments like Comedians At Work, The Wiwaldi
Show and Circus Halligalli with Joko Winterscheidt and
Klaas Heufer-Umlauf. >
Television s@ll con@nues to fascinate people.
Here in Cologne, a lot of the kind of programming is produced that excites and entertains
the viewers. We are grateful for the fact that
we are able to work and live in such a crea@ve
and innova@ve environment.
Claude Schmit, Managing Director
Super RTL
It is especially pleasing that the interna@onal
importance of North Rhine-Westphalia as a
TV produc@on loca@on is increasing. Not only
the leading shows, but also the most successful
varia@ons of German formats are coming
from Cologne.
Ute Biernat, CEO
UFA Show and Factual
NRW, and Cologne in par@cular, are something
like the headquarters of the German TV entertainment sector: broadcasters, producers,
service-providers and studio operators are all
based here. There is no beAer infrastructure
for ac@on-ﬁlled prime-@me shows and big
media events in Europe.
Jörg Grabosch, Managing partner
BRAINPOOL TV
Daniel Hartwich
Kaya Yanar
Anne=e Frier
Producers
Berengar Pfahl
Bildersturm
Bildundtonfabrik
Boekamp & Kriegsheim
Bonito TV
Boundless Produc@ons
Brainpool TV
Broadview TV
Busse & Halberschmidt
Calypso Entertainment
colourﬁeld
DFA
Dor Film
E+U-TV
edie ﬁlm
eitelsonnenschein
ELKON WEST
Elsani Film
EM+Cox
encanto
Endemol Deutschland
Engs?eld Film
Er,tal
Ester.Reglin.Film
Eyeworks Germany
Farbﬁlmfreunde
FFP New Media
Film Bou@que
Filmgeschwister
Film-Manufaktur
ﬁlmpool
Florianﬁlm
Fruitmarket
Gebr. Beetz Köln
gﬀ Geißendörfer
gilles:mann
Good Times Fernsehproduk@on
greensky FILMS
Gruppe 5
HMR Produk@on
Horizont TV
Hupe Film
i&u TV
info Network
ini@alﬁlm TV Media
ITV Studios Germany
Karibuﬁlm
Kigali Films
Kromschröder & Pfannenschmidt
Lichtblick Film
Lich?ilm
loekenfranke
LoreAa Walz
Luman@k Film
Television > 17
Stefan Raab
Television
Producers
Made in Germany Filmproduk@on
mali BiggerThanLife Produc@ons
mediaﬁelds
megaherz
Michael Meert
Molina Film
Network Movie
Norddeich TV
Orangeﬁlm
Polarlicht
Power-Toons
Prime Produc@ons
probono
Propeller Film
Pro TV
PuppetEmpire
Raab TV
Redseven Entertainment
RheinFilm
rockinvasion
Rowboat
sagamedia
Seapoint Produc@on
Shine Germany
Shuto Entertainment
Skarabäus
Sonﬁlm
Sony Pictures FFP
spin tv
SUR Films
Sutor Kolonko
Tacker Film
Taglicht Media
Tag/Traum
television & more
Tentakel.TV
thevissen ﬁlmproduk@on
Tof Intermedia
Tresor TV
Troika Entertainment
Turtle Entertainment
tvision
UFA Fic@on
UFA Serial Drama
UFA Show and Factual
Uhland Film
Visual Bridges AG
Wellenreiter.tv
WestCom Medien
Wiedemann & Berg Film
Winkelmann
Zeitsprung Pictures
Zieglerﬁlm Köln
Zinnober Film
18
Anke Engelke
UFA Show and Factual
UFA Show and Factual (formerly Grundy Light Entertainment) is a key supplier of programming for German prime@me television behind such show formats as Got Talent, Idol
and Farmer wants A Wife. Unlike any other company in
Germany, it has played a unique role in shaping the genre
of cas@ng shows. As a part of the worldwide leader
Fremantle Media, UFA Show and Factual has access to
an extensive interna@onal network.
Sony Pictures and Shine Germany
The German outpost of Sony Pictures in Cologne is also at
home in the world of comedy. Sketch formats like Sechserpack, 4 Singles and Böse Mädchen are part of the company’s
repertoire. In the area of shows, Sony Pictures is responsible for Die Höhle des Löwen on Vox, WDR’s eternally
popular NRW Duell and Teddy’s Show with the YouTube
star Tedros Teclebrhan on ZDFneo. The Shine Group has
also been present in Cologne since 2009 with Shine Germany,
producing shows like Minute to Win It and Got To Dance
at the MMC studios in Cologne-Ossendorf.
Brainpool
NRW is also the breeding ground for important local producers. For instance, Brainpool with its headquarters in
Cologne-Mülheim has developed since its establishment
in 1994 from a classic producer into an all-embracing
entertainment network which is not only responsible for
major shows like Beat your Host (sold to 13 territories
worldwide), the TV total events (including the TV total
Turmspringen, sold to 12 territories worldwide) and staging
NRW – it represents a luxury dilemma: everything is right on your doorstep, including an
audience of 18 million that has no objec@on to
seeing its own region on ﬁlm. I ask myself why
anyone would shoot anywhere else … ? We
certainly like shoo@ng here, and nothing is going
to change that. Thanks to the Films@,ung for
its enduring support, which makes the loca@on
ul@mately unique.
Leopold Hoesch, CEO, broadview pictures
Bas<an Pastewka
the Eurovision Song Contest in Düsseldorf in 2011 for
120 million viewers. Brainpool also develops prize-winning
comedy like no other with such formats as Stromberg,
Ladykracher, Pastewka, Cindy from Marzahn & The Young
Maniacs and The Bülent Ceylan Show. With its subsidiaries, the company also handles talent management, rights
exploita@on and live entertainment, including the Interna@onal Cologne Comedy Fes@val and the German Comedy
Award. Moreover, it operates the largest video comedy
pla?orm in Germany with myspass.de.
Prime Produc4ons, First Entertainment,
Bildundtonfabrik
Since 2009, Cologne-based Prime Produc@ons has been
bringing a new brand of humour to ZDF since 2009 with
the heute-show. Oliver Welke’s sa@rical news progamme
is recorded at the Brainpool Studio 3 in Cologne-Mülheim
and has received all of the important German television
awards. First Entertainment, a subsidiary of Bavaria Film,
produces, among others, Die beste Klasse Deutschlands
for Kinderkanal and Die große Show der Naturwunder
for ARD’s Das Erste through its Cologne branch oﬃce.
Schwartzkopﬀ TV, which also has an oﬃce in Cologne, is
behind the RTL baAle of the sexes show Jungen gegen
Mädchen which is recorded at the Coloneum. Bildundtonfabrik has been seCng new trends since 2012 with young
TV formats like Die unwahrscheinlichen Ereignisse im
Leben von, Neo Magazin, Kebekus, Mr Dicks and Roche
and Böhmermann. Frame By Frame from Cologne is the
producer of Raus aus den Schulden.
Thanks to the large crea@ve media network in
NRW, ITV Studios can produce such successes
as „Ich bin ein Star…“ or „Das perfekte Dinner“.
And the encounters with clients, service-providers and colleagues are always lively and
amusing because the regional character is
marked by a lot of humour and straight talking.
A very nice situa@on for me as a child from
the Ruhr region.
Chris<ane Ruﬀ, CEO, ITV Studios
Christoph Maria Herbst
Henning Baum
Germany’s TV-Stars
NRW is the professional home of major TV stars. They are
not just appearing here in front of the camera, but are also
key movers and shakers in the TV industry as producers.
For instance, Brainpool runs joint produc@on companies
with ar@sts like Stefan Raab, Anke Engelke, Axel Stein and
Elton. Harald Schmidt produced his late night show in-house
at Cologne-Mülheim from 1997 to 2014. Günther Jauch
has also been giving important impetus to the industry
with his own company i&u TV for the past 14 years (incl.
Die ul<ma<ve Chartshow, you got to be kidding me and 5
against the quizmaster). Frank Plasberg’s company Ansager und Schnipselmann is based in Düsseldorf and handles such ARD shows as Frag doch mal die Maus, Hirschhausens Quiz des Menschen and Das Quiz der Deutschen.
And Friedrich Küpperbusch’s Cologne-based probono.tv
covers quite diverse formats, including The Duel for n-tv,
KiKa Live and the sa@re magazine programme Foam of the
day for YouTube and WDR. Mario Barth’s company
Hauptstadt Helden TV in Düsseldorf produces Willkommen bei Mario Barth.
Ambi4ous documentary ﬁlm-makers
Broadview TV has established itself as one of the leading
producers of documentaries about history and arts. Documentaries made in Cologne include Aldi gegen Lidl, Deutsche Dynas<en, München ’72, Krupp: Mythos und Wahrheit and Axel Springer. Broadview made the successful
leap into the interna@onal theatrical business with
Klitschko and Nowitzki. Similar subjects are also in the
spotlight at Gruppe 5 Filmproduc@on. It has produced,
Producing in NRW – one could hardly wish for
more. Commissioning editors, authors, directors,
cinematographers, editors – many of the best
women and men in these professions live and
work here. We proﬁt from the professionalism
and crea@vity of these colleagues on our
produc@ons.
Frank Plasberg, Managing shareholder
Ansager&Schnipselmann
Carolin Kebekus
among other @tles, Konrad Adenauer, Die Deutschen,
Abenteuer Wissen and Terra X. ColourFIELD from Dortmund produces high-quality documentary series like
Tropic Fever, Beau<ful Minds – A Voyage Into the Brain
or The Virus Empire and has made a name for itself, in
par@cular, with the large-scale ZDF project Germany from
Above, which also found its way to Germany’s cinema
screens. >
As a produc@on company, you have good
condi@ons for working successfully in NRW
and, above all, in Cologne: this is where you
are close to the big media concerns, a good
infrastructure and a very lively scene of
crea@ve heads.
Günther Jauch, presenter and
TV producer
NRW as a ﬁlm region is a dream – so versa@le,
innova@ve, coopera@ve, crea@ve, construc@ve
and, above all, compact. For „Switch reloaded“,
for example, we used Cologne for the harbour
of Miami and then the LOST jungle on Hawaii,
and both were just ﬁve minutes apart on the
bicycle. Perfect.
Studios/Service Providers
ACT Videoproduk@on
ARRI Film & TV Services
blueBox
Brainpool Studios
Chaussee SoundVision
cine plus Köln
Cubic Studios
CuCng Crew
DFA
Die Colorie
Digital postproduc@on
Edit Sta@on
EinschniA Video- und
Postproduk@on
Farbkult
HeadQuarter
Industriesauger TV
Infostudios
LavaLabs
Logosynchron
MMC Studios
nobeo
Pictorion Das Werk
Pixellusion
runge TV
Scanline VFX
Scope VFX
SchniAwerk
Splendid Synchron
Studio 449
Think Global Media
Torus
vr3 Virtual Produc@on
WDR Bocklemünd
WeFadeToGrey
Mar<na Hill,
actress
Being crea@ve and producing in NRW has many
advantages. The infrastructure is outstanding,
NRW is an unexhaus@ble source of humouris@c
inspira@on, and the staﬀ don’t have arduous
hairdos, meaningful taAoos or destruc@ve
aCtudes like in Berlin.You'd be really stupid
to produce anywhere else.
Jan Böhmermann,
producer
Television > 19
Scene of the Crime Münster, WDR
Television
Anima@on Studios
3DHandwerk
AKIKA Kommunika@on
animagix ﬁlm
Anima@onsfabrik
Blanx Eﬀects Interac@ve
Blickﬁscher
Chamaeleon Digital Vision
Daywalker Studios
DigitalArtCore
Elevision Anima@on Studio
Graﬁk-Film
JEP-Anima@on
Jörg Reddemann Trickﬁlmproduk@on
Parasol Island
Power-Toons
Radl Anima@on
REBUSmedia
Stefan Eling Moving Pictures
Toonsisters
TrickStudio LuAerbeck
Cas@ng Agencies
Anja Dihrberg Cas@ng
Die Besetzer
Cologne Cas@ng Pool
Filmcast
Finalcast
Horst D. Scheel
Kris@n Diehle Cas@ng
Marc SchöAeldreier Cas@ng
Outcast
supremeCast
Susanne RiAer Cas@ng
Tigercast
Associa@ons
ﬁlm- und fernsehproduzentenverband NRW e.V.
Verband der Fernseh-, Film-,
Mul@media- und Videowirtscha,
VFFVmedia e.V.
TV Events/Awards
Cologne Conference
Deutscher Comedypreis
Deutscher Fernsehpreis
Deutscher Kamerapreis
Deutscher Webvideopreis
Grimme Preis
20
Alarm for Cobra 11, RTL
FICTION
Cologne is also one of the most important loca@ons for
the produc@on and ﬁlming of ﬁc@on formats. An impressive number of TV events, TV movies, series, sitcoms and
daily soaps are made here.
Specialists for TV drama:
Network Movie and Colonia Media (Bavaria)
Network Movie in Cologne’s Mediapark is a 100 per cent
subsidiary of ZDF Enterprises, but also produces for RTL and
ARD. Its many successful TV produc@ons include excep@onal
ﬁlms by MaC Geschonneck, Hans Steinbichler and Lars
Becker. The Cologne branch of Bavaria Fernsehproduk@on
(previously: Colonia Media) is responsible for such ra@ngs
winners as the Schimanski series and the most popular
German Scene of the Crime (Tatort) episodes from the NRW
ci@es of Cologne, Münster and Dortmund. In addi@on, the
Cologne-based company produces high-quality TV movies
with star-studded casts, such as Kehrtwende with Dietmar
Bär, Schnitzel für vier with Armin Rohde, Jahr des Drachen
with Klaus J. Behrendt, Hermine Huntgeburth’s Teufelsbraten and Dominik Graf’s Das Gelübde.
Geißendörfer, Tag/Traum,
Zieglerﬁlm, Zeitsprung and ﬁlmpool
For almost 30 years, Lindenstraße has dominated Sunday
viewing on German television as well as the proﬁle of Geißendörfer Film- und Fernsehproduk@on. Apart from this hit
series, the company has made numerous award-winning
ﬁlms like Schneeland and Selbstgespräche. The theatrical
success of the fantasy bestseller adapta@on Ruby Red in
2013 was followed by the sequel Saphire Blue one year later.
Also in 2014, Feo Aladag’s Inbetween Worlds (Zwischen
NRW is situated at the centre of Europe. The
Rhine ﬂows through NRW. It is a symbol for
pantha rei (everything ﬂows) and nothing
stands s@ll. New things are developed, acknowledged and used. Everything is in a ﬂux.
Hans W. Geißendörfer, Geißendörfer
Film- und Fernsehproduk<on KG
Welten) was screened in Compe@@on at the Berlinale,
Tag/Traum in the Cologne city centre has been producing
documentaries and feature ﬁlms for cinema and television
for the past 30 years. Its TV highlights include Sommer in
Rom, Keine Angst and Sommer 1939. Zieglerﬁlm Cologne
has also been behind numerous TV successes, incl. Ein Fall
für die Anrheiner and Der Mann mit dem Fago=, the ﬁlm
version of Udo Jürgens’s life story. Zeitsprung Pictures,
based in the Western district of Cologne, is represented on
German TV by both movies and series such as Landauer,
Beate Uhse, Contergan, Böseckendorf and Frau Böhm sagt
Nein. Filmpool in Hürth, a subsidiary of Bri@sh TV produc@on
group All3Media, is commissioned by RTL II to produce
Berlin – Day and Night and Cologne 50667, scripted docu-soaps
which are especially very popular with younger viewers,
but also produces successful TV ﬁc@on like the Scene of
the Crime episodes from Münster and Polizeiruf 110.
Serien, sitcoms, daily soaps
ac@on concept is one of the most successful series producers
in Germany. Its headquarters in Hürth turn out TV movies
and series, headed up by the long-running RTL series Alarm
for Cobra 11 which has already been sold to around 140
territories. RTL has aired more than 260 episodes since
1996. 2013 saw ac@on concept’s feted return to the interna@onal ﬁlm business with Rush, directed by Ron Howard.
The ITV Studios Germany in Cologne are behind the popular Sat.1 police series The last cop (over 55 episodes since
2008) with Henning Baum. 65 episodes have already been
made of the Sat.1 series Danni Lowinski with AnneAe Frier,
a na@ve of Cologne, which was shot at such loca@ons as the
Higher Regional Court and the Neumarkt Gallery in the
city. As a part of the RTL Group, the produc@on company
It’s fun producing in NRW – that’s not only
because the loca@ons are usually ideal and
there is an exis@ng infrastructure, but also
as the support from the authori@es and
organisa@ons is exemplary.
Hermann Joha, Managing Director
ac<on concept Film- & Stuntproduk<on
Genera<on War, ZDF
UFA Serial Drama is a guaranteed crowd-puller for daily
soaps and series. More than 5,000 episodes of Unter uns
have been made in the MMC Studios since 1994. The daily
soaps Verbotene Liebe (more than 4,500 episodes since
1994) and Alles was zählt (more than 2,000 episodes since
2006) are also produced in Cologne by UFA Serial Drama.
Sony Pictures Film und Fernseh Produk@on is considered
to be Germany’s most successful producer of sitcoms: formats
like Nikola and Die Camper were long-las@ng successes. In
the mean@me, the Sony por?olio has been expanded to
include TV movies and shows.
TV events
Major German TV producers, with the Bertelsmann subsidiary UFA Fic@on (formerly teamWorx) to the fore, have
now been coming to NRW for several years to produce
high-quality TV events. The TV highlights of recent years,
which were supported by the Film und Mediens@,ung
NRW, include Genera<on War (Unsere Mü=er, Unsere
Väter), The Adlon (Das Adlon. Eine Familiensaga), Dresden
and Die Gustloﬀ for ZDF, Pinocchio, Nacht über Berlin –
Der Reichstagsbrand, Stauﬀenberg and Speer und er for
ARD and Heroes, Auf der Jagd nach dem Bernsteinzimmer
and Die Sturmﬂut for RTL.
Studios, equipment and service-providers
NRW has not only seen the development of a TV infrastructure unique within Europe over the past few decades, but
it has also acquired a lead in experience. Technical serviceproviders like MMC, which oﬀers one of Europe’s largest
state-of-the-art studio complexes with a ﬂoor space totalling 157,000 sqm at the Coloneum in Cologne-Ossendorf,
and nobeo in Cologne and Hürth, are considered to be
NRW is an important region in Germany and
at the heart of Europe, and this importance
should be reﬂected in its media presence. The
prerequisites are fulﬁlled in NRW in terms of
logis@cs, ﬁnancing and personnel to an outstanding extent. No-one who uses them will
regret op@ng for this loca@on.
Wolfgang Cimera, Managing Director
Network Movie
Star Fighter, RTL
George, ARD
24h Jerusalem, ARTE/BR
The Wagner Files, ARTE
The Adlon, ZDF
Sternstunden Ihres Lebens, ARD
top addresses when it comes to modern TV studios. With
these two as well as the Cape Cross Studios in CologneMülheim, WDR’s produc@on studios in Cologne-Bocklemünd and the studios of DFA and Cubic in Düsseldorf, the
region has a wide range of produc@on facili@es and technical know-how for ﬁc@on and non-ﬁc@on formats. And
thanks to the large Bundesliga stadiums – including in
Dortmund, Schalke and Cologne – as well as such event
venues as the Lanxess Arena in Cologne and the Esprit
Arena in Düsseldorf, NRW has made a name for itself
as the venue for major TV events. <
The infrastructure exis@ng in NRW is unique. It
has made NRW into a ﬁrst-class ﬁlm hub and
the No. 1 television loca@on. The MMC Studios
have been an elementary component of this
infrastructure for over 20 years, and we will
con@nue to work with the media industry
on shaping the success story of NRW as a
media region.
Philip Borbély, CEO MMC
Movies & Studios
NRW is colourful, lively, bright and liberal.
Those are characteris@cs which promote
crea@vity, oﬀer fer@le soil for talents and
make good work possible. We feel ﬁne
in NRW!
Sam Davis, CEO
Rowboat
NRW-Events
1LIVE Krone
Advance
Art Cologne
c/o pop Conven@on
Deutscher Entwicklerpreis
Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum
Deutscher Webvideopreis
Duisburger Filmwoche
Eurovision Song Contest 2011
GDC Europe
Grimme Preis
Grimme Online Award
Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden
Int. Köln Comedy Fes@val
Int. Kurzﬁlmtage Oberhausen
Int. Frauenﬁlmfes@val
Dortmund|Köln
Interac@ve Cologne
Karlsmedaille für Europ. Medien
Kinofest Lünen
lit.Cologne
Medienforum NRW
Phil.Cologne
Radio Adver@sing Summit
red dot award
Rheinkultur
Ruhrtriennale
TV-Wirkungstag
Funding
Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW
Contacts
www.ﬁlms@,ung.de
[email protected]
www.medien.nrw.de
Excellent public support, a good infrastructure,
big TV sta@ons, lots of crea@ve people, Europe’s
biggest studio at MMC and experienced providers of services for cinema, ﬁlms and television:
for Zeitsprung NRW is the ideal produc@on
loca@on and a major centre of the television
medium.
Michael Souvignier, Managing Director
Zeitsprung Pictures
Television > 21
Jürgen Domian, 1Live-Kult-Talk
Radio
Germany’s largest radio market
Sta@ons
1LIVE
WDR 2
WDR 3
WDR 4
WDR 5
Funkhaus Europa
Deutschlandfunk
Deutsche Welle
radio NRW
Antenne AC
Antenne Düsseldorf
Antenne Münster
Antenne Niederrhein
Antenne Unna
Hellweg Radio
NE-WS 89.4
Radio Berg
Radio Bielefeld
Radio Bochum
Radio Bonn/Rhein Sieg
Radio Duisburg
Radio Emscher Lippe
Radio Ennepe Ruhr
Radio Er,
Radio Essen
Radio Euskirchen
Radio Gütersloh
Radio Herford
Radio Herne
Radio Hochs@,
Radio Kiepenkerl
Radio Köln
Radio K.W.
Radio Leverkusen
Radio Lippe
Radio Lippe Welle Hamm
Radio MK
Radio Mülheim
Radio Neandertal
Radio Oberhausen
Radio RSG
Radio RST
Radio Rur
Radio Sauerland
Radio Siegen
Radio Vest
Radio WAF
Radio Wes?alica
Radio WMW
Radio Wuppertal
Radio 90,1 Möchengladbach
Radio 91,2 Dortmund
Welle Niederrhein
107.7 Radio Hagen
22
Casper and Wolfgang Niedecken, 1Live Krone 2013
North Rhine-Westphalia is Germany’s largest radio market. Each day, 12 million men and women, i.e. 75.2 per
cent of the popula@on, turn on their radios here. Four of
Germany’s ten most listened-to radio programmes are
produced in NRW: the NRW local radios and radio NRW
are the na@onal number one in FM radio with 1.6 million
listeners in an average hour. 1LIVE is the most listenedto German radio sta@on on the Internet with 8.6 million
streams accessed per month. There is nowhere else where
the network of public and private sta@ons is as concentrated as in Germany’s most populous federal state.
And 1LIVE diggi, the children’s programme KIRAKA, WDR
Info, WDR Event for special occasions, and WDR VERA
(nonstop traﬃc news) can only be received via digital
radio. Over the past 19 years, Jürgen Domian has acquired a
mul@media cult status at WDR. The phone-in radio show
bearing his name is broadcast on 1LIVE and by WDR Television on Mondays to Fridays from 1 am. Every evening,
up to 60,000 viewers and listeners try to get on the programme via the telephone. Domian’s fans – more than
125,000 on Facebook alone – can also twiAer and watch
all of the programmes in their en@rety on YouTube.
Three large public radio sta@ons - WDR, Deutsche Welle
and Deutschlandfunk - have inﬂuenced the na@onal radio
scene in Germany for more than 50 years. With some 4,200
employees, WDR is Germany’s largest radio broadcaster.
Approximately one ﬁ,h (912) of the WDR workforce is
responsible for the radio schedules – and they are successful at it. Most listeners in NRW tune in to WDR with its
six FM channels each day. Together, these channels reach
53.9 per cent of the total poten@al market, with 8.28 million listeners each weekday (Mon - Fri). While 1LIVE (3.77
million) is aimed at young audiences, WDR 2 (3.57 million)
is regarded as the informa@on channel for 25 to 59-yearolds, WDR 3 (290,000) provides the arts programming,
WDR 4 (2.28 million) caters to fans of MOR hits and folk
music, and WDR 5 (700,000) is the educa@onal channel with
a large spoken word element. There is also an intercultural
programme, Funkhaus Europa, with numerous foreignlanguage programmes and 660,000 listeners. All of the
programmes have extensive mul@media web content.
Deutschlandfunk (DLF), which has been broadcas@ng from
Cologne since 1962, played a key role in the history of the
two Germanies. Its goal was to provide informa@on about
poli@cal and cultural developments in the West for listeners
in the GDR, in par@cular. Since 1994, Deutschlandfunk has
operated with an emphasis on informa@on – alongside
Deutschlandradio Kultur and DRadio Wissen (since 2009) –
as one of the three channels of Deutschlandradio. According
to the Media Analysis for 2014, 1.56 million listeners tune
in to Deutschlandfunk each day. The channel leads the ﬁeld
of quality informa@on and arts programming with 6.12
million regular listeners. DLF provides an extensive, highquality service of live streams and audio-on-demand
content on the Internet.
WDR
Crea@ve, interna@onal and diverse – that’s
what NRW is. Every day, it provides material
for stories about outstanding subjects and
people. Industry 4.0 and Innova@onAlliance,
theBeethoven Fes@val and the Ruhrfestspiele –
that’s how the Deutsche Welle reaches the
global decision-makers on a worldwide basis.
Peter Limbourg, Director General
Deutsche Welle
Deutschlandfunk
Deutsche Welle
A member of the ARD network, Deutsche Welle is Germany’s
foreign broadcas@ng service. Around 1,500 permanent
staﬀ and just as many freelancers from 60 countries work
Although NRW is now called sector by 1LIVE,
many radio prac@@oners are nonetheless
envious of what we have: quan@ty and quality
are not mutually exclusive in NRW. Even large
sta@ons s@ll have place for experiments, and
there are regular slots at 1LIVE for radio
drama, features and readings.
Jochen Rausch, Head of Programming 1LIVE,
Deputy Director Radio, WDR
Facts and Figures
> Germany’s largest radio market
> 45 commercial regional sta@ons with
24-hour schedules
> Four of the most listened-to sta@ons in Germany
> WDR, Deutschlandfunk and Deutsche Welle
> 8.62 million WDR listeners every weekday
> 1LIVE is the most listened-to sta@on on the Internet
> Germany’s most successful sta@ons:
NRW local radios and radio NRW
> Radio Adver@sing Summit, 1LIVE Krone,
Radio Drama Prizes, LfM Ci@zen Media Prize,
LfM Campus Radio Award, LfM Radio Award
Sabine Heinrich
at the headquarters in Bonn and at the oﬃces in Berlin.
According to its mandate, Deutsche Welle promotes an
understanding of Germany as a European cultural na@on
and a democra@c and legally governed state. It presents
events and developments with editorial independence and
presents German and foreign viewponts. Each week, some
101 million people on every con@nent make use of the
journalis@c content of the mul@media oﬀer in 30 languages.
Apart from DW-Radio, Deutsche Welle also comprises the
DW-TV television channel and the DWWorld.de website.
The website provides users, among other things, with an
extensive range of e-learning services and many mul@media
oﬀers such as audio on demand, podcasts and streamings.
The NRW local radios /radio NRW
NRW’s commercial radio is celebra@ng its 25th anniversary
in 2015. The local sta@on NRW is in the pole posi@on for
na@onal ra@ngs with 5.309 million listeners each weekday.
radio NRW supplies a framework programme to the 45
local radio sta@ons in NRW so that each separate sta@on
is on the air 24/7 on more than 100 frequencies. A special
feature of North Rhine-Westphalia is the so-called two-pillar
model which guarantees a high quality of programming
by separa@ng the programming and managerial responsibili@es. Diversity in NRW’s local radio scene is also achieved through the par@cipa@on by the local popula@on:
each local sta@on makes air-@me available to the ci@zens’
radio (Bürgerfunk) which broadcasts a non-commercial
radio oﬀer with items produced by ci@zens. The shareholders of radio NRW are Pressefunk Nordrhein-Wes?alen
(59 per cent), WDR (24.9 per cent) and RTL Radio Deutschland GmbH (16.1 per cent). domradio, the channel managed
NRW is a media state with a future – innova@ve, ﬂexible, diverse. As Germany’s most
successful radio programme, NRW local radio
is part of the media loca@on NRW and provides
some important s@mulus for the crea@on of
public opinion.
Udo Becker, CEO
radio NRW
by the Archdiocese of Cologne, reports predominantly on
religious, ethical and social issues.
Hörspielpreis, Radio Adver4sing Summit,
1LIVE Krone
The Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW has been suppor@ng
German-language radio drama since 1994 via bursaries,
produc@on support (101,000 Euros for 26 plays in 2013),
the Radio Drama Prize of the War Blind (in co-opera@on
with the Bund der Kriegsblinden Deutschlands e.V.), the
German Prize for Children’s Radio Drama (Deutscher Kinderhörspielpreis, with the ARD and the City of Wuppertal),
and the Hörspielforum NRW, a working conference promo@ng new talent in German-language radio drama. Each
year, the Landesanstalt für Medien Nordrhein-Wes?alen
(LfM) presents its LfM Radio Prize, the Ci@zens’ Media Prize,
and the Campus Radio Award. 2014 saw a reposi@oning of
the Radio Day professional trade fair, which had been successfully staged in Cologne from 1995 to 2012. Now billed
as the Radio Adver@sing Summit, the new event in Düsseldorf drew some 500 par@cipants at its ﬁrst edi@on and is
now the main forum for the dialogue between the decisonmakers from the adver@sing industry and execu@ves from
the radio industry. Once a year, the largest German radio
award, the 1LIVE Krone in Bochum, is an important event
for the music industry. <
Elke Heidenreich, Buch<pps , WDR 4
Sta@ons
domradio Köln
Oﬀene Kanäle
Bürgerfunk
Hochschulfunk
Events/Awards
Radio Adver@sing Summit
1LIVE Krone
Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden
Deutscher Kinderhörspielpreis
Hörspielforum NRW
LfM-Hörfunkpreis
LfM-Campus-Radio-Preis
LfM-Bürgermedienpreis
Winners of Hörspielpreis
since 2000
Andreas Ammer/FM Einheit
Christoph Schlingensief
Elfriede Jelinek
Gesine Schmidt
Helgard Haug/Daniel Wetzel
Inge Kurtz/Jürgen Geers
Michaela Melian
Paul Plamper
Robert Schoen/Lorenz Eberle
Schorsch Kamerun
She She Pop
Stefan Weigl
Thilo Reﬀert
Walter Filz
Contacts
www.ﬁlms@,ung.de
www.medien.nrw.de
www.vlr-nrw.de
NRW creates unique condi@ons for local radio:
the people, the mentality, the subjects and
the events. Only those close to the ac@on stay
relevant for the listeners and oﬀer them the
right informa@on and entertainment. That’s
precisely what NRW’s local sta@ons do.
Timo Naumann, Managing Director
Verband Lokaler Rundfunk in NRW e.V.
Radio > 23
Newspaper Publishers/Media Groups
Altmeppen Verlag
Aschendorﬀ Medien
B. Boll Verlag des
Busch Business Media
Solinger TageblaAes
Bertelsmann
Bonner Zeitungsdruckerei
und Verlagsanstalt Neusser
E. Holterdorf
Emma Frauenverlag
Funke Mediengruppe
Graphische Betriebe Rubens
Haller KreisblaA
HandelsblaA
Ippen Digital
IVZ Medien
J. Fleißig
J. Horstmannsche Buchhandlung
J.C.C. Bruns Betriebs-GmbH
Lensing Medien
Lensing-Wolﬀ
Lippischer Zeitungsverlag Giesdorf
Märkischer Zeitungsverlag
Mediengruppe DuMont Schauberg
Mergelsberg
Neußer Zeitungsverlag
paﬀrath print & medien
Rheinisch-Bergische Druckereiund Verlagsgesellscha,
Rheinische Post Verlagsgesellscha,
Siegener Zeitung
Vorländer + Rothmaler
Süderländer TageblaA
Verlag J. Bauer
Jahn Verlag
Westdeutsche Allgemeine
Zeitungsverlag
W. Girardet Verlag und
WerbemiAel
Wes?alen-BlaA
Vereinigte Zeitungsverlage
Wes?älischer Anzeiger Verlag
Zeitungsverlag Aachen
Zeitungsverlag Der Patriot
Zeitungsverlag Iserlohn IKZ
Wichelhoven Verlag
Zeitungsverlag Neue Wes?älische
Zeitungsverlag Niederrhein
Newspapers
Aachener Nachrichten
Aachener Zeitung
Bonner General-Anzeiger
Der Patriot
Die Glocke
Express
HandelsblaA
Hellweger Anzeiger
Iserlohner Kreisanzeiger
und Zeitung
Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger
Kölnische Rundschau
Mendener Zeitung
Mindener TageblaA
Münstersche Zeitung
Neue Wes?älische
Neuß-Grevenbroicher Zeitung
NRZ – Neue Ruhr Zeitung
Recklinghäuser Zeitung
Remscheider General-Anzeiger
Rheinische Post
Ruhr Nachrichten
Siegener Zeitung
Soester Anzeiger
Solinger TageblaA
Süderländer TageblaA
M.DuMont Schauberg, Cologne
Publishers
Tradi4on and innova4on
Together with HandelsblaA from Düsseldorf and the Ippen
Gruppe in Hamm, Bertelsmann, the Funke Media Group
and the DuMont Schauberg Media Group are the most
important publishing houses not only in North Rhine-Westphalia, but in the whole of Germany. Classic publishing
houses have long since become broad-based media groups.
The business with content and informa@on is s@ll there, but
the distribu@on channels have changed in the digital age.
Bertelsmann, Funke, DuMont Schauberg
Bertelsmann, with revenues of 16.4 billion Euros, is the
largest media group in Europe, and the number eight in
the world. Its turnover is almost six @mes that of Axel
Springer AG in Berlin and Hamburg and six @mes that of
ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG in Bavaria. The Bertelsmann
group consists of four main business divisions: the Gruner
+ Jahr magazine publishers, the RTL Group, the Penguin
Random House publishing group and arvato AG.
The global player employs over 110,000 people and also
has interests in such ﬁlm and TV produc@on companies as
Grundy Light Entertainment, UFA, UFA Fic@on and FreemantleMedia. Two of Germany's three largest newspaper
publishing houses – the Essen-based Funke Media Group
and DuMont in Cologne – are located in NRW. In 2013,
Funke took over Axel Springer’s regional newspapers and
women's and TV lis@ngs magazines, including Hamburger
AbendblaA, Berliner Morgenpost and Hörzu. The media
group now ranks as one of the leading media groups with
its daily newspapers, adver@sing freesheets, and majority
stakes in local radio sta@ons in NRW, the magazines of
NRW stands out because it is the place with
the greatest diversity of newspapers among
the larger German federal states. 41 daily
papers with a circula@on of 2.7 million copies
are published here.
Chris<an DuMont Schü=e, Chairman
of the media group DuMont Schauberg
24
Funke media group, Essen
Munich’s Gong Verlag and the WAZ Women Group, numerous specialist magazines and their prin@ng presses, pos@ng
turnover of around 1.1 billion Euros in 2012. With a turnover of 671 million Euros (2012), the DuMont Schauberg
Media Group in NRW is one of Germany’s expanding media
enterprises. In 2009, the company took over the German
ac@vi@es of the Bri@sh Mecom group, which includes the
Berliner Zeitung, the Berliner Kurier and the Hamburger
Morgenpost.
Handelsbla5, Wirtscha"sWoche and Landlust
Economic exper@se from Düsseldorf is delivered by the
HandelsblaA publishing group which posts a circula@on
of over 116,000 copies with the newspaper of the same
name, the biggest business and ﬁnancial newspaper in
German language and the fourth biggest daily newspaper
in Germany. A part of the Holtzbrinck Group, the publishing
house also handles the market-leader among the business
weeklies, Wirtscha,sWoche (circula@on: 153,600 copies),
and various specialist magazines. One could describe the
most recent success story of the magazine Landlust from
Münster-based Landwirtscha,sverlag as phenomenal: the
magazine has sales that were considerably beAer than
Der Spiegel in the third quarter of 2014, with a circula@on
of more than one million copies.
41 regional daily newspapers
The 40 members of the North Rhine-Westphalian Associa@on
of Newspaper Publishers sell 2.7 million copies of their
41 regional daily newspapers each day. Three publishing
houses from NRW – the Funke Media Group, the DuMont
North Rhine-Westphalia – for German-language
books that means an dense network of bookshops, a large number of fes@vals and readings,
and a large number of ins@tu@ons which are
vital partners for book publishers: TV and
radio sta@ons, ﬁlm producers, newspapers and
magazines, and above all the new web media
and producers.
Helge Malchow, Director of Publishing
Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Bastei Lübbe, Cologne
Rheinische Post, Düsseldorf
Schauberg Media Group and the Ippen Group in Hamm
are among the ﬁve biggest publishers of daily newspapers
in Germany. The highest circula@on is posted by the WAZ
(580,000) as Germany’s largest regional paper, the Rheinische
Post (313,160), and the Kölner StadtAnzeiger/ Kölnische
Rundschau (282,691). Moreover, Express (147,119) is a
successful, regional tabloid newspaper on the market.
E-papers, apps, etc.
The newspaper publishers in NRW are also well posi@oned
for the digital market: WAZ, RP, Express, Neue Wes?älische
& co. con@nue to evolve not only with extensive Internet
presences, but also predominantly as e-papers and apps
for smartphones. Based in Cologne, Kalaydo is a mul@award-winning online portal jointly run by regional daily
newspapers with over 1.2 million adver@sements and a
popular job exchange which aAracted more than ﬁve
million visits each month in 2014.
Kiepenheuer, Emons, Bastei Lübbe
Apart from being home to the successful newspaper publishers, NRW is also the base for a quarter of all German
book publishers. Bastei Lübbe, Kiepenheuer & Witsch,
Emons and DuMont Buchverlag are among the largest of
more than 507 publishing companies in North Rhine-Westphalia, with a combined turnover of more than 3.8 billion
Euros. Furthermore, Bertelsmann, the parent company
of the world’s largest book company, Random House, is
located in NRW. Bastei Lübbe Verlag, with 240 employees
at its headquarters in Cologne, is the German na@onal
market leader in the hardcover/ﬁc@on sector thanks to
You'd think that the writers are in Berlin, the
bestsellers are produced in Munich, and the
hard publishing work is done in NRW. But Bastei-Lübbe can also produce bestsellers and it
was, a,er all, from Cologne that the regional
crime novel developed into ﬁc@on's most successful segment at the moment.
Hejo Emons, founder and publisher
Emons Verlag
Facts and Figures
> Bertelsmann: Europe’s biggest media group,
with 16.4 billion Euros turnover
> Funke, DuMont Schauberg, Ippen: three of the ﬁve largest
newspaper groups in Germany
> 3 million regional daily newspapers
> WAZ: Germany’s biggest regional newspaper
> HandelsblaA: Germany’s leading business and ﬁnancial newspaper
> Landlust: Germany’s publishing sensa@on
> Europe’s biggest reading fes@val: lit.Cologne
> Drupa: the world's largest fair for printed media
> 507 book publishers – 3.8 billion Euros turnover
> Bastei Lübbe: Germany’s market leader for hardcover/ﬁc@on
> 1,333 bookshops, more than 350 libraries
> Thalia and Mayersche: the number one and four among the
bookstore chains
> Respected university courses in journalism at Münster and Dortmund,
among others
such authors as Dan Brown and Ken FolleA. In 2012/13,
the publishing house posted turnover of 98.3 million Euros
and acquired new companies, including the Frankfurtbased Eichborn-Verlag. Taschen Verlag from Cologne rose
to prominence by making aﬀordable art books, and regularly
aAracts aAen@on with spectacular edi@ons. Illustrated
coﬀee table books are also the core business of Peter
Hammer Verlag in Wuppertal and Coppenrath Verlag in
Münster. When it comes to the number of bookstores,
NRW leads the ﬁeld within Germany with 1,133, ahead of
Bavaria (831) and Baden-WürAemberg (740). Germany’s
biggest bookstore chain, Thalia, is a subsidiary of the Hagenbased Douglas Holding. With almost 300 bookshops in
Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Thalia is the market
leader in the retail book trade for the German-speaking
countries and combines the bookseller's tradi@on with a
varied digital and online range of services in e-commerce
(4,492 employees, around 984 million Euros turnover in
2012). Aachen is the headquarters of the Mayersche
Buchhandlung chain which currently operates more than
40 outlets. Around 1,000 employees and a turnover of
165 million Euros in 2013 make it Germany’s fourthlargest chain of bookshops.
drupa and digi:media
The drupa, the world’s largest trade fair for print media,
has been held in Düsseldorf every three to ﬁve years since
1951. It is regarded as the most important show of achievements in the prin@ng and printed media industry, boas@ng
1,850 exhibitors and 314,500 professional delegates from
more than 130 countries in 2012. That year saw drupa
celebra@ng a premiere by also hos@ng digi:media, a fair
for commercial publishing and digital prin@ng which had
been ini@ated in 2011.
Handelsbla=,
Düsseldorf
Newspapers
WAZ Westdeutsche Allgemeine
Westdeutsche Zeitung
Wes?alen-BlaA
Wes?alenpost
Wes?älische Nachrichten
Wes?älische Rundschau
Wes?älischer Anzeiger
Book publishers
Bastei Lübbe
Buchhandlung Walther König
Bundesanzeiger Verlagsgesellscha,
BVK Buch Verlag Kempen
Coppenrath-Verlag
Droste Verlag
Dumont Buchverlag
Egmont Verlagsgesellscha,en
Emons Verlag
Fachverlag der Verlagsgruppe
HandelsblaA
Graﬁt Verlag
Greven Verlag Köln
Gütersloher Verlagshaus
Verlagsgruppe Random House
Harenberg Kommunika@on
Heel Verlag
Karl Rauch Verlag
Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Kölner Universitätsverlag
Peter Hammer Verlag
Rahmel-Verlag
Taschen Verlag
VDI Verlag
Verlag J. P. Bachem
Verlag Kölner Dom
W. Bertelsmann Verlag
Wienand Verlag
Wolters Kluwer Deutschland
Contacts
[email protected]
www.medien.nrw.de
lit.Cologne: Europe’s biggest reading event
lit.Cologne has made reading into a popular event for the
past 14 years. The programme of this literature fes@val
in Cologne combines classic literary readings with theatre
and cabaret as well as discussions. In 2014, the 196 individual events aAracted over 101,000 visitors, establishing
lit.Cologne as the biggest fes@val of reading in Europe. <
Publishers > 25
Labels/Publishers
Century Media Records
Feez Unterhaltungsgesellscha,
Inside Out Music
JazzSick Records
JKP – Jochens Kleine PlaAenﬁrma
Kompakt
Le Pop Musik
Limited Access Records
Mel@ng Pot Music
Meyer Records
Normal Records
Rhingtön
Roof Music
Selfmade Records
Stockhausen-Verlag
Tumbleweed Records
Unique Records
Wolverine Records
Distributors
Al!ve
Cargo Records
Delta Music
GoodToGo (Groove AAack &
Rough Trade)
H’Art Musik
India Media Group
Trade/E-Commerce
alphamusic.de
buch.de
bol.de
c-tube
Medion
Metro AG
Zebralu@on Digital Music
Distribu@on
Concert Halls/Clubs
Esprit Arena Düsseldorf
E-Werk Köln
FZW Dortmund
Gebäude 9
ISS Dome
Jahrhunderthalle Bochum
König-Pilsener-Arena Oberhausen
Konzerthaus Dortmund
Lanxess-Arena Köln
Live Music Hall
Luxor Köln
Mitsubishi Electric Hall
Palladium
Philharmonie Essen
Philharmonie Köln
RheinEnergieStadion Köln
Stahlwerk Düsseldorf
Starlight Express Halle Bochum
Turbinenhalle Oberhausen
Underground Köln
Vel@ns Arena Gelsenkirchen
Wes?alenhallen Dortmund
Zakk Düsseldorf
Zeche Bochum
Zeche Carl
Concert Promoters
Concert Team NRW
Contra Promo@on
Dirk Becker Entertainment
E. L. Hartz
Konzertbüro Schoneberg
Peter Rieger Konzertagentur
Prime Entertainment
Roland Temme Gruppe
Events
1LIVE Krone
Acht Brücken
c/o pop Fes@val
Cologne Music Week
Eurovision Song Contest 2011
Haldern Pop
26
Herbert Grönemeyer
Music
Die Toten Hosen
Hand-made, electronic, digital
North Rhine-Westphalia is among Germany’s most important music hubs. It is home to around 20 per cent of all the
businesses in the industry, together achieving almost a third
of the total music-related turnover with 1.96 billion Euros.
The German music market, the world's third largest a,er
the USA and Japan, is, on the one hand, no@ceably moving
over to online distribu@on and, on the other, con@nuing
to focus on live entertainment. In both areas, NRW is
well-posi@oned with successful projects and companies.
Great pop history
Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the world's most inﬂuen@al
composers of the 20th century, experimented in Cologne
from the 1950’s onwards, especially with electronic music,
and is regarded as the founder of Electronica. Right through
to the present day, he has con@nued to inspire the scene
on the Rhine: from Cologne avantgarde band Can and
Düsseldorf Electronica pioneers Kra,werk through the
interna@onally known Cologne label Kompakt with its Sound
of Cologne to techno producers like Moguai from Marl.
Furthermore, Bands like Fehlfarben and Die Toten Hosen
come from Düsseldorf, BAP rocks successfully in the
Cologne dialect of “Kölsch”, Alphaville from Münster inﬂuenced synth pop, Nena from Hagen helped shape the Neue
Deutsche Welle, and the WDR Big Band performs with
some of the world’s leading jazz ar@sts. While Herbert
Grönemeyer has been ﬁlling arenas and stadiums for
decades, current ar@sts like Gentleman from Cologne,
Casper from Bielefeld, Kollegah from Düsseldorf and the
Aachen band Unheilig with frontman Der Graf enthuse
millions. Not to forget that there has been a lively hard
rock and heavy metal scene in the Rhine and Ruhr region
The ﬁrst studio for electronic music in the
world was located in Cologne, and, in 1928, the
Pressa took place, an event for communica@ons technology that laid the founda@on stone
for today’s media loca@on. This conﬂic@ng
sphere of culture and business s@ll makes up
the city’s assets to this day.
Norbert Oberhaus, CEO
c/o pop
for decades with such interna@onally known bands and
ar@sts as Accept, Doro, Kreator, Sodom or U.D.O. Composers for the cinema and television also proﬁt from the
proximity to the TV sta@ons and producers.
Strong distribu4on and labels
The distribu@on landscape in NRW is similarly diverse: the
former major EMI retains a presence in Cologne with the
label Rhingtön following its takeover by Universal Music.
Several of the leading independent distributors also operate
successfully from NRW. The Cologne-based Groove AAack,
for example, has a reputa@on as being the most important
independent hip-hop distributor in the Federal Republic.
Together with the distribu@on company Rough Trade
Records which it took over in 2008, Groove AAack is now
one of the largest independent distributors in Europe. Its
logis@cs opera@on has been taken over by arvato AG, a
subsidiary of Bertelsmann from Gütersloh and, interna@onally, one of the largest media service-providers (4.4 billion
Euros turnover in 2013). Based in Dortmund, Century Media
Records is one of the world’s best-known and most successful labels in the heavy metal genre. Other distributors, like
Al!ve and H’Art Musik, as well as hundreds of small publishers and labels contribute to the character of NRW as
a centre of the music industry and account for nearly a
quarter of the total business for this sector in Germany.
From Saturn to simfy
On July 1, 1961, the ﬁrst Saturn-Markt opened on Hansaring in Cologne. 53 years later, the company is one of the
leading players in the European home electronics retail
business with more than 220 branches in six countries
I was born in Cologne and the city’s electronic
scene provided me with some important inﬂuences: like the band Can, for example, Stockhausen’s pupil Holger Czukay, who taught me
how to produce my own composi@ons, or Jaki
Liebezeit, my teacher in maAers of instant
composing…
Helmut Zerle=,
musician, composer and producer
Facts and Figures
> Strong crea@ve scene
> 2,400 companies in the music business
> GoodToGo, Century Media Records, Al!ve,
Medion, Denon, and others
> 20 per cent of music companies in Germany
> the largest number of out-of-the-ordinary venues
in Europe
> Four state colleges of music
> c/o pop Fes@val, 1LIVE Krone, Ruhrtriennale,
Haldern Pop, Juicy Beats, Open Source
> German Music Council, Associa@on of German
Musicians, “Jedem Kind ein Instrument” Founda@on
Kra)werk
plus an online shop. The Media-Saturn holding is a subsidiary of the Düsseldorf-based Metro Group, which is one
of the interna@onally most successful retail groups pos@ng
66.7 billion Euros turnover in 2012/13. Apart from these
tradi@onally generated revenues with music and home
entertainment from such companies as Essen’s Medion AG
and the Rewe Group, new areas of focus have been developed. In 2012, about 50 per cent of the music revenues
were generated via Internet-based forms of distribu@on.
Some innova@ve models have also succeeded in establishing themselves in the rapidly growing online market outside the classic mail-order business (incl. buch.de/bol.de
from Münster), and the pure digital retail models (incl. Nokia
Music Store Ovi from Ra@ngen). For example, Düsseldorf’s
Zebralu@on has become one of the world’s leading digital
distributors for independent labels.
Live Entertainment
Alongside the increasing music sales on the internet, the
German concert and event market represents another
ﬂourishing segment of the music industry. NRW with its
18 million inhabitants has a signiﬁcant share of this due
to the large regional market. Numerous mul@-func@onal
arenas from Cologne to Dortmund with sea@ng for up to
70,000 people provide space for spectacular concerts –
as do converted industrial monuments, countless halls,
classical music venues and clubs with a unique atmosphere.
For decades now, major promoters such as the Peter Rieger
concert agency from Cologne and Dirk Becker Entertainment have been deligh@ng millions of fans with tours by
interna@onal stars. Fes@vals and concert series such as
the Ruhrtriennale, Summer Jam, the awards ceremony for
For me as a na@ve of Cologne, the Rhineland
has always been the cultural humus on which
my own crea@vity has also thrived. The region's
decades-old art and music scene has to this
day never lost any of its myth and interna@onal
reputa@on. NRW is on a par here with New
York, London and Berlin.
the 1LIVE Krone Award, and the fes@val organised by Rock
Hard magazine in Gelsenkirchen are audience highlights.
In 2012, Germany’s biggest concert impresario, Marek
Lieberberg from Frankfurt, established a new fes@val in
the region: Rock im PoA, was staged at Schalke’s football
stadium. Moreover, the interna@onal c/o pop fes@val
in Cologne with the associated business forum c/o pop
Conven@on provides s@mulus for the whole industry
each year.
First-class educa4on
NRW demonstrates its excep@onal commitment for the next
genera@on of musical talent with its educa@onal ini@a@ve
called An Instrument For Every Child (Jedem Kind ein Instrument), launched in 2007. But the opportuni@es for further
musical educa@on are also ﬁrst-class, including four state
music academies in Cologne, Detmold, Düsseldorf and
Essen as well as the German Pop Academy doAed throughout the whole federal state. A Bachelor's degree in the
ﬁeld of Audio Engineering is oﬀered by the private SAE
Ins@tute at its campuses in Cologne and Bochum. <
I feel so at home in Cologne because there's
interna@onal ﬂair here, but it's cozy nonetheless. I value the Rhineland's mentality and the
humour. I like the directness and honesty. It's
easy to get into conversa@on with people.
Gentleman, musician
I can only hope that the Media State NRW
will soon come to an agreement on how to
protect the rights of authors, as common
decency demands.
Wolfgang Niedecken, BAP
Der Graf, Goldene Kamera 2013
Events
Ambient Fes@val
Juicy Beats
Kunst!Rasen Bonn
Moers Fes@val
Open Source Fes@val
Rock Hard Fes@val
Rock am Ring
Ruhr in Love
Ruhr Reggae Summer
Ruhrtriennale
SoundTrack_Cologne
Summer Jam
SummerStage
Vainstream
Week-End Fes@val
Zel?es@val Ruhr
Associa@ons/Networks
Bundesprüfstelle für
jugendgefährdende Medien
Deutsche Disc-Jockey Organisa@on
Klubkomm – Verband Kölner Clubs
und Veranstalter
Deutscher Musikrat
Deutscher Musikverleger-Verband
Gesamtverband Deutscher
Musikfachgeschä,e
media music –
Berufsverband Medienmusik e.V.
S@,ung Jedem Kind ein Instrument
Verband deutscher
Musikschaﬀender
Verband deutscher Musikschulen
Verband deutscher Tonmeister
Film Music
Markus Aust
Dürbeck & Dohmen
MaAhias Hornschuh
Stephen Keusch
Carsten Rocker
Rossenbach/van Volxem
Andreas Schäfer
Andreas Schilling
Arno Steﬀen
Songbureau
Helmut ZerleA
Contacts
[email protected]
Wolfgang Voigt, ar<st, music producer,
owner of Kompakt
Music > 27
Adver@sing Agencies
Adiro
Antwerpes
BBDO
bplusd
Brand Lounge
BuAer
DDB Tribal
Denkwerk
Eggert
Geometry Global Düsseldorf
Gramm Werbeagentur
Grey
Grey Healthcare
Havas Worldwide Düsseldorf
Irlenkäuser
Klautzsch und Grey
KNSK West
McCann Erickson
m/e brand communica@on
MetaDesign Düsseldorf
Ogilvy
RTS Rieger Team
Saatchi & Saatchi
Sahler
Sapient
Scholz & Friends
Ströer
TBWA
WRWunited
PR Agencies
Barbarella
CP/Compartner
Crossrela@ons
Jeschenko
KAIKOM
Ketchum Pleon
Kohl PR
Komm.passion
KOOB
Media Concept
muehlhausmoers
PR agentur deutz
Public Vision
Weber Shandwick
Event Agencies
Avantgarde
BBDO Live
concept X
De Vries + Partners
Do it!
Domset
face to face
facts+ﬁc@on
gestalt communica@ons
Gorol & Partner
Grass Roots
Hagen Invent
Imagepeople
livewelt
jaeger + haeckerhase
Knör! Media & Events
Lieblingsagentur
mu:d
Stagg & Friends
Team ProMo@on
The Event People
Uniplan
Vogelsänger Event
Vok Dams
Pril ﬂower
Advertising
Crea4vity meets business
When it comes to adver@sing and communica@on is concerned, North Rhine-Westphalia is one of the industry’s
centres in Germany. Important concerns with large adver@sing and communica@ons budgets, including eight DAX
companies such as Bayer, E.ON, Deutsche Telekom and
Deutsche Post, are based here. As a result, 5.93 bn Euro,
40 per cent of the na@onal turnover in the adver@sing
market, is generated in NRW. The Land of NRW has more
than 25,000 employees in the adver@sing sector registered
to pay na@onal insurance contribu@ons. And almost 10,000
freelancers and companies in the adver@sing market –
agencies, adver@sing designers, communica@on designers
– means that every fourth company in this sector in
Germany comes from NRW.
Powerful adver4sing hub: Düsseldorf
Whether it is Metro, E.ON, Henkel, Vodafone, E-Plus or
C&A: the many successful industrial and service companies
in NRW represent an aArac@ve customer base for around
1,000 companies in the adver@sing and communica@ons
industry of the regional capital. With its unique ambience
between business, fashion and art, Düsseldorf has developed a crea@ve infrastructure which has had an especially
posi@ve eﬀect on the adver@sing sector: sound studios,
ﬁlm produc@on companies, model agencies, photographers,
designers, trade fair construc@on companies, printers –
everything that is needed for successful communica@ons
is available locally. The sector is also closely connected
with the ﬁlm and music industries, television and radio
sta@ons, online providers, and the fashion and art scenes.
At the BBDO Directors Lounge, for example, adver@sing
We have been based in NRW since 1956. With
good reason: Düsseldorf is one of the leading
German centres of adver@sing with a strong
business environment. And there are numerous
TV and media companies in neighbouring Cologne. The region stands for communica@on and,
at the same @me, for a lively art and cultural
scene. All of this aAracts crea@ve talent. This is an
environment in which we can work successfully.
28
Frank Lotze, CEO
BBDO Germany
Brandt-zwieback
execu@ves, directors and musicians meet three @mes a
year to network. NRW’s capital is the bas@on of such network agencies as BBDO, Grey, DDB and TBWA, who belong
to globally opera@ng adver@sing and media concerns, and
it is also the home for many medium-sized and smaller
agencies managed by their owners. Consequently, Düsseldorf has occupied the pole posi@on in the list of the na@on’s
adver@sing hubs for the last 17 years in a row.
BBDO
BBDO Germany – with its HQ in Düsseldorf – is Germany’s
largest agency group with more than 6,100 employees
and the No.1 in the German adver@sing market in terms
of turnover and crea@ve power. It was established in
Mülheim an der Ruhr in 1956 under the name “Team”
and has been part of BBDO Worldwide, one of the world’s
most successful network agencies, since the 1970s. Subsidiaries like BBDO Proximity, Interone, Peter Schmidt Group,
OMG, Sellbytel, BaAen & Company and Ketchum Pleon
work under the banner of BBDO Germany. The agency
group covers every area of communica@ons and handles
such clients as BMW, Braun, Con@nental, DHL, Dr. Oetker,
Iglo, LBS, Linde Group, Mars, Mercedes Benz, Postbank,
Smart, Sky, Wrigley and Yello Strom. Na@onally and interna@onally, BBDO is one of the most frequently awarded
agency groups in Germany. Together with the University
of Neuss, BBDO Düsseldorf has developed the joint
Bachelor’s programme in Marke@ng and Communica@ons
Management, which is unique in the adver@sing industry
and is set to begin in the Winter Term 2014/15.
There is no other town where the interac@on
of crea@vity, lifestyle, interna@onality and business is as good as in Düsseldorf. The regional
capital oﬀers everything that an adver@sing
agency needs in order to be able to work successfully: the openness of the people, a good
media landscape, a wide range of cultural ac@vi@es and, not to forget, the central loca@on with
an excellent connec@on to the neighbouring
countries and the European markets.
Dickjan Poppema, CEO Grey Deutschland
Facts and Figures
> 5.93 bn Euro turnover in NRW
> 40 per cent of the German adver@sing market
> more than 20,000 employees
> 10,000 freelancers and companies
> Düsseldorf is the loca@on with the highest
adver@sing turnover in Germany
> Headquarters of the biggest network agencies
BBDO, Grey and Publicis
> Headquarters of the two biggest German media
agencies MediaCom and OMD
> Headquarters of the biggest German event
agencies: Vok Dams in Wuppertal and Uniplan
in Cologne
> Germany’s second largest PR agency:
Ketchum Pleon
> Cologne as a centre of successful
public rela@ons ac@vi@es
> Highly respected training and qualiﬁca@on ins@tu@ons
afri cola
Grey
Grey Deutschland is one of the Top 3 most successful
agencies in Düsseldorf and employs around 350 staﬀ.
Campaigns for such well-known brands as Allianz, Deichmann, GlaxoSmithKline, Procter & Gamble and Seat originate from Grey’s headquarters at Platz der Ideen 1 in the
regional capital of North Rhine-Westphalia. The adver@sing
agency also has a local visibility with crea@ve solu@ons for
Düsseldorf Airport and the city’s “Schauspielhaus” theatre.
Publicis
The Publicis Groupe is the third largest communica@ons
network in the world. The Publicis Groupe has its Shared
Services Center Re:Sources in Düsseldorf and operates
there with the media agency group ZenithOp@media and
the agency Saatchi & Saatchi. They handle such clients as
Toyota, Lexus, Marriot, SchoA Solar, Signal Iduna and Vaillant. Moreover, the Düsseldorf-based VivaKi Group with
the ZenithOp@media media network belongs to Publicis.
Ogilvy
The Düsseldorf oﬃce of Ogilvy was launched in 1981 with
around ten employees. The company has since grown to
around 250 staﬀ based on the banks of the Rhine, handling
classical adver@sing as well as being responsible, among
other things, for PR, e-commerce and digital media. Ogilvy
Düsseldorf is also the creator of na@onal and interna@onal
campaigns for such brands as Dove, Ford, LäAa, Du darfst,
Aral, Cremissimo, Provinzial and Fujiﬁlm.
NRW is Germany's media hub No. 1 and is
characterised by interna@onally opera@ng
companies, market-leading TV sta@ons and
important trade fairs like the dmexco. In addi@on, Düsseldorf is home to the three biggest
media agency networks and the adver@sing
hub with the highest turnover.
Ma=hias Dang, CEO
IP Deutschland
DDB Tribal
DDB Tribal Düsseldorf belongs to the DDB Tribal Group
with oﬃces in Germany and Austria and is part of the DDB
network. The ﬁrst DDB oﬃce outside of the USA opened
for business in 1962 and has helped shape NRW’s adver@sing scene with many top crea@ves. Many mul@-awardwinning crea@ve solu@ons for well-known brands such as
Henkel, Schwarzkopf, RamazzoC, Diesel, Congstar and
eBay have been created right in the centre of the regional
capital at the Berliner Allee.
MediaCom, OMD, Ketchum Pleon, Vok Dams
Not only adver@sing agencies, but other kinds of communica@ons service companies feel very much at home in
NRW. Five of the ten biggest German media agencies are
based in Düsseldorf, including MediaCom and OMD in the
ﬁrst two places. The na@on's second largest PR agency
Ketchum Pleon, a BBDO subsidiary, also operates from
the regional capital. Cologne has also seen many agencies
– par@cularly in the ﬁeld of public rela@ons – making a
name for themselves on a na@onal level. They include
Oliver SchroA, Ergo, Jeschenko, muehlhausmoers, BrunoMedia and Weber Shandwick. The top spot amongst the
German event agencies has been occupied by Vok Dams
for the past 12 years. In 2013,the Wuppertal-based
agency posted a na@onal turnover of fees of 25.7m Euro.
The second place in the turnover ranking is taken by
Uniplan in Cologne with 21.7m Euro. <
Weiße Dame
Media Agencies
MediaCom
OMD
MEC
Zenithmedia
Op@media
Training
Ecosign Köln
FH Aachen
FH des MiAelstandes Bielefeld
FH Dortmund
FH Düsseldorf
FH Münster
FH Südwes?alen Soest
Folkwang HS Essen
HS Hamm-Lippstadt
HS Niederrhein
Köln Interna@onal School of Design
Kölner Design Akademie
Krea@vkader Düsseldorf
Macromedia Köln
Mediadesign HS Düsseldorf
Rheinische FH Köln
Universität Bielefeld
Universität Wuppertal
Associa@ons
FAMAB Verband Direkte
Wirtscha,skommunika@on,
Rheda-Wiedenbrück
BVDW Bundesverband Digitale
Wirtscha,, Düsseldorf
POSMA POS
Marke@ng Associa@on, Essen
Deutscher Marke@ng-Verband,
Düsseldorf
Networks
BBDO Regielounge
Marke@ng-Club Düsseldorf
The ci@es of Düsseldorf and Cologne stand
for a unique and exci@ng mixture of art and
culture, architecture, fashion, media, communica@on and adver@sing. The resul@ng release
of crea@ve energy combined with the prevailing zest for life here make the hub so aArac@ve
for companies and employees.
Contacts
[email protected]
www.medien.nrw.de
Thomas Hinkel, CEO
OMD Düsseldorf
Adver@sing > 29
Game Developers
2Up Mobile
42 DP
addmore games
App+Mobile
Aruba Studios
BigBlackBlock Gamestudio
bigitec GmbH
b-Interak@ve
Blue Byte
Brainseed Factory
Bright Future
Bumblebee
Crene@c Studios
DAEDALIC Entertainment
Destrax Entertainment
Dot8 Studio
Egoso,
Eurosimtec
Flying Sheep Studios
Frame6
Funa@cs So,ware
Gamelo,
Gaming Minds Studios
Grey Rook Entertainment
Hammer Labs
Independent Arts So,ware
Innogames
Joindots
Kaasa Health
Kaasa Solu@ons
KaiserGames
Konzeptzwei
m2p entertainment
mobiven@on
Neopoly
Nurogames
Outline Development
peîra
Piranha Bytes/Pluto 13
RockAByte
Silent Dreams
Silent Future
Snowstep Development
Space@me
SpinBoAle Games
Springwald So,ware
Sunlight Games
takomat
The Good Evil
Triboot Technologies
Ubiso, Blue Byte
Virtual Playgrounds
VIS Games and Entertainment
Zone 2 Connect
Z-So,ware
Game Publishers
Aeroso,
ad tronic So,ware & Services
astragon So,ware
bhv Publishing
Crene@c Publishing
Electronic Arts
Headup Games
Nokia
OnlineFußballManager
rondomedia Marke@ng & Vertrieb
RTL interac@ve
Ubiso,
Service Providers
Aruba Events
AWWW Design
Cen@grade
comixfactory
Cubicity
Daywalker Studios
Eﬀec@ve Media
elevenmedia
Eye Rock Media
Fendtasy
Freelancer Games
Gnomdesign
GreenMamba-Studios
Instance Four
Michael Filipowski
Mobile Game Design
30
FIFA 13
Games
Germany’s most successful games hub
A crea@ve games scene has seAled in the Rhine and Ruhr
region, ini@ated by a number of pioneers whose success
story began here in the 1980s. Par@cularly in the Ruhr
metropolis, the turnover of the so,ware and games
industry has increased by more than 120 per cent between
2001 and 2007. From market leaders to award-winning
avantgarde designers, the industry has a diversiﬁed and
successful structure now: It made NRW into Germany’s
ﬁnancially strongest games hub in 2011.
Electronic Arts and Ubiso"
One of the leading interna@onal companies in the ﬁeld
of interac@ve entertainment so,ware, Electronic Arts,
has its headquarters in Cologne’s Rheinauhafen from
where it distributes games like Ba=leﬁeld, Crysis or Need
for Speed. The football simula@on game FIFA 13 was the
most successful game of 2012, selling more than a million
units on the Playsta@on alone in just six months. The French
company Ubiso, is also one of the ﬁve largest publishers
in the world and has its German HQ in Düsseldorf. With
series like The Se=lers and Anno, Ubiso, publishes the most
successful strategic games in Germany. In 2014, Anno
Online received the German Computer Game Award for
the Best Browser Game. Successful publishers have developed from within the local scene such as Ahoiii!, which
was successful in three categories at the German Developer Award in 2013 with its children’s game Fiete, and the
Mönchengladbach-based Astragon So,ware, which won the
German Developer Award in 2011 for its farming simulator.
Astragon's main shareholder is Rondomedia, which is also
based in Mönchengladbach. Together, they are the second
largest producer and distributor of computer games in
Germany with sales of well over two million games.
With its dynamism and good educa@onal
landscape, NRW yields crea@ve talents for the
games industry. The local developers’ scene
must be supported with speciﬁc funding programmes so that games „made in NRW“ can
become a trademark.
Benedikt Grindel, Managing Director
Ubiso)-Studio Blue Byte
Well-connected developer scene
Further synergy eﬀects have arisen in the region. Electronic
Arts, for example, has its successful game EA Fußballmanager
developed by the Cologne-based company Bright Future,
while Ubiso, took over the studio Blue Byte in 2001 and
has since been the exclusive distributor of the legendary
strategic game series The Se=lers and Anno. Blue Byte,
founded in Mülheim an der Ruhr in 1988 and now based in
Düsseldorf, was one of the pioneers of the German game
developers. The studio, which is now one of the fastest
growing game developers in Germany, is regarded as
the nucleus of the lively scene in the Ruhr region. This is
where the Crazy Chicken’s inventors Phenomedia in Bochum
and its subsidiary at the @me, Piranha Bytes, set important
new standards at the end of the 1990s. These companies
in turn led to new players such as Nevigo in Bochum and
today’s Piranha Bytes/Pluto 13 in Essen, which is responsible for, among other things, the successful fantasy role
playing games Gothic and Risen. Headup Games from
Düren won the German Computer Game Award in 2014
for The Inner World from Studio Fizbin.
Online Gaming, Serious Games, eSports
The new trends in the games market are also reﬂected
in NRW. For instance, Ubiso, has agreed on a strategic
partnership with RTL Interac@ve for online gaming. The
established development studio Funa@cs in Oberhausen
is also ac@ve in this growing segment with browser games
like Cultures Online. And KaiserGames in Cologne operates
Germany’s most visited online game site, Spielaﬀe.de,
with more than 10,000 free games. KaiserGames also
drew aAen@on to itself in 2012 by its takeover of the social
game Fliplife.de. The fact that the game developer scene
Authors, directors, designers, programmers,
actors and musicians need a crea@ve, networked environment in order to create computer games. This is exactly what NRW and
the area around Cologne have to oﬀer.
Olaf Coenen, CEO
Electronic Arts Germany
Spleemo & Glob: Monster Defense Fiete
Typoman
Paula
The Inner World
Anno
in the Rhine and Ruhr region also has great poten@al in
the ﬁeld of games with educa@onal content, the so-called
serious games, is proven by such companies as Zone 2
Connect and Takomat with award-winning projects like
The Virtual Supermarket and E2010 – Power to Energe<ka.
The game Meister Cody by the Düsseldorf-based so,ware
developer Kaasa Health was supported by the Film- und
Mediens@,ung NRW and presented with the Vodafone
Smart Solu@on Award in 2013. Cologne’s Turtle Entertainment is also one of around 50 game developers and more
than a dozen publishers who are successfully opera@ng
on all pla?orms in NRW. Turtle has specialized in eSports
and is the operator, among other things, of the Electronic
Sports League with 3.5 million players regularly playing
in 37 countries.
gamescom, GDC, Developer Award
The games industry in NRW is accompanied by some pres@gious events. In 2014, gamescom – the world’s largest
trade fair for interac@ve entertainment – was held for
the sixth @me, with more than 350,000 visitors, including
around 31,500 professional delegates from 88 countries
and more than 700 exhibitors from 47 countries. Other
conferences and mee@ngs are held at the same @me as
gamescom to aAract the games scene and professionals to
Cologne, ranging from the Game Developers Conference
(GDC), the newly developed Respawn – Gathering of Game
Developers, the Notgames Fest, the Video Days, to the
Pla@ne Fes@val and Evoke as well as the European Pirate
Summit start-up event. Numerous other games events
are held in NRW during the year, including the German
Developer Award in Düsseldorf and the Next Level Conference in Dortmund.
NRW is gaining in importance as a centre for
the games industry. This is underscored by
the recent establishment of interna@onally
successful games companies in Düsseldorf. In
par@cular, the highly qualiﬁed workforce as
well as the opportuni@es for synergy with
the local industry enterprises are what make
NRW into a unique loca@on.
Thomas Friedmann, CEO
Funa<cs
Facts and Figures
> Financially strong games hub
> gamescom in Cologne – trade fair of global importance
> Global players Electronic Arts and Ubiso,
> One in four German game developers based in NRW
> Arvato, one of the most important distributors
> Wide range of training opportuni@es
> gamescom, GDC Europe, German Developer Award
Research and teaching
The universi@es and colleges in NRW are also con@nually
expanding their exper@se in the ﬁeld of games: The Cologne
University of Applied Sciences (FH), for example, has
developed the Cologne Game Lab ins@tute in coopera@on
with ifs interna@onale ﬁlmschule köln, oﬀering a Master’s
Degree in Game Development and Research. The FH and
Cologne Game Lab organize the biennial Clash of Reali@es
academic conference in collabora@on with Electronic Arts.
The courses in game design at the Media Design College
in Düsseldorf are also unique in Germany, while the universi@es of Paderborn and Duisburg-Essen oﬀer research
specializa@on in the ﬁeld of computer games.
Promo4on of ideas and start-ups
The Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW has been suppor@ng
the young developer scene in the region since 2011 with
its pilot funding programme for innova@ve audiovisual content. The funding programme was extended and expanded
in 2014. In addi@on, the media industry in NRW has received sustainable support since 2012 through the innova@on programme Digital Media NRW/Create.Media.NRW
as part of the Digital Media Region NRW ini@a@ve. The innova@on programme is administered by the federal state
government. The Mediengründerzentrum NRW also provides an extensive bursary package for young game companies. And the UFA Lab NRW, which has been located in
Cologne since 2012, supports colla-bora@ons between
young crea@ves from all sectors. <
We opened an oﬃce in NRW to provide an
entree into the industry for those talents
who would like to work on culturally valuable
games without applying the thumbscrews,
but with lots of crea@ve freedom. A,er a few
weeks, it could be seen that the plan was a
complete success.
Carsten Fichtelmann, CEO & Founder
Daedalic Entertainment Studio West,
Düsseldorf
Squirrel & baer
Service Providers
Nevigo
Partnertrans
Phoenix Graﬁk
planetlan
TASK four Studio
The Art of Games
The Light Works
Timm Dapper
Turtle Entertainment
Two Pi Team
Webchef
Webdesign Höhne
4D Projects
Gaming Communi@es
ESL Electronic Sports League
FRONTmedien
Gamechannel.de
Gameforum.de
n!faculty
Research/Training Ins@tu@ons
Cologne Game Lab
FH Köln – Insitut für
Medienforschung
und Medienpädagogik
ifs interna@onale ﬁlmschule köln
Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln
Mediadesignhochschule Düsseldorf
SAE Ins@tute
Universität Duisburg-Essen
Universität Paderborn
Events/Awards
Clash of Reali@es
Deutscher Entwicklerpreis
gamescom
Gametreﬀ NRW
GDC Europe
Next Level Conference
NRW Game Developers
Respawn
Role Play Conven@on
Sports Media Summit
Networks
eco – Verband der deutschen
Internetwirtscha, e.V.
Fachhochschule Köln –
Projekt „Spielraum“
G.A.M.E.
GameParents.de e.V.
Zentrum für interak@ve Medien e.V.
Sponsors
Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW
Mediencluster NRW
Mediengründerzentrum NRW
NRW.BANK
Games > 31
Companies
ac@ve value
AdAudience
Adcloud
artegic
arvato
Betafabrik
BILDblog
Bookmerken
Brain Injec@on
buch.de/bol.de
Clipﬁsh.de
Con@lla
Coworking Cologne
deutsche-startups.de
dotKoeln
Endemol beyond
e-Spirit
favsol
Geocoder
goneo Internet GmbH
gpluscharts.de
Imperia
InVision
kalaydo.de
KultFrame
Mediakra,
Merky.de
nacamar
Play Massive
Putpat TV
pixelpark
quintly
Railslove
Responsive Design Viewer
RTL interac@ve
Ruhrbarone.de
Seitwert
Seitzeichen
Talen@al
topiclodge
WAZ NewMedia
WDR mediagroup digital
web2null.de
woist.es
10000 Flies
9elements
Agencies
01 Digitales Design
antwerpes ag
Bassier, Bergmann & Kindler
Con Carne
Crossmedia
denkwerk
e-mediad
ge@t
Krankikom
LBi Germany
lunapark
netSTART Venture
nexum AG
Nionex
Oevermann Networks
People Interac@ve
pixelpark
radikant
Reality Bytes Neue Medien
Rheinklang Media
ruhmesmeile
Spyke Media
T-Systems Mul@media Solu@ons
TWT Interac@ve
www.kennziﬀer.com
wysiwyg So,ware Design
zeec
Events
Bewegtbildstamm@sch
Advance Hackathon
Advance - Interna@onal
Web & Startup Conference
Cologne Web Content Forum
Consumer Content Conference
dmexco
Grimme Online Award
Interac@ve Cologne
The Bobs Awards
Deutscher Webvideopreis
32
facebook’s global network
Internet & Web
Strong Players, crea4ve start-ups and webvideo stars
The German Internet sector con@nued to prosper in 2013
thanks to a signiﬁcant rise in adver@sing investments: with
a gross adver@sing volume of over 7 billion Euros, the
Internet has established itself as the second strongest
adver@sing medium behind television and ahead of newspapers. Many e-commerce companies (telekom.de in Bonn,
qvc.de in Düsseldorf, buch.de in Münster) are directly
proﬁ@ng from the online boom, as are service-providers
like the Bertelsmann subsidiary arvato in Gütersloh (4.41
billion Euros turnover in 2013), which, for example, oversees the adver@sement payments for Google around the
globe and manages the Xbox Shop for Microso, for several
countries. The general use of the Internet is constantly
increasing: Three out of four Germans use the Web, NRW
has the highest level of digi@sa@on in Germany. Such posi@ve signals come together in North Rhine-Westphalia with
an industry that is ideally geared to economic dynamism
with innova@on, ﬁrst-class companies and successful concepts. Small, crea@ve and fast start-ups assume the role
of providing innova@on. The publishing and media groups
bring innova@on into the old market by supplying venture
capital to the start-ups.
Clipﬁsh, Mediakra", Putpat TV
With Clipﬁsh.de, RTL has access to a popular video portal
with more than 55,000 music videos on oﬀer. In 2012,
Clipﬁsh launched a second music portal, closely allied to
social media features, called dooloop.tv, which allows the
users to recommend their favourite music to friends via
Facebook. Meanwhile, Putpat TV, founded in 2008 by
Cologne-based TVRL, oﬀers online music television that
everyone can organise according to their own taste. Putpat
Cologne also oﬀers us crea@ve, cosmopolitan
poten@al due to the proximity of high-quality
ﬁlm and TV producers: at the heart of a state
where innova@on is both sought a,er and
promoted.
Marc Schröder, CEO
RTL interac<ve
TV is the No. 1 music app on smartTVs and the top music
video app on the iPad. Thanks to a network of media and
co-opera@on partners, the Cologne-based company reaches
over 18 million unique users each month, with more than
2.5 million users having registered. Mediakra, Networks is
experiencing a veritable boom with its broadcas@ng centre
in Cologne, making it the largest online TV channel in the
German-language area. Mediakra, operates a series of
online video networks on various pla?orms and supports
the most talented video makers in producing content for
viewers of all age groups. In total, Mediakra, reaches
more than 16 million individual viewers each month and
registers more than 420 million video hits globally per
month. This is equivalent to an average growth in viewers of
10 per cent per month since the network was established
in September 2011.
kalaydo, derWesten, WAZ NewMedia,
RTL interac4ve
Alongside the newcomers of the Internet, the online presence of tradi@onal media has also developed in NRW in a
crea@ve and proﬁtable way. The best example of this is the
Cologne company kalaydo.de, an Internet adver@sement
portal, which was founded by NRW publishers (incl. the
DuMont Schauberg Media Group, Rheinische Post Verlagsgesellscha,, Zeitungsverlag Aachen). Almost six million visits
each month and many prizes are proof of a successful
realisa@on. WAZ NewMedia runs a local news portal, DerWesten.de, as a joint project by the daily newspapers of
the Funke Mediengruppe, pos@ng up to ten million visits
monthly. The television sta@ons have also been involved
for some @me now in providing web content: While RTL
In the media city Cologne we have an excellent
network of tradi@onal media, start-ups and
already established Internet companies. Many
successful start-ups in recent years, one of which
is kalaydo.de, show that we enjoy a great climate
for the industry here.
Joachim Vranken, CEO
kalaydo.de
Facts and Figures
> Leader in online adver@sing
> Crea@ve start-up scene
> Innova@ve developers and programmers
> Important Internet agencies from NRW
> Bundesverband Digitale Wirtscha,,
eco – Associa@on of the German Internet Industry,
Eyes & Ears of Europe, Web de Cologne,
Digitale Stadt Düsseldorf, etc.
> kalaydo.de, clipﬁsh.de, buch.de, Y-TiAy,
Endemol beyond, etc.
> dmexco, Advance, Grimme Online Award,
Interac@ve Cologne, German Web Video Award,
VideoDays
interac@ve develops for the web and, for example, regularly
makes RTL.de into the TV website with the highest traﬃc,
WDR mediagroup digital, for its part, oﬀers a full service to
prepare formats in an interac@ve and media-friendly way.
AdAudience, Valtech, denkwerk, LBI Germany
A motor of the NRW Internet industry is the lively and
diverse landscape of so,ware developers and Internet
agencies. One example of a company on the direct interface between adver@sers and content is Düsseldorf-based
AdAudience, a joint venture of major marketers (incl. G+J
Electronic Media Sales, IP Deutschland, SevenOne Media,
Tomorrow Focus, Axel Springer Media Impact), who reach
more than 80 per cent of all German Internet users. NRW
is also the home of high quality Internet services providers,
be it content management systems from Hürth (Imperia AG)
and Dortmund (e-Spirit), hos@ng and streaming services
from Düsseldorf (nacamar) or Web 2.0 consul@ng from
Cologne (Brain Injec@on). The Telekom subsidiary T-Systems
Mul@media Solu@ons with its branch in Bonn has been
at the forefront of the Internet agency rankings for many
years. Other well-known agencies at the front of the market
include LBi Germany, denkwerk, Antwerpes, nexum AG,
TWT Interac@ve, i22, Valtech, Reality Bytes Neue Medien
und Bassier, Bergmann & Kindler.
Networking and Events
At the end of each September, koelnmesse extends an invita@on to come to Cologne for dmexco, the leading interna@onal mee@ng place for players in the digital industry.
More than 800 exhibitors and around 31,900 professional
delegates aAended in 2014. Opportuni@es for networking
Cologne – and thus also NRW – has developed
into the hot spot for web video produc@on.
Many of the most well-known faces have moved
here. That is a great advantage because the
distances are short. People even meet in
the street or at par@es and can chat about
upcoming projects.
Y-Ti=y, You Tube Stars
are oﬀered by the Web de Cologne ini@a@ve which was
founded by six Cologne-based online companies and the
memi-Ins@tut. Interac@ve Cologne is a fes@val which brings
hackers, designers and start-ups together. The start-up
conference Advance has already spawned such spin-oﬀs
as the Pitching Day and the Hackathon. The Digital City
Düsseldorf associa@on, joined by many important companies from the media, IT and telecommunica@ons industries,
regularly organises such events as the Digitalks. NRW is
home for the Bundesverband Digitale Wirtscha, and eco
as well as serving as the venue for the Grimme Online
Awards which are presented each year by the Grimme
Ins@tute in Marl.
Web video scene
NRW’s posi@on as Germany’s number one TV hub is
unchallenged on a na@onal level. The Land has now also
developed into the leading region for web TV and web
video produc@on, breaking records annually with the
VideoDays in Cologne (15,000 par@cipants in 2014), and it
is home to the most important award for this scene, the
German Web Video Award, which is presented in Düsseldorf in May. In 2014, a scholarship programme for the
development of web videos was launched by the Filmund Mediens@,ung NRW and the European Web Video
Academy. The funding is intended to enable young web
video makers from NRW to realise their ideas and projects
as independent micro-producers. The funding also includes
par@cipa@on in a training and support programme organised by the European Web Video Academy. <
Educa@on/Training
Cognos AG
Deutsche Medienakademie Köln
European Web Video Academy
Fachhochschule Aachen
Fachhochschule Dortmund
Fachhochschule Gelsenkirchen
Fachhochschule Köln
Hochschule Fresenius
Macromedia Hochschule
Medien Management Ins@tut
memi Köln
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
SAE Ins@tute
Universität Köln
Associa@ons
Bundesverband Digitale
Wirtscha, (BVDW) e.V.
Digitale Stadt Düsseldorf
eco – Verband der deutschen
Internetwirtscha, e.V.
European Web Video Academy
Eyes & Ears of Europe
OpenImmo
Web de Cologne
Zentrum für interak@ve Medien
Contacts
www.medien.nrw.de
www.ﬁlms@,ung.de
NRW is the No. 1 federal state for web video.
Nowhere are there more successful web video
makers, nowhere is the young video scene
more ac@ve. Although the life of the YouTube
genera@on takes place on the net: the personal
contact is s@ll the most important. And NRW
provides the best condi@ons for this – as well
as for the German Web Video Award.
Markus Hündgen, Managing Partner,
Chief Execu<ve Videopunk
Internet & Web > 33
Need for Speed Shi)
Mobile
Companies
E-Plus
Ericsson
GeCngs
Huawei
IBM
netSTART Venture
Nokia
Seven Principles
Blackberry
T-Mobile
Vodafone
ZTE
App Development
2up Mobile
4D Media
ac@ve value
appcellent
AppCom Interac@ve
Apps4friends
Appselera@on
Aquapony
BaM! Interac@ve Marke@ng
BigiTec
Clanmo
Coupies
Fingerfood
ﬁtogram
FKT42
Gamobi
Geome@x
GeoMobile
Gesamtkunstwerk Entertainment
Glanzkinder
g.on experience
GrandCentrix
Hot Chili Apps
InnoMoS
Kaasa Solu@on
Maple Apps
MEiAPPS
MeCgel So,ware
mobile mind
mobiven@on
mobix
Mubaloo
MWC.mobi
net mobile AG
Opwoco
oneline media
Pi Filmproduk@on
34
Three of the four largest German operators of mobile
phone networks – Telekom, Vodafone and E-Plus – are
based in NRW. Overall, more than 40 per cent of all those
companies working in this sector in Germany are located
here. Moreover, the excellent infrastructure in the ﬁeld
of interac@ve entertainment so,ware has, thanks to the
presence of global players (Electronic Arts, Ubiso,) and
an extremely crea@ve independent games scene, just as
posi@ve an eﬀect as the extensive television and publishing
scene as well as NRW’s excep@onal posi@on within the
Federal Republic in the ﬁeld of geodata. And this has all
happened against the background of prospering economic
data: At the beginning of 2014, 50 per cent of Germans
over 14 used a smartphone. Most consumers use the
mobile phones to surf in the Internet. In 2013, the volume
of data in the German mobile phone networks increased
much faster than expected. 267 million Gigabytes passed
through the mobile phone operators' networks (up 71 per
cent compared to 2012). In 2014, the mobile phone networks in Germany are expected to generate 9.6 billion Euros
turnover with mobile data services. And the market for
apps is also con@nuing to ﬂourish. In 2014, it is expected
that around 717 million Euros will be generated with apps.
In 2013, this was 547 million Euros.
Successful apps development: Glanzkinder,
mobiven4on, Appsrise, Grandcentrix
Embedded in an environment that is ideal both in business
and structural terms, an innova@on-friendly developer
scene has emerged in recent years in NRW to design and
market applica@ons for smartphones. Major players like
Electronic Arts and Ubiso, successfully produce app versions of many of their @tles (FIFA, Need for Speed, Anno,
Coupies has its company headquarters in the
centre of Cologne, the Internet city. Besides an
ac@ve Web 2.0 scene and the biggest mobile
phone companies in Düsseldorf and Bonn, the
economic informa@on technology department
of the University of Cologne is a great address
for new ideas.
Frank Schleimer, co-founder and CEO
Coupies
etc.). Other leading names in the sector such as Vodafone
have given rise to new companies like the Düsseldorf-based
Appselera@on which was taken over by Apprise Düsseldorf
in 2014. The previous year saw one of the largest developers of mobile apps, Mubaloo, seCng up shop in Düsseldorf. Since the beta phase of the iPhone, Glanzkinder from
Cologne has so far developed over 200 applica@ons for
such clients as Siemens, BMW, Audi, VW and Viessmann
and subsequently received numerous awards. In 2013,
for example, the Cologne-based company celebrated the
“Best of 2013“ award from the Ini@a@ve MiAelstand for
its PDF.ac@vator app. Furthermore, mobiven@on from
Cologne has made a name for itself throughout Europe
with games (Hangman Hero, Tic Tac Toe) and graphic
applica@ons. Its interna@onal clients include more than
100 app stores, mobile phone operators, brand names
and adver@sing agencies. NRW is also excep@onally wellposi@oned in the ﬁeld of mobile marke@ng, not least
thanks to its prospering adver@sing scene with such companies as BaM! Interac@ve from Düsseldorf, which create
marke@ng concepts from mobile adver@sement through
to mobile Internet.
Mobile TV: RTL, WDR
Mobile television is another extensive ﬁeld of business. In
Cologne, for example, WDR mediagroup and RTL interac@ve
are both involved in developing broadcas@ng content for
mobile applica@ons, such as the Sportschau or Soccer World
Cup app at WDR. The Now apps by RTL, RTL II and Vox
enable buyers to watch the majority of the TV programmes
via streaming on their mobile phones immediately following the broadcast. Apart from especially popular programmes like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire or Formula 1
As a digital na@ve among the German mobile
phone providers, simyo has had its headquarters in Düsseldorf for ten years. An outstanding
infrastructure, the large number of top players
from the telco sector, access to talented professionals and, not least, the Rhenish openness
and conviviality make living and working here
so aArac@ve.
Nicolas Biagosch, CEO
simyo GmbH
Molly Monster
The Day It Rained Forever
Tomb Raider Underworld
(with their own tailor-made applica@ons produced by
RTL interac@ve), the in-house developer also sa@sﬁes the
demand for moving images on the mobile phone with a
mobile version of Clipﬁsh with approx. 4.35 million app
downloads. The No. 1 television hub is also a fer@le environment for mobile service-providers in NRW: Grandcentrix
from Cologne develops and handles more than 22 applica@ons for RTL, incl. the iPhone apps for Idol, Got Talent
and X-Factor. Moreover, the company is also behind the
smartphone app for the ARD-Quizduell as a commission
from ITV Studios Germany Cologne. The apps for Berlin
Day & Night and Dalli Dalli are part of the product portfolio at Appsrise in Düsseldorf.
Loca4on-based services
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the importance of geodata
for business and the media was recognised early on. The
result: a unique posi@on within Germany as shown by
developers of successful applica@ons based on geodata,
who have set up shop in the region. In the ﬁeld of mobile
media, this is especially the case for naviga@on and loca@onbased services: innova@ons are made here, for example,
by Logiball from Herne, which is, among other things, the
oﬃcial distributor of the TomTom naviga@on device producer. Logiball has developed into Europe's largest independent IT service-provider handling digital street maps.
In 2013, GeoMobile GmbH from Dortmund introduced
the GeoCompanion app, which provides orienta@on and
security for journeys in crisis and war zones and received
the Human Telema@k Award at the IFA Berlin in 2013. In
2014, it picked up the Telema@k Award for the BusAccess
app for passengers with restricted mobility in public transport services. Meanwhile, Naviki is the name given to a
NRW is THE media region par excellence since
we also have a crea@ve media landscape alongside solid technology that is concentrated in a
radius of 150 km – and all of this with the nice
ambience of the Rhine and Ruhr: the perfect
combina@on for breathtaking apps.
Mustafa Mussa, CEO
bam! Interac<ve
Filifant
Facts and Figures
> Global players: Vodafone, Telekom, E-Plus,
Electronic Arts, Sevenval, and others
> Successful app developers
> Ideal infrastructure
> 40 per cent of German mobile companies in NRW
> Mobile capital Düsseldorf
> Pioneer in the ﬁeld of loca@on-based services
> iPhone DevCon, Mobile Media Summit,
Advance
route planner for bicycles – a successful app which was
developed at the Münster University of Applied Sciences
and has also been available throughout Europe since 2013.
Publishers also make use of this high-performance infrastructure: for example, WAZ with its traﬃc conges@on
informa@on and signpost service. The Cologne-based
company Coupies oﬀers loca@on-based coupons and discounts for mobile phones, and received several awards
(incl. Best of Mobile Award 2014) for its loca@on-based
service. The bargain service from NRW claims to have
now reached 3.5 million mobile end-users.
Mobile future in NRW
NRW thinks mobile. In fact, Cologne was the ﬁrst city in
Germany to be included by Telekom in its new high-speed
mobile network LTE, and, thanks to Vodafone, Düsseldorf
has also been able to surf in the fast UMTS successor
network before other ci@es.
NRW also shows in other ways that it is well prepared for
the mobile future: this is where car parking payment by
mobile phone was ﬁrst introduced in Germany (available
in Cologne since February 2008); this is where Sevenval,
the inventor of FIT Technology and technological leader
for mobile web so,ware, is based; this is where professional training programmes are oﬀered (e.g. Mobile
Media at the ifs interna@onale ﬁlmschule Cologne); this
is where the app developers conference iPhone DevCon
takes place. And this is where there are ins@tu@ons suppor@ng mobile start-ups in their launch and growth phases
(e.g. Startplatz Cologne and the Mobile Incubator 1st
Mover in Düsseldorf). <
The Sims 3
Rabbids Big Bang
App Development
Pythia Mobile Infotainment
Rheinfabrik
RockAByte
Rocket Apes
RTL interac@ve
Sevenval
Ubiso,
Startplatz
The APP Guys
WDR mediagroup
Widjet
wp solu@ons
Educa@on/Training
ifs interna@onale ﬁlmschule köln
Events/Awards
Advance Conference
Digitalk+
DWNRW AWARD
Interac@ve Cologne
iPhone DevCon
Mobile Media Summit
Telekom App Award
Associa@ons/Networks
Bundesverband
Digitale Wirtscha, (BVDW)
Cluster IKT.NRW
Digitale Stadt Düsseldorf
eco – Verband der deutschen
Internetwirtscha, e.V.
engage.NRW
networker NRW
Web de Cologne
wisnet
Contacts
www.ﬁlms@,ung.de
www.medien.nrw.de
www.ikt.nrw.de
Now a leader in the ﬁeld of counter-surveillance, Secusmart highly appreciates the support from the Land of NRW. This includes the
valuable networks and key industry events
such as the Düsseldorf mobile campaign:
NRW breathes mobility.
Dr. Hans-Christoph Quelle, CEO
Secusmart
Mobile > 35
Huawei, Düsseldorf
Deutsche Telekom AG, Bonn
Telekommunication
Market leader in interna4onal communica4ons
Companies
Blackberry
Deutsche Telekom
E-Plus
Ericsson
Huawai
LG Electronics
NEC Düsseldorf
NetCologne
Nokia
QSC
Radiodata
Samsung
Unitymedia
Vodafone
ZTE
Service Providers
010012 Telecom
01051 Telecom
arvato infoscore
bn:t Blatzheim
Callax Telecom
Cedros
Congstar
ecotel communica@on
ePocket Solu@ons
Eutelsat Deutschland
IN-telegence
LANstream
Simfonics
TELE2
Telemark
Verizon
Versatel
XConnect
ZyXEL
Netzwerke/Verbände
German Council
Local Chapter Düsseldorf
Mobile Marke@ng Associa@on
Mobile Monday Community
Contacts
www.ikt.nrw.de
North Rhine-Westphalia is one of the largest European
markets for informa@on and communica@ons technology
as well as telecommunica@ons services: Over 18 million
inhabitants and more than 747,000 businesses are catered
for here - therefore, the range of suppliers and serviceproviders is correspondingly broad and signiﬁcant. Some
42,000 people are employed in the ﬁeld of telecommunica@ons; 25 per cent of all those working in this industry
in Germany. Germany’s two largest telecommunica@ons
providers, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone, are based in
NRW. Nearly 90 per cent of the German market for mobile
communica@ons is covered by NRW-based companies,
including three of the four German mobile operators:
Telekom in Bonn and Vodafone and E-Plus in Düsseldorf.
Deutsche Telekom
142.5 million mobile phone customers, 31 million ﬁxedlines and more than 17 million broadband connec@ons
as well as more than 230,000 employees around the world
and a turnover of 60.1 billion Euros in 2013: Deutsche
Telekom, with its headquarters in Bonn, is one of the world’s
leading telecommunica@ons concerns. The company came
into being in 1995 as a result of the priva@sa@on of the
state-run Deutsche Bundespost and its divisions for telecommunica@ons and telephones, and now oﬀers products
and services in the ﬁelds of ﬁxed-line networks, mobile
communica@ons, Internet and IPTV (internet protocol
television) for private customers as well as providing ICT
solu@ons for large and commercial customers – in almost
50 countries around the globe. The company operates
Deutsche Telekom is not only providing society
with infrastructure. We are also a reliable companion in the digital world. Both privately and
professionally. Any@me and anywhere. Simplifying and enriching people’s lives – that is our
mission. NRW is the home from where we take
on this responsibility – also in partnership with
the media.
Timotheus Hö=ges, CEO
Deutsche Telekom
36
technical networks, for example, for landline and mobile
telephones as well as for online services. In addi@on to
that, it is one of the most important operators of the
broadcas@ng infrastructure in Germany.
Vodafone
With 10,500 employees and a turnover of 9.6 billion Euros
in 2013, Vodafone Germany is one of the largest and stateof-the art telecommunica@ons providers in Europe. An
innova@ve Düsseldorf-based technology and services
company, Vodafone Germany oﬀers mobile communica@ons
and a ﬁxed-line network as well as internet and broadband
data services for both corporate and private customers.
Vodafone has more than 400 million customers worldwide
and is thus the world’s second largest globally ac@ve mobile
provider a,er China Mobile. In Germany, Vodafone has
around 32 million mobile phone customers. In 2014,
Vodafone took over Kabel Deutschland, the largest German
cable operator based on the number of households served
(8.5 million), and now also oﬀers cable television and fast
broadband cable.
E-Plus
The story of E-Plus began in 1993 with three real NRW
heavy-weights: the principal partners in the E-Plus consor@um who successfully applied for a mobile phone licence
were the telecommunica@ons subsidiaries of VEBA, RWE
and Thyssen. Düsseldorf-based E-Plus is now the number
three in the German mobile phone market. At the beginning
of 2014, 25.5 million customers were phoning, “tex@ng”
A strong network infrastructure is the key raw
material for business in the digital age. Strong
networks have an existen@al importance in our
informa@on society for Germany as an industrial hub and, consequently, for growth, jobs
and prosperity. NRW is home to the two biggest
companies who are providing these lifelines
for our society. The telco heart of Germany
beats in NRW.
Jens Schulte-Bockum, CEO
Vodafone Deutschland
E-Plus Headquarter, Düsseldorf
and surﬁng in the E-Plus Group network (incl. Base, Simyo,
Ay Yildiz, blau Mobilfunk) which posted overall turnover of
3.2 billion Euros (2013) and has been part of the Spanish
telecommunica/ons group Telefónica since October 2014.
Internaonal market leaders:
Blackberry, Ericsson, Huawai, ZTE
Thanks to the market leaders and their many large compe/tors, NRW has evolved into a loca/on boas/ng an interna/onal reputa/on. Global companies in the telecommunica/ons sector have set up business between the rivers
Rhine and the Ruhr. The Swedish market leader Ericsson,
for example, has had its headquarters in Düsseldorf since
1955, and the Finnish telecommunica/ons giant Nokia has
its German base in Ra/ngen. The Chinese giants Huawei
and ZTE, who together dominate a quarter of the European
market for telecommunica/ons equipment, have also
chosen to locate their opera/ons in Düsseldorf, with Huawei
even having its European headquarters here. Apart from
such big names, it is mainly the many small and mediumsized enterprises who are establishing themselves as key
economic performers and ensuring that telecommunica/ons is now the area with the largest turnover in NRW’s
media and communica/ons sector.
Strong networks, intelligent services:
Unitymedia, QSC, NetCologne
The large spectrum of regional and na/onal cable network
operators and service-providers also contributes to the
boom in the telecommunica/ons market in NRW as they
NRW, and Düsseldorf in par/cular, oﬀers
everything that telecommunica/ons providers
need: a perfect infrastructure, the biggest telecommunica/ons cluster and a large catchment area. That is why people call Düsseldorf
“Mobile City”. Our partners seek our proximity
by opening branches here and are coopera/ng
with us to create 4th genera/on mobile communica/ons.
Facts and Figures
> Three out of four German mobile network
opera/ons: Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, E-Plus
> Almost 90 per cent of the German mobile
communica/ons market
> One of the largest European markets
> 42,000 employees in telecommunica/ons
> 190,000 employees in the ICT industry
> Highest turnover in the media and
communica/ons sector
> Second largest globally opera/ng mobile provider
in the world: Vodafone
> Eight Fraunhofer Ins/tutes specialising in ICT in NRW
Vodafone, Düsseldorf
increasingly oﬀer telephone and Internet services as well.
Unitymedia in Cologne, for example, is the second-largest
cable network operator in Germany according to turnover
(1.9 billion Euros in 2013). Following the takeover of KabelBW
in 2012, the subsidiary of the US media group Liberty Global
now supplies 6.7 million customers in North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Wür0emberg and Hesse with broadband
cable services. At the end of 2013, Unitymedia KabelBW
had 7.1 million customers, more than half of them in NRW.
The customers subscribe to more than 11.7 million services:
around 2.6 million Internet and 2.5 million telephone subscrip/ons as well as 6.6 million TV subscrip/ons. Colognebased QSC has specialised in corporate customers. Opera/ng
throughout the whole of Germany, the service-provider
and network operator oﬀers telephone services, DSL,
Virtual Private Networks, dedicated digital subscriber
lines and such services as call centre features. QSC AG has
around 1,700 employees and posted a turnover of 455.7
million Euros in 2013. NetCologne has established itself as
a regional telecommunica/ons company in the economic
region of Cologne/Bonn/Aachen. The company is the most
successful city carrier in Germany with 239,000 landline
connec/ons (telephone and internet) via TAL and 149,000
broadband connec/ons via its own network, 25,000 mobile
customers, 216,000 TV customers, 891 employees and a
turnover of 241 million Euros in 2013. <
With Düsseldorf as a mobile capital and a
strong, lively network of companies, NRW provides an innova/ve power which is unique in
the European telecommunica/ons industry.
Stephan Schneider, CEO
Digitale Stadt Düsseldorf e.V.
Thorsten Dirks, CEO
E-Plus
Telecommunica/on > 37
Network expansion, NetCologne
Cabel & Satellite
Network Operators
Unitymedia
NetCologne
Deutsche Telekom
Vodafone
Equipment Suppliers/
Service Providers
3M
Ericsson
Toshiba
Mitsubishi
Digitalbox Europe
ASTRO Strobel
Kommunika@onssysteme
Media Broadcast
Further Key Players
Eutelsat
Deutsche Netzmarke@ng
Gesellscha,
ANGA e.V.
Dt. TV-PlaBorm
Bundesnetzagentur
Contacts
www.ikt.nrw.de
Germany has seen compe@@on between infrastructures in
the broadband market ever since Deutsche Telekom was
obliged to sell its TV broadband cable back in 2000. The
new cable providers, who were ini@ally only responsible
for television, now sell Internet and telephone connec@ons
and have become compe@tors for the telecommunica@ons
companies as a consequence. The telco providers are
responding by developing their networks and now oﬀering their customers moving images as well as telephone
services and the Internet. Many players have a stake in
this business, and a signiﬁcant number of them are based
in North Rhine-Westphalia. From here, the companies exert
inﬂuence on both the regional and na@onal cable market.
Germany’s largest cable market
In North Rhine-Westphalia, there are approximately four
million households with cable: i.e. 40 per cent of all viewers
receive their TV programmes via cable. This makes NRW
the largest cable market in Germany.
Unitymedia KabelBW
Unitymedia KabelBW, with its headquarters in Cologne, is
Germany’s largest cable network operator and one of the
leading providers of media and communica@ons services
via broadband cable in North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and
Baden-WürAemberg with 1.9 billion Euros turnover in 2013.
The company, a subsidiary of Liberty Global, has access to
one of Europe’s most modern and largest connected cable
networks. At the end of 2013, Unitymedia KabelNW had
7.1 million customers, of which more than half are in NRW.
The customers subscribed to 11.9 million services: around
2.6 million Internet and 2.5 million telephone subscrip@ons
The heart of Eutelsat Germany has always beaten in the media region of NRW. This is where
we have a media hub with a pulsa@ng breeding
ground we need for our innova@ons. So, we
are best-placed for suppor@ng our network
partners with turnkey solu@ons for the dynamic development of digital services.
Mar<na Rutenbeck, Managing Director
Eutelsat Germany
38
as well as 6.6 million TV subscrip@ons. The Cologne-based
company currently has 2,500 employees.
Netcologne and DNMG
NetCologne has established itself as a regional telecommunica@ons provider in the economic region of Cologne/
Bonn/Aachen. This company is the number two in NRW
and operates its own ﬁbreglass network. With more than
239,000 ﬁxed-line connec@ons (telephone and internet)
via TAL and 149,000 broadband connec@ons via its own
network, 25,000 mobile customers, 216,000 TV customers,
891 employees and a turnover of 241 million Euros in 2013,
NetCologne is the most successful city-carrier in Germany.
NetCologne is a shareholder of the Deutsche Netzmarketing Gesellscha, (DNMG) which is also headquartered in
Cologne. For more than 15 years, the DNMG has been the
largest marke@ng organisa@on for operators of cable TV
networks in the German-speaking world, represen@ng more
than 170 connected cable network operators. In total,
more than six million households are provided with cable
television and mul@media services through the grouping.
Telekom Entertain and Vodafone TV
With the introduc@on of aArac@ve Internet and telephone
services, the cable network operators came into direct
compe@@on with the established telecommunica@ons
companies, of which the two largest, Deutsche Telekom
and Vodafone, are also based in NRW. The chief player is
Deutsche Telekom, which has signed up almost 2.4 million
customers for its Entertain service. With its Vodafone TV
brand, the Düsseldorf-based mobile phone market-leader
is also a player in the TV business.
NRW is the home of important network operators. The modern infrastructures are used by
companies and consumers alike. Thus, we have
an excellent environment as a system provider
for cable television networks and digital headend technology .
Herbert Strobel, Managing Director
ASTRO Strobel Kommunika<onssysteme
Facts and Figures
> Germany’s largest cable market with around
four million connected households
> NRW: forerunner in network digitaliza@on
> Germany’s second largest cable network operator:
Unitymedia Kabel BW with 1.9 billion Euros turnover
> Largest city-carrier in Germany: NetCologne with
241 million Euros turnover
> Deutsche Telekom – most successful IPTV supplier
> ANGA COM – largest and most successful broadband
event in Europe with 17,000 professional delegates
In addi@on to a basic package with more than 80 free-TV
channels and 29 HD channels, customers have access to
thousands of feature ﬁlms, series and documentaries as
well as Sky’s oﬀers. Following its takeover of Kabel
Deutschland in 2014, Vodafone now aims to expand its
involvement in the area of television. Providers of broadband infrastructures rely on the providers of aArac@ve
content. And there are many of these in NRW: the RTL
Group with the RTL, VOX, Super RTL, n-tv, and RTL Nitro
free TV channels and the RTL Crime, RTL Passion and RTL
Living special interest channels, as well as WDR with its local
programming and radio sta@ons, plus Center.tv, NRW.TV,
QVC, Deutschlandradio, Deutsche Welle and radio NRW.
But it's not only the suppliers of content who call NRW
home: Technical service-providers and equipment and
device manufacturers for cable network operators are
also present in the region such as 3M, Ericsson, Toshiba,
Mitsubishi, Alcatel-Lucent, Digitalbox Europe, Astro
Strobel and Media Broadcast.
Eutelsat
With 18.1 million households in Germany, satellite recep@on remains the biggest compe@tor for cable television
(16.9 million households) today, especially in rural regions.
Eutelsat, the world’s third largest satellite operator and
number one in the region Europe, Middle East and Africa
with a ﬂeet of 30 satellites, is based in Cologne’s Mediapark. Along with the direct provision of satellite TV to
households, Eutelsat also oﬀers its feeding and marke@ng
services to cable network operators.
North Rhine-Westphalia is one of the most important media and economic regions in Europe.
We are proud to contribute to the con@nuing
success of its businesses and ci@zens with a
ﬁrst-class broadband infrastructure and quality
products.
Lutz Schüler, CEO
Unitymedia Group
ANGA & Co.
The Cologne-based associa@on ANGA has more than 190
member companies in Germany – cable network operators
and well-known systems manufacturers, providing their
services to 17 million cable households. Each year, the
associa@on organises the ANGA COM, the biggest broadband event in Europe, at the koelnmesse trade fair and
conference centre with more than 450 exhibitors from 36
countries and 17,000 professional delegates. In 2014, for
the ﬁrst @me, the ANGA COM was staged in co-opera@on
with the Medienforum NRW.
Digital future
NRW is ﬁt for the future. More than 70 per cent of
households are equipped to watch digital TV. Unitymedia
KabelBW, with its modernised, digital and return channelcapable network, is among the pioneers when it comes to
evolving into a mul@media pla?orm. With more than two
million digital households in NRW, the company already
provides digital services to more than 60 per cent of its TV
customers, a higher level of digi@sa@on than other cable
network operators or federal states. With its wide range
of services and its own extensive ﬁbre op@c network, NetCologne is also in tune with the latest market trends and
oﬀers capacity for further development. <
The cable, broadband and TV industry is booming, and ANGA Cable at Cologne’s Messegelände oﬀers the perfect market place. Europe’s
leading conference and fair for cable, broadband and satellite registered record numbers
of exhibitors and visitors again this year.
Thomas Braun, President
ANGA Verband Deutscher Kabelnetzbetreiber
Cable & Satellite > 39
Coworking Space GarageBilk
Start-ups
Good environment for young ideas
Start-ups
9elements.com
ampha.de
Appselera@on
Auxmoney
azubister.net
baby-markt.de
BringMeBack
chocolato.de
Clickworker
Con@lla
Coupies
dawawas.de
doo
Dressed Monkeys
[email protected]
gocrowdup.com/de
Heat Pool
HierBeiDir
Kaasa health
Kalaydo.de
Kochabo
lebenslauf.com
loudplaces.com
Miacosa
musicplayr.com
Nurogames
Quintly
Pixum
plazaa.de
quintly.com
Railslove
reputami.com
Seitwert.de
Simfy
squeaker.net
Supr.com
Tamyca
@vity.de
Trivago
United Equity
userlike.com
Widjet
40
Incubators/Venture Capital
1stMover
Business Angels Netzwerk
Deutschland
Capnamic Ventures
Friendventure
High-Tech Gründerfonds
netstart Ventures
Rheinfabrik
Startplatz
T Ventures
Ufa Lab NRW
NRW as a start-up stronghold
North Rhine-Westphalia oﬀers start-ups excellent condi@ons.
The good infrastructure, numerous support programmes
as well as the high regard for innova@on have provided the
basis for one of the highest rates of start-ups in Germany.
The self-conﬁdent scene in Cologne with its extensive
startup and event culture has spawned such renowned
companies as Kalaydo, Adcloud, and Simfy. The federal
state has developed its par@cular strength through the
interplay between the ci@es and regions: from the hotel
price comparison site Trivago in Düsseldorf through the
Bonn document management service doo to the Dortmundbased crowd working service Clickworker.
NRW is also home to very successful young B2B entrepreneurs who have been hardly no@ced by the media,
including ParStream from Cologne (Red Herring Europe
2013 Top 100 Companies) and Cleverbridge AG, one of the
world’s leading E-commerce providers with 150 employees and oﬃces in Cologne, Tokyo and Chicago. The Games
Factory Ruhr in Mülheim an der Ruhr is currently serving
as a new home for 16 companies and freelancers.
Investors and incubators
Incubators for start-ups are booming. Never before have
so many of them been launched as at present. Start-ups
ﬁnd everything they need here: oﬃces, infrastructure, fast
Internet, conference rooms as well as support on tax and
legal issues. In the past, it was o,en public authori@es who
had set up incubators in the form of start-up and technology
centres. However, former start-ups and venture capital arms
NRW has many crea@ve thinkers and prac@@oners for the Digital Economy, and a coopera@on
between startups, SMEs and industry will make
it possible to master the challenges for the
digital transforma@on necessary in the western
part of Germany.
Prof. Dr. Tobias Kollmann, Head
NRW Digital Economy Oﬃce
of large media and publishing groups are now increasingly
the ones who are crea@ng the organisa@onal prerequisites.
The following ini@a@ves have made a par@cular impact:
the High-Tech Gründerfonds in Bonn, which provides
companies with the necessary capital and knowhow in
the early stages and the incubator Startplatz in Cologne
which began by inves@ng in two companies (Tanked und
Maple Apps) as well as serving as a venue for numerous
events and co-working spaces. The space available for
start-ups at the Mediapark was doubled in 2013.
The incubator 1stMover has posi@oned itself in Düsseldorf
and specialises in mobile Internet. In its co-working space
K LAN close to the Vodafone Campus, it oﬀers young startups the chance to realise their projects. Another important
player is netSTART Ventures of Tobias Kollmann who is
a professor in e-business and e-entrepreneurship at the
University of Duisburg-Essen and also serves as commissioner for Digital Economy for the Economics Minister of
North Rhine-Westphalia. The establishment of this posi@on
shows that start-ups have a par@cularly high priority for
the regional government.
Universi4es and academies
In @mes of skills shortages, NRW is fortunately home to
many renowned talent labs. The RWTH Aachen University,
for example, is one of the three biggest universi@es for
technical courses in Germany with over 40,000 students
and provides important qualiﬁed manpower. The University
of Cologne has Mark Kley as an experienced start-up consultant who can support the university graduates in seCng
NRW oﬀers start-ups ﬁnancial funding possibili@es at every stage as well as advisors with interna@onal experience, top universi@es, favourable
co-working programmes and very good transport connec@ons. The proximity to investors and
a broad client base from all industrial sectors is
unique in Germany. At the same @me, a beAer
chance for interna@onalisa@on is oﬀered here
in the heart of Europe.
Thomas Grota, Investment Director T-Venture
Hometown/Mediakra)Networks
up their companies. Moreover, in a na@onal comparison,
NRW is the leader with its 17 professorships for Entrepreneurship, and with an upward trend. The Cologne University’s Start-up Network oﬀers an intensive programme of
training, workshops and advice for start-ups.
Conferences, networks, pitchings
Up to 40 events for the digital industry are listed by the
Cologne-based calendar pla?orm Nerdhub in NRW each
week. And a considerable number of these events are aimed
at the co-working scene. For example, the Cluster House,
where more than 60 start-ups and agencies are based,
provided the launchpad for the annual European Pirate
Summit which has developed into one of Europe’s most
important start-up events within just two years. In 2013,
Startplatz ini@ated a new pitch and networking format.
The goal of this monthly “Rhineland Pitch” is to give young
start-ups from the Rhineland region an opportunity to
present their business ideas to a high-calibre audience.
Up to 80 start-ups meet regularly at alterna@ng venues
to network. Other events like dmexco, the leading trade
fair for the digital industry, or events such as Advance –
Conference, Pitching & Coaching Day and Hackathon –
underscore the region’s aArac@veness. The posi@ve development of Interac@ve Cologne shows how closely the
scene in NRW works together to create something special:
in 2014, more than 120 events and numerous satellite
events provided the media, crea@ve and digital industries
with opportuni@es to inform themselves and to experiment. <
Facts and Figures
> one of the highest rates of start-ups in Germany
> Kalaydo, Trivago, Clickworker, Auxmoney
> strong talent labs
> the largest number of professorships for
Entrepreneurship na@onwide
> Strong games hub, large independent scene
> B2B with strong players: ParStream, Cleverbridge
> Booming incubators: Startplatz, 1stMover
> Events: European Pirate Summit Week, Rhineland
Pitch, dmexco, Advance–Conference, Pitching &
Coaching Day, Hackathon, Interac@ve Cologne
We consciously decided in favour of Cologne
when establishing STARTPLATZ as there is a
developed start-up culture here, which we
can also help to shape even further. With the
Rhineland Pitch, we have also devised a pitching
format which is specially targeted at founders
from all over NRW. The start-up scene is ﬂourishing and we are happy to be part of it.
Ma=hias Gräf, Managing Director Startplatz
With the UFA Lab NRW in Cologne, we – as a leading provider of the moving image in Germany
– are puCng our strategy into prac@ce of par@cipa@ng in the digital transforma@on of the
media landscape. In this respect, NRW is an extremely inspiring region for us with established
media companies and young founders and
start-ups.
Jens-Uwe Bornemann, Vice President Digital
Ventures & Innova<on UFA Film & TV Produk-
We were s@ll students when we set up our
company in the crea@ve quarter of CologneEhrenfeld and have grown together with the
hacker scene in the Rhine area. NRW is home
to one of Europe's most ac@ve start-up ecosystems, and Cologne oﬀered us the infrastructure to become today's Railslove GmbH –
and there is more to come...
Jan Kus, Managing Director
Railslove
In 2000, Pixum was one of the Internet pioneers in the region. Today, NRW and my city of
“Kölle” are a mecca for start-ups and Internet
entrepreneurs from all over the world with the
best opportuni@es for inspiring networking –
whether it’s at the Medienforum, the European Pirate Summit or the ac@vi@es of Web
de Cologne.
Daniel A=allah, founder & CEO
Pixum
As a budding mobile app agency, we regard
NRW as the leading hub for digital media in
Germany. Therefore, – and especially because
we are fascinated by the solidarity and spirit
among the founders – that’s why we are based
in Cologne.
UFA Lab, Cologne
Funding/Advice
Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW
Gründerzentrum Kulturwirtscha,
Aachen
Hochschulgründernetz Cologne
Mediencluster NRW
NRW.Bank
startercenter.nrw.de
Events
Advance
Bewegtbildstamm@sch
beyond tellerrand
Digitalk
dmexco
European Pirate Summit
FuckUpNight
Hacker News Cologne
Interac@ve Cologne
Rheinland-Pitch
Startup Con
Networks
Eco Verband
Gründungsnetzwerk Düsseldorf
Hochschulgründernetz Cologne
Kölner Internet Union
Neues Unternehmertum Rheinland
Startup Dorf
UFA LAB NRW
Web de Cologne
Co-working/Hubs
Bermudahaus
Clusterhaus
Colabor
Cowoco in der BoAmühle
Coworking Space GarageBilk
denkubator
Gewächshaus
K LAN
Solu@on Space
Startplatz
UFA KLAB NRW
Unperfekthaus
Werk52
Workcafé Duisburg
Arne Horn, Managing Director
Maple Apps
Start-ups > 41
Workshop Peter Indergand, KHM Cologne
Education
Young genera4on and emerging talent
Universi@es with mediaspeciﬁc Courses
Bergische Universität Wuppertal
Fern-Universität Hagen
Heinrich-Heine-Universität
Düsseldorf
RWTH Aachen
Rheinische FriedrichWilhelms-Universität Bonn
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
TU Dortmund
Universität Bielefeld
Universität Duisburg-Essen
Universität Paderborn
Universität Siegen
Universität zu Köln
Wes?. Wilhelms-Univ. Münster
Technical Colleges
Hochschule Rhein Waal
FH Aachen
FH Bielefeld
FH des MiAelstands Bielefeld
FH Dortmund
FH Düsseldorf
FH Gelsenkirchen
FH Köln
FH Münster
FH Südwes?alen Soest
Interna@onale FH
Bad Honnef-Bonn
Rheinische FH Köln
Technische FH Georg
Agricola zu Bochum
Universi@es/Academies
BiTS Business and Informa@on
Technology School Iserlohn
Cologne Business School Köln
EMBA Medienakademie
Folkwang Univ. der Künste Essen
HS Bochum
HS Bonn-Rhein-Sieg
HS Fresenius für Wirtscha, und
Medien Köln
HS für Musik Detmold
HS für Musik und Tanz Köln
HS Hamm-Lippstadt
HS Niederrhein Krefeld
HS Ostwes?alen-Lippe Lemgo
ifs interna@onale ﬁlmschule köln
Interna@onal School of
Management Dortmund
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
Kunstakademie Münster
42
North Rhine-Westphalia has a diverse higher educa@on
landscape with 14 universi@es, 16 colleges, seven state
art and music colleges, 29 recognised private and church
colleges as well as ﬁve administra@ve colleges. 2014/15
marked the ﬁrst @me since the crea@on of NRW that the
number of students has exceeded 700,000. Around 45 of
the 71 ins@tu@ons oﬀer media-speciﬁc courses, covering
the whole gamut of subjects from editorial and ar@s@c to
commercial and technical aspects. Students in NRW have
a choice from almost 200 of these basic and advanced
study courses. In addi@on, there are almost 30 appren@ceship trades which are oﬀered at voca@onal colleges and
many commiAed training ins@tu@ons to facilitate young
people’s entrée into the media, as well as a host of wellestablished and specialised further educa@on programmes.
Those interested in learning one of more than 200 professions in the media industry will ﬁnd a suitable educa@on
programme in NRW, one of the most aArac@ve places in
Germany for media training. The condi@ons are thus also
ideal for locally-based media companies to ﬁnd qualiﬁed
new employees, while young people seCng up their own
businesses a,er training can count on the support from
numerous funding programmes.
Film and audiovisual media
Two of the seven most important German ﬁlm academies
are based in NRW. The interna@onally-oriented Academy
of Media Arts Cologne (Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln,
KHM) is Germany’s ﬁrst arts academy for audiovisual media.
It oﬀers a unique training concept which combines the
teaching areas from ﬁlm and television, art and media
Produc@on companies from cinema to games,
many TV broadcasters and a wide range of
educa@onal and further training opportuni@es:
NRW provides the ideal environment for those
studying ﬁlm and media – both during their
courses and a,erwards.
Simone Stewens, CEO
ifs interna<onale ﬁlmschule köln
sciences into the diploma with the @tle of Media Arts.
Cologne’s interna@onal ﬁlm school (interna@onale ﬁlmschule köln, ifs) has now been in existence for 14 years.
This private academy, which was created on the ini@a@ve
of NRW’s federal state government and the Film- und
Mediens@,ung NRW, oﬀers three Bachelor degrees: Film
can be studied with a major in direc@ng, screenplay and
crea@ve produc@on. In addi@on, there is the BA Digital
Film Arts with courses in Image and Sound Edi@ng and
Visual Arts. The ifs oﬀers a third BA in collabora@on with
the KHM for Cinematography/Director of Photography.
Apart from the English-language post-graduate MA Screenwri@ng course, there is also the chance to take the MA
Serial Storytelling, which was introduced in the winter
term of 2013/14, in co-opera@on with the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule Köln). A
“Master Film” was introduced in addi@on to the BA course
in Film & Sound at the University of Applied Sciences and
Arts in Dortmund (Fachhochschule Dortmund) this year,
and a “Master Sound” is set to follow in the summer
term of 2016.
Interdisciplinary and mul4media oﬀers
An important feature of NRW’s rich educa@onal landscape
is the interdisciplinary approach. The KHM’s basic course,
for example, is founded on the interdisciplinary principle;
in the ﬁeld of academic research, students and postgraduates work together on exploring the areas of art and
design research, interface cultures and the theory of artefacts. The ifs, too, was quick to extend its por?olio to
include the Interac@ve Media advanced training programme.
North-Rhine Westphalia has major players like
WDR and RTL, but also courageous experiments such as the Dortmund-based par@cipa@on channel nrwision. What's more, there are
top-class courses in Journalism and Media Studies. The TV and ﬁlm industry in NRW deserves
to feel self-conﬁdent.
Michael Steinbrecher, Professor for
Television and Cross-Media, TU Dortmund
Ifs interna<onale ﬁlmschule, Cologne
The Cologne Game Lab is also run in close co-opera@on with
the ifs as an ins@tute of Cologne’s University of Applied
Sciences, oﬀering the Master in Game Development and
Research (since 2010) and the BA Digital Games (since
2014) in addi@on to its research work on non-linear narra@ve structures. Interdisciplinary co-opera@on between
the arts has always been a fundamental principle of the
famous Folkwang University of the Arts (Folkwang Universität der Künste) in Essen. Since 1927, Folkwang has been
one of the most respected educa@onal establishments for
music, theatre, dance, design and academic studies, with
such ar@sts as Pina Bausch, Jürgen Prochnow and Armin
Rohde among its alumni.
Design, IT and journalism at universi4es
and colleges
This dense structure of renowned arts and media colleges,
primarily the outstanding design courses oﬀered in Cologne,
Düsseldorf, Münster, Aachen, Wuppertal and Essen, is also
of beneﬁt for the adver@sing industry. There are two dozen
colleges in NRW oﬀering almost 40 courses for careers in
design alone. Without doubt, though, one of the most
popular subjects in NRW is informa@on technology (IT),
with around 43,000 students registered in 2012/13. And
in 2013, a total of 15,900 students registered to begin an
IT course at a university or college in NRW, about 10 per
cent more than in 2012. Not only the best prerequisites
for the region's IT and telecommunica@ons industries. It
is in these ﬁelds, in par@cular, that NRW has the biggest
concentra@on of higher educa@on and research ins@tu@ons
in the country, with such outstanding ins@tu@ons as the
NRW is a region where some of Europe’s most
outstanding challenges are concentrated: migra@on, structural change, urban development,
and, not least, the crea@ve industries. As a result, it provides a par@cularly s@mula@ng environment for ar@s@c training.
Kurt Mehnert, Dean
of Folkwang Universität der Künste
Facts and Figures
> Training in 200 media professions
> More than 160 media-speciﬁc study courses
> 26 skilled trades, 30 voca@onal colleges
> Interdisciplinary links between training opportuni@es
> Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln KHM, ifs interna@onale ﬁlmschule köln, Fachhochschule Dortmund,
Folkwang Hochschule Essen, Macromedia Hochschule, RTL Journalistenschule, and others
> Scholarship programmes: Mediengründerzentrum
NRW, Gerd Ruge-S@pendium, Wirtscha,sförderung
Mülheim, Wim Wenders Scholarship, and others
Horst Görtz Ins@tute at the Ruhr University Bochum – the
top address for IT security. The journalism courses in Münster
and Dortmund, the na@onally unique Bachelor of Engineering Image and Sound at the University of Applied Sciences
in Düsseldorf, the digital educa@on pla?orm run by the
Technical University Dortmund’s Ins@tute of Journalism,
nrwision, as well as the four state music colleges and the
acclaimed media studies at the universi@es of Cologne and
Bochum – the range of ini@al and con@nuous training courses in their diversity is tuned to the demands of the media
industry and meets the needs for a skilled labour force.
Scholarships, funding and compe44ons
In order to oﬀer the next genera@on even beAer opportuni@es to start a career, a unique informa@on centre for
training in media professions was established with the
seCng up of AIM in Cologne. In addi@on, the Land North
Rhine-Westphalia has various scholarship and support
programmes at its disposal. The Film- und Mediens@,ung,
for example, supports selected gradua@on ﬁlms by students
at NRW ﬁlm academies. Funding programmes and bursaries, such as those oﬀered by the AV-Gründerzentrum
NRW in Cologne, are available to freelancers. In addi@on,
numerous compe@@ons ranging from kurzundschön and
the netSTART Award to the Wim Wenders Scholarship, which
was ini@ated jointly by the Wim Wenders Founda@on and
Film- und Mediens@,ung in 2014, are evidence that all
doors are open to young people beginning a career in the
media industry in NRW. <
The competence and crea@vity of those working in the media in NRW, the exper@se and
coopera@ve willingness of the state’s diverse
educa@onal and further training ins@tu@ons,
and the successful media companies based
here: all of this provides the RTL School of Journalism with an op@mal network in which we
can all cooperate so as to oﬀer qualiﬁca@ons
with a future.
Peter Kloeppel, Chief Editor RTL/
Director RTL School of Journalism
Universi@es/Academies
Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln
Macromedia HS für
Medien und Kommunika@on Köln
Mediadesign – HS für
Design und Informa@k Düsseldorf
Robert-Schumann-HS Düsseldorf
Advanced Training Ins@tu@ons
bm – gesellscha, für bildung in
medienberufen Köln
Cologne Game Lab
Deutsche Pop Akademie Köln
Film Ac@ng School Cologne
Filmhaus Bielefeld
FilmwerkstaA Düsseldorf
FilmwerkstaA Münster
Games Factory Ruhr
ifs interna@onale ﬁlmschule köln
Journalistenschule Ruhr Essen
Kölner Filmhaus
Kölner Journalistenschule
für Poli@k und Wirtscha,
mibeg-Ins@tut Medien Köln
Musikhochschule der
Universität Münster
netSTART
Oﬀene Jazz Haus Schule
Rheinische Musikschule
RTL Journalistenschule
SAE Ins@tute Bochum und Köln
WAK - Westdeutsche Akademie
für Kommunika@on
WAM - Die Medienakademie
Dortmund
Wirtscha,sakademie am Ring Köln
Advice Centres
AIM Koordina@onsCentrum für
Ausbildung in Medienberufen Köln
Medienfest.NRW
Contacts
www.aim-mia.de
[email protected]
www.mbem.nrw.de
www.medienkompetenzatlas-nrw.de
www.mekonet.de
www.schulministerium.nrw.de
Educa@on > 43
German Webvideo Award
Events
Events, trade fairs, fes4vals
Awards
1LIVE Krone
Deutsche Akademie für Fernsehen
Deutscher Comedypreis
Deutscher Entwicklerpreis
Deutscher Fernsehpreis
Deutscher Hörbuchpreis
Deutscher Kamerapreis
Deutscher Webvideopreis
Grimme-Preis
Grimme Online Award
Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden
Médaille Charlemagne
red dot award
Film Fes@vals
Bielefelder Kinderﬁlmfest
Blicke – Filmfes@val
des Ruhrgebiets
Cinepänz
Cologne Conference
doxs!
Duisburger Filmwoche
Exposed – Fes@val für erste Filme
Fantasy Filmfest
Film Cologne
Filmfest Düsseldorf
Filmfes@val Münster
Filmplus – Forum für FilmschniA
und Montagekunst
Film- und VideoweAbewerb
Bielefeld
Interna@onale Kurzﬁlmtage
Oberhausen
Interna@onale Stummﬁlmtage
Bonn
Interna@onales Frauenﬁlmfes@val
Dortmund|Köln
Interna@onales Kinderﬁlmfest
Bonn
KinderFilmFest Münster
Kinderﬁlmtage Ruhrgebiet
KinderKinoFest Düsseldorf
Kinofest Lünen
kurzundschön
Landesﬁlmfes@val
der Region Düsseldorf
SoundTrack_Cologne
Unlimited Kurzﬁlmfes@val
Videonale Bonn
44
NRW provides the appropriate loca@ons, but, above all,
commiAed ini@a@ves for a wide range of diﬀerent media
events with interna@onal appeal. These include major
events with television audiences of millions like the Bambi
in Düsseldorf’s Stadthalle and the Eurovision Song Contest
in Düsseldorf’s Esprit Arena, but also smaller events for
select circles like the Charlemagne Medal for European
Media, awarded to important media personali@es in Aachen
each year. And they also include new, future-oriented events
such as the Interac@ve Cologne Fes@val which, book-ended
by the Medienforum NRW and ANGA COM, aAracted the
general public and the Internet industry from all over Germany to Cologne in 2014 with its mixture of conferences,
workshops, networking and entertainment.
Medienforum NRW, Film Autumn and
industry gatherings
In its 26th year, the Medienforum NRW was held for the
ﬁrst @me in 2014 with ANGA COM, bringing two of many
highlights in the media industry’s calendar closer together. November is dominated by cinema with more than
15 fes@vals, ﬁlm seasons and award ceremonies. The Film
and Cinema Conference of the Film- und Mediens@,ung
NRW has developed into a permanent mee@ng place as
a unique pla?orm for the ﬁlm industry. But numerous
industry gatherings bring decision-makers and crea@ves
together in NRW throughout the rest of the year – for
example, at the Entertainment Masterclass, the Factual
Entertainment Summit, the Film-Messe Köln, the DW Global
Medienforum, at c/o pop, the Grimme Online Award, the
German Camera Award and the Emmy Semi-Final Judgings.
NRW’s ci@es are as diverse as the landscape.
But one thing unites the people of this region:
curiosity about all things new. That is all I can
ask for.
Werner Köhler, CEO
lit.Cologne
Diverse fes4val scene: Cologne, Oberhausen,
Dortmund, Duisburg, Lünen
A unique variety of projects and ini@a@ves has been
developed, par@cularly in the area of ﬁlm fes@vals across
NRW. A,er having been held for 60 @mes, the Interna@onal
Short Film Fes@val Oberhausen is not only the fes@val in
NRW with the longest tradi@on, but is also regarded as the
oldest and one of the three most important fes@vals for
short ﬁlms in the world. In 1962, the famous Oberhausen
Manifesto was issued here and fundamentally redeﬁned
the course of German post-war cinema. The Dortmund/
Cologne Interna@onal Women’s Film Fes@val is also one
of the most important ini@a@ves on a global scale. From
important industry forums on television culture (Cologne
Conference), ﬁlm edi@ng (Filmplus in Cologne) and ﬁlm
scores (SoundTrack_Cologne) through to fes@vals with
focuses on German-language documentaries (Duisburg
Film Week), video art (Videonale Bonn), silent cinema
(Interna@onal Silent Film Fes@val Bonn) and German ﬁlms
(Kinofest Lünen): nowhere else in Germany is the scope
of events larger than here in NRW.
lit.Cologne and Comedy-Fes4val
The lit.Cologne fes@val has been making reading into a
popular event for the past 14 years. The programme of
the Cologne literature fes@val augments classic readings
with forms taken from theatre and cabaret as well as
discussions. In 2014, the organisers reported 97 per cent
capacity aAendance with around 101,000 visitors, establishing lit.Cologne as the largest fes@val for reading in
Europe. The fes@val has also been running a popular phil-
From our standpoint, the development of NRW
as a media loca@on in recent years has been so
tremendous that, in 2009, we even decided to
set up a special compe@@on for works from the
federal state. We haven’t regreAed it.
Lars Henrik Gass, Director of the Interna<onal
Fes<val of Short Films, Oberhausen
Facts and Figures
> Leading fairs, conferences and professional events
> ANGA COM, gamescom, Medienforum,
GDC Europe, dmexco, drupa, photokina
> Number one loca@on in the world for trade fairs
with more than six million visitors to more than
60 events
> lit.Cologne with 100,000 visitors –
Europe’s biggest reading fes@val
> Medienforum NRW, Interac@ve Cologne
> Advance – Int. Web & Start-up Conference, Pitching
Day, Coaching Day and Hackathon in Cologne
> Diverse fes@val scene: around 30 ﬁlm fes@vals,
Film Autumn
> German Television Award, Grimme Award, 1Live
Krone, Grimme Online Award, German Comedy
Award, red dot award, German Camera Award,
German Web Video Award, German Developers
Award, Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden
Cologne Conference
sophy spin-oﬀ – phil.Cologne since 2013. In 2015, another
literary event will come to Cologne with the launch of the
world literature mee@ng Poe@ca. The ini@ators are the
German Academy for Language and Literature and the
Morphomata Interna@onal Centre at the University of
Cologne. The Interna@onal Cologne Comedy Fes@val,
which has successfully underscored Cologne’s status as
Germany’s comedy capital in the past 24 years, reached
an audience of more than 30,000 with over 100 shows
and 200 ar@sts in 2014. The extravagantly staged presenta@on of the German Comedy Award during a show at
the fes@val is regularly watched by around three million
viewers on RTL. No other comedy event in Germany is
as successful.
gamescom, GDC, ANGA COM and dmexco
The gamescom trade fair opened its doors for the sixth
@me in Cologne’s Koelnmesse trade fair grounds in August
2014. The world’s largest trade fair and event highlight for
interac@ve games and entertainment welcomed almost
340,000 visitors, 31,500 of which were professional delegates, as well as 700 exhibitors from 47 countries. The
gamescom fair is aimed at both consumers and professional delegates, for whom the addi@onal Game Developers
Conference Europe (GDC Europe) is organised in the run-up
to gamescom – with more than 2,250 delegates, over 130
interna@onal speakers, more than 80 exhibitors and sponsors,
making the 2014 edi@on Europe’s biggest professional
event of this kind. In addi@on, the world’s leading trade
fair for photography and imaging, photokina (185,000
visitors in 2014), is also held at the koelnmesse every
As curators and organisers of the Interna@onal
Women’s Film Fes@val Dortmund/Cologne, we
value the diversity of the ﬁlm scene in the ﬁlm
state of NRW and our cri@cal, crea@ve discourse
with colleagues working here.
Silke Johanna Räbiger, Director of the Interna<onal Women’s Film Fes<val Dortmund|Cologne
two years, as are the annually held ANGA COM, Europe’s
leading trade fair for cable, broadband and satellite, and
dmexco, the interna@onal gathering for players in the
digital economy. With Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Essen and
Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia is the world’s number
one loca@on for trade fairs. More than 60 interna@onal
leading fairs aAract over six million visitors each year.
German Television Award, Grimme Prize,
Camera Award, Web Video Award,
Developer Award
Since 1999, the TV sta@ons WDR/ARD, ZDF, RTL and Sat.1
have been presen@ng the annual German Television
Award, the most important TV prize in Germany, with the
four channels taking turns in organising and broadcas@ng
the event. The awards show, which is produced at Magic
Media Company’s Coloneum in Cologne in front of 1,400
invited guests, will be organised with a new concept in
2015. The Grimme Prize has been presented annually in
Marl since 1964 for outstanding ar@s@c and journalis@c
work for television. Sta@ons such as ZDF, WDR, SWR and
BR are among the aﬃliates of the German Camera Award
Cologne which annually honours the best in the ﬁeld of
cinematography and edi@ng in ﬁlm and television. The
German Web Video Award, which recognises videos produced for the Internet, and the German Developer Award,
honouring the most successful and crea@ve game developers in Germany are other event highlights now established in Düsseldorf. <
For more than 20 years now, the Cologne
Conference has provided an interna@onal perspec@ve and crossmedia discussion of current
developments in the world of TV, ﬁlm and
Internet to the already well-posi@oned media
loca@on NRW.
Mar<na Richter, Director
of the Cologne Conference
German Comedy Award
Music Events
1LIVE Krone
c/o pop
Cologne Music Week
Haldern Pop
Juicy Beats
Mayday
MusikTriennale Köln
Rock am Ring
Rock im PoA
Ruhr in Love
Ruhrtriennale
SoundTrack_Cologne
Summer Jam
SummerStage
Fairs
ANGA COM
Art Cologne
Art.Fair
digi:media
dmexco
drupa
gamescom
photokina
Other Events
Advance Conference
Breitband-Forum Köln NRW
Deutsche Welle Global Media
Forum
eco Internet Award
Emmy Judgings
Entertainment Master Class
European Design Award 2014
Eyes & Ears Conference
Factual Entertainment Summit
Filmschauplätze
Film- und Kinokongress
GDC Europe
Int. KölnComedy Fes@val
Interac@ve Cologne
Kinoprogrammpreis
Kölner Liste
lit.Cologne
Marken-Award Düsseldorf
Medienforum NRW
M2M Summit
Radio Adver@sing Summit
Regielounge
Web de Cologne
Calendar of events
www.ﬁlms4"ung.de
Events > 45
Funding & Financing
Funding Ins@tu@ons
Crea@ve Europe Desk NRW
Filmcommission NRW
Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW
Mediencluster NRW
NRW.Bank
NRW.Invest
Awards, Grants and Scholarships
Förderpreis für junge Künstlerinnen
und Künstler des Landes NRW
Förderpreise der Vodafone
S@,ung für Forschung
Games Factory Ruhr
Gründerpreis NRW
Mediengründerzentrum NRW
netSTART
Contacts
www.ﬁlms@,ung.de
www.medien.nrw.de
www.mediengruenderzentrum.de
[email protected]
www.wimwenderss@,ung.de
[email protected]
www.ikt.nrw.de
www.nrwbank.de
www.nrwinvest.com
www.aim-mia.de
www.nrw.de/landesregierung/
staatskanzlei
www.mbem.nrw.de
www.mweimh.nrw.de
www.m*jks.nrw.de
Founded in 1991, the Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW is one
of Germany’s ﬁnancially strongest regional ﬁlm funders
with an annual budget of 31 million Euros. Apart from
suppor@ng ﬁlm and televison and innova@ve media content, its remit also includes loca@on marke@ng and development. Following the takeover of the Mediencluster
NRW in 2011, the Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW has now
become an integrated funding ins@tu@on and the central
contact point for media in NRW.
In addi@on to its par@cipa@on in the most important funding ins@tu@ons, the federal state of NRW also supports
the ﬁlm and media industry with compe@@ons for the
development of innova@ve and convergence-oriented
business models in the digital media of the future. The
interests of the media are represented poli@cally by
the Ministry for Federal Aﬀairs, Europe and the Media,
located within the State Chancellery.
Since 1991, the Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW has supported around 1,800 ﬁlm and television produc@ons with
funding amoun@ng to almost 580 million Euros. The focus
of the funding ac@vi@es is on ﬁlms for cinema and television,
par@cularly interna@onal co-produc@ons. The support
is allocated in all phases of produc@on and exploita@on:
from story development through screenplay and produc@on to distribu@on and sales.
The Land of NRW
The Department of Culture at the Ministry for Children,
Youth, Culture and Sport supports media and cultural
projects in various diﬀerent ways, ranging from fes@vals
to the region’s ﬁlm houses and media workshops. NRW’s
Ministry of Finance supports the crea@ve industry and
the informa@on and communica@ons technology with
the associated clusters.
North Rhine-Westphalia is the place for ideas, for
crea@ve minds. They develop visions and stories,
and so they all make NRW into the most successful ﬁlm and TV loca@on in Germany. Whether ﬁlms
for cinema or TV, documentaries, soaps or the best
in entertainment – there is no other loca@on producing as much as the Rhine and Ruhr region. This
is a success story we owe to crea@ve minds from
ﬁlm and TV. But the state has contributed a lot as
well. And it will stay that way. That’s a promise.
Marc Jan Eumann, State Secretary for
Federal Aﬀairs, Europe and the Media
46
Film- und Mediens4"ung NRW
NRW is one of Europe’s leading media regions. In order
to consolidate this posi@on in economic, technological
and crea@ve terms, the federal state supports the industry
with sustainably eﬀec@ve, mul@-faceted funding programmes and ins@tu@ons. Consequently, NRW is not only the
federal state with one of Germany’s ﬁnancially strongest
regional ﬁlm funding programmes – its commitment to
companies and projects in the ﬁeld of new media, startups and young entrepreneurs also ensures that there are
outstanding opportuni@es for development.
Funding ac4vi4es
In addi@on, there is support for cinemas and radio plays
as well as recently introduced funding programmes for
digital content and innova@ve TV formats, and bursaries
for web video-makers and the young genera@on of ﬁlmmakers: 2011 saw the launch of the funding programme
for the development of innova@ve audiovisual projects in
the ﬁelds of games, Internet and mobile. The development
of non-ﬁc@on, innova@ve TV formats in entertainment,
comedy, series, show, talk and serial formats has been
The development of both ﬁlm and media culture and the ﬁlm and media industry in NRW is
our mission, the funding of ﬁlm, television and
innova@ve media content is our core competence. With the media region’s sustainability in
mind, we help create a network of companies
and players and promote NRW as the leading
hub for ﬁlm and media, communica@on and
convergence in the middle of Europe.
Petra Müller, CEO
Film- und Mediens<)ung NRW
Facts and Figures
> Film- und Mediens+ung NRW: one of Germany’s
ﬁnancially strongest regional ﬁlm funders with
31 million Euros
> Pilot funding programme for the development
of digital content
> Pilot funding programme for innova+ve TV formats
> Pilot funding programme for gradua+on ﬁlms
from NRW ﬁlm academies
> Bursary for the development of web videos,
Wim Wenders scholarship, Gerd Ruge scholarship
> Innova+on programme Create.Media.NRW
> Promo+onal awards and scholarships
for start-ups and young entrepreneurs
> NRW.Bank – ﬁnancial partner of the crea+ve industries
> NRW.Invest supports companies re-loca+ng
to the region
> Commi,ed state media and loca+on policy
supported since 2012. In 2014, the na+on’s ﬁrst bursary for
the development of web videos was awarded in coopera+on with the European Web Video Academy. The same
year saw the launch of a programme suppor+ng gradua+on
ﬁlms from NRW ﬁlm academies. The Wim Wenders Founda+on joined forces with the Film- und Mediens+ung
to award scholarships from 2014 to promote innova+ve
cinema+c language.
Mediencluster NRW
Since 1999, the Film Commission NRW has served under
the umbrella of the Films+ung as the ﬁrst port of call
for na+onal and interna+onal crea+ves. It provides support
in scou+ng loca+ons in the region, applying for shoo+ng
permits and establishing contacts to service-providers.
The Cologne-based Mediengründerzentrum NRW supports
start-ups and young companies in the areas of cinema,
TV, new media and games with grants, seminars, consulta+on and coaching. The programme has an annual
intake of 12 media companies.
Since 1992, the Films+ung has also housed one of Germany’s ﬁve Crea+ve Europe Desks who oﬀer comprehensive advice in the prepara+on of funding applica+ons for
Brussels and network support for European coopera+on.
The NRW.Bank also oﬀers appropriate possibili+es of
public funding and private capital loans to start-ups and
medium-sized businesses in NRW. Among other things,
it supports promising start-ups with micro and start-up
loans such as the crea+ve credit.
Film Commission NRW
Creave Europe Desk
Create.Media.NRW funding compeon
2012 saw the launch of the Digital Media innova+on
programme, ini+ated by the Land of NRW and ﬁnanced
by the EU, to support NRW-based small and mediumsized enterprises, training and research ins+tu+ons in
the realisa+on of their projects and business concepts.
The funding compe++on was con+nued in 2014 under
the new name of CreateMedia.NRW.
North Rhine-Westphalia is the leading media
loca+on in Germany. Companies will ﬁnd outstanding loca+on factors here: superb public
transport links and infrastructure, a highlydeﬁned research scene, a qualiﬁed workforce,
and a unique quality of life.
Petra Wassner, CEO
NRW.Invest
The Mediencluster NRW is the regional contact point for
the digital media scene in NRW. Start-ups, young crea+ves
and companies are oﬀered a comprehensive range of services and informa+on. It creates visibility for the industry
at trade fairs at home and abroad and makes an ac+ve
contribu+on for the networking and further development
of NRW as a digital hub.
Mediengründerzentrum NRW
NRW.Bank
NRW.INVEST
As the federal state’s own business development corpora+on, NRW.INVEST oﬀers a one-stop service to poten+al investors from home and abroad by providing loca+on
informa+on and help in the search for premises as well
as liaison and assistance in nego+a+ons and permit
procedures. <
The varied media landscape in NRW oﬀers the
best opportuni+es for training and qualiﬁca+on. This represents an essen+al basis for a
sustainable development of the produc+on
hub. Young media professionals ﬁnd ideal condi+ons here for entrepreneurial development
and sectoral prospects.
Joachim Ortmanns, CEO
Mediengründerzentrum NRW
Funding > 47
Contacts
State Chancellery NRW
Minister for Federal Aﬀairs, Europe and the Media in the Federal State of NRW
Dr. Angelica Schwall-Düren
Minister for Federal Aﬀairs, Europe and
the Media State/Representa@ve at federal level
StadAor 1 | 40219 Düsseldorf
Telephone +49-211-837-161 0
Personal advisor: Dr. Deniz Alkan
Press oﬃcer: Nina Heil
Dr. Marc Jan Eumann
State Secretary for the Minister for Federal Aﬀairs,
Europe and the Media
Telephone +49-211-837-151 3
Telephone +49-030-275 75-170 (Berlin)
Dr. Benedikt Berg-Walz
Referatsleiter Medienwirtscha,
Am Fürstenwall 21 | 40219 Düsseldorf
Telephone + 49-211-837 117 3
[email protected]
www.mbem.nrw.de/medien/
The promo@on of North Rhine-Westphalia as a media loca@on is a departmental task of the Minister
for Federal Aﬀairs, Europe and the Media, Dr. Angelica Schwall-Düren. Among other things, media
policy covers the development of media law, media industry funding and loca@on development, the
alloca@on of frequencies for radio broadcas@ng and accompanying the digitalisa@on of broadcas@ng,
as in DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcas@ng – Terrestrial), for example.
Film funding, especially with respect to educa@on and training in the media industry, is a further
focus of media policy, as is the promo@ng of media competence among the state’s ci@zens. As
a central event for the media industry, the annual Medienforum NRW in Cologne is supported
by the state. Minister Dr. Angelica Schwall-Düren and her State Secretary Dr. Marc Jan Eumann
are supported in mee@ng their departmental responsibili@es by the media department in the
State Chancellery.
Ministry of Economic Aﬀairs, Energy and Industry of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
Garrelt Duin
Minister for Economic Aﬀairs, Energy and Industry
Horionplatz 1 | 40213 Düsseldorf
Telephone + 49-211-837 02
Press oﬃcer: MaAhias Kietzmann
Claudia Nussbauer
Head of Sec@on Crea@ve Industries
Haroldstraße 4 | 40213 Düsseldorf
Telephone + 49-211-837-2778
[email protected]
www.wirtscha,.nrw.de
Crea4ve.NRW – Crea4ve industries cluster
Chris@an Boros
Clustermanager
Hofaue 63 | 42103 Wuppertal
Telephone +49-202-248 432 0
boros@[email protected]
[email protected]
Werner Lippert
Clustermanager
Hofaue 63 | 42103 Wuppertal
Telephone +49-202-248 432 0
lippert@[email protected]
[email protected]
IKT.NRW – ICT cluster
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ingo Wolﬀ
Clustermanager
Carl-Friedrich-Gauß-Str. 2-4 | 47475 Kamp-Lin?ort
Telephone +49-231-975056 0
[email protected]
www.ikt.nrw.de
48
The name says it all: the Ministry for Economic Aﬀairs, Energy and Industry formulates the basic
principles of economic policy, sets the agenda for regional economic and structural policy, and provides the parameters for industry, commerce, cra,s, trade and services to operate. Moreover, it is
responsible for the energy industry, nuclear power and mining. We want to aAract crea@ve minds
for industry, services and science – and to have those people at our side, who can contribute
through their work to a NRW that is strong and ready for the future.
As a forward-looking industry funding programme which also views internal and external marke@ng as one of its key tasks, the cluster management makes a valuable contribu@on to the
consolida@on and development of the region. The combina@on of economic strength and
crea@ve industries is intended to aAract the best minds and help emerging companies in the
ﬁeld. The cluster management concentrates on the art market, adver@sing industry, design
industry, fashion design, music business and book publishing.
The IKT.NRW cluster is the focus of informa@on and communica@on for all players in the growing
ﬁeld of ICT in North Rhine-Westphalia. Goals pursued by the IKT.NRW cluster include the early iden@ﬁca@on and further development of exis@ng strengths, poten@al for synergies and trends in the ICT
industry. IKT.NRW helps with networking between partners involved in the various ﬁelds of ICT or
using cross-sec@onal technologies, and champions the ac@ve promo@on of innova@ve processes.
Film- und Mediens4"ung NRW GmbH
Petra Müller
CEO
Telephone +49-211-930 50 11
petramueller@ﬁlms@,ung.de
Chris@na Bentlage
Head of Film Funding
Telephone +49-211-930 50 20
chris@nabentlage@ﬁlms@,ung.de
Sabine Bull
Head of Marke@ng
Telephone +49-211-930 50 17
sabinebull@ﬁlms@,ung.de
Katharina Blum
Head of Conferences and Events
Telephone +49-211-930 50 48
katharinablum@ﬁlms@,ung.de
Tanja Güß
Head of Press and PR
Telephone +49-211-930 50 23
tanjaguess@ﬁlms@,ung.de
Film und Medien
S@,ung NRW GmbH
Kaistraße 14
40221 Düsseldorf
Telephone +49- 211- 930 500
info@ﬁlms@,ung.de
www.ﬁlms@,ung.de
Founded in 1991 and with an annual funding budget of 31 million Euros the Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW is one of the ﬁnancially strongest regional ﬁlm funding ins@tu@ons in Germany.
Among its shareholders are WDR and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as
ZDF, RTL and the state media authority, the Landesanstalt für Medien. The goal of the founda@on
is to promote ﬁlm and media culture as well as the ﬁlm and media industry in the state of North
Rhine-Westphalia.
The Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW is the central contact point for media in NRW. It provides
funding for ﬁlms for cinema and television in all stages of produc@on and exploita@on: from
story and project development through produc@on to distribu@on and sales. In addi@on, there
is support for cinemas. In 2011, Film- und Mediens@,ung NRW also became an integrated
funding body for ﬁlm and media and, a,er the takeover of Mediencluster NRW GmbH, opened
up to the funding of innova@ve media content. Apart from funding measures, the Films@,ung’s
brief also includes the marke@ng and development of the region NRW.
Within its responsibility for ﬁlm and media in the federal state, the Films@,ung NRW also
holds interests in numerous ins@tu@ons and companies: Mediencluster NRW, ifs interna@onale
ﬁlmschule köln, Mediengründerzentrum NRW, Grimme-Ins@tut and German Films.
Heike Meyer-Döring
Head of Crea@ve Europe Desk NRW
Telephone +49-211-930 50 14
[email protected]
Mediencluster NRW GmbH
Anastasia Ziegler
CEO
Kaistraße 14 | 40221 Düsseldorf
Telephone +49-211- 930 50 301
[email protected]
Till Hardy
Consultant
Kaistraße 14 | 40221 Düsseldorf
Telephone +49-211- 930 50 42
@[email protected]
Mediengründerzentrum NRW GmbH
Joachim Ortmanns
CEO
Schanzenstr. 36 | 51063 Köln
Telephone +49-221- 611 07 48
[email protected]
www.av-gruenderzentrum.de
The Mediencluster NRW is the regional contact point for the digital media and startup scene in
the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and located in Dusseldorf. They connect, consult and inform
about funding and ﬁnancing, and look a,er companies during the process of loca@ng, founding
and expanding their business models.
The Mediencluster create visibility for the digital content industries at home and abroad, thereby
helping to develop the media region in general. Their innova@ve network embraces large and
small companies, na@onal and interna@onal players, media-related service providers, universi@es
and research ins@tu@ons as well as funding and ﬁnancing partners.
Launched in May 2006, the Mediengruenderzentrum NRW is aimed at start-ups and young
companies from the media industry. Budding entrepreneurs are supported by accompanying
consulta@on and the awarding of grants. Thanks to the close coopera@on with NRW’s media
and communica@ons industry and targeted know-how transfer, the Mediengruenderzentrum
prepares young professionals for the future.
Contacts > 49
Contacts
NRW.Bank
Caroline Gesatzki
Head of Press/Internal Communica@ons
Kavalleriestraße 22 | 40213 Düsseldorf
Telephone +49-211-917 411 847
[email protected]
www.nrwbank.de
NRW.INVEST GmbH
The NRW.BANK, the state development bank, oﬀers medium-sized ﬁlm and television producers
ﬁnancing products for the realiza@on of ﬁlm and TV produc@ons. Those producers whose work
features a strong reference to NRW are able to proﬁt from aArac@ve ﬁnancing schemes which are
reﬁnanced via the capital market.
Petra Wassner
CEO
Völklinger Str. 4 | 40219 Düsseldorf
Telephone +49-211-13000 0
[email protected]
www.nrwinvest.com
As the state’s own business funding agency, NRW.INVEST markets North Rhine-Westphalia as
a loca@on for investment and supports foreign and German companies in investment projects
or when establishing themselves in NRW. This one-stop agency for investors guides companies
through the en@re process of establishing themselves in the federal state, giving advice on tax
and legal issues as well as providing informa@on about economic structures and industry clusters.
Dr. Christoph von der Heiden
CEO Industry
Publicity work, economics
IHK Ostwes?alen zu Bielefeld
Elsa-Brändström-Straße 1-3 | 33602 Bielefeld
Telephone +49-521-554 220
[email protected] | www.bielefeld.ihk.de
IHK NRW - Die Industrie- und
Handelskammern
in Nordrhein-Wes?alen e.V.
Marienstrasse 8 | 40212 Düsseldorf
Telephone +49-211-36702 0
[email protected]
www.ihk-nrw.de
IHK NRW
Landesanstalt für Medien Nordrhein-Wes3alen (lfm)
Dr. Jürgen Brautmeier
Director
Zollhof 2 | 40221 Düsseldorf
Telephone +49-211-770 07-165
[email protected]
www.lfm-nrw.de
Dr. Peter Widlok
Head of Publicity
Telephone +49-211-770 07-141
[email protected]
50
At the state level, the 16 chambers of industry and commerce
in North Rhine-Westphalia have amalgamated into the IHK
NRW (Industrie- und Handelskammer NRW) in order to assert
the interests of the commercial economy in state poli@cs.
The IHK advises and supports those seCng up in business,
including within the crea@ve industries, and searches for
innova@ve ﬁnancing solu@ons.
The lfm is responsible for private radio and television. It decides upon the licensing of broadcasters, monitors and accompanies developments in the media through research ac@vi@es as
well as by gran@ng awards such as the LfM-Hörfunkpreis for outstanding journalis@c achievements in private radio. Further areas of responsibility are the monitoring of Internet sites
where the owner of the domain is based in NRW, and the promo@on of media competence.
Media representa4ves of the ci4es
> Stadt Aachen
Fachbereich Presse und
Marke@ng
Harald Beckers
Haus Löwenstein
Markt 39
52062 Aachen
Phone +49-241-432-13 11
harald.beckers@
mail.aachen.de
> Wirtscha)sförderung
Arnsberg
Ulrike Richtscheid
Rathausplatz 2
59759 Arnsberg
Phone +49-2932-201 222 1
[email protected]
> Bielefeld Marke<ng
Elke Kringel
Willy-Brandt-Platz 2
33602 Bielefeld
Phone +49-521-516 779
elke.kringel@
[email protected]
> Stadt Bochum
Herbert Schmitz
Willy-Brandt-Platz 2-6
44777 Bochum
Phone +49-234-910 358 1
[email protected]
> Stabsstelle Veranstaltungskoordina<on Stadthaus Bonn
Berliner Platz 2
53103 Bonn
Phone +49-228-775 555
[email protected]
> Dinamit GmbH Dinslaken
Monika Melles
Friedrich-Ebert-Str. 44-46
46535 Dinslaken
Phone +49-2064-605 304
[email protected]
> Stadt Dortmund
Hans-Werner Rixe
Friedensplatz 3
44122 Dortmund
Phone +49-231-502 581 4
[email protected]
> Gesellscha) für
Wirtscha)sförderung
Duisburg mbH
Susanne Kirches
Dr.-Hamacher-Straße 49
47051 Duisburg
Phone +40-203-363 935 1
[email protected]
> Stadt Düsseldorf
Theresa Winkels
Marktplatz 1-2
40213 Düsseldorf
Phone +49-211-899 305 6
theresa.winkels@
stadt.duesseldorf.de
> Kreis Düren
Josef Kreutzer
Bismarckstr. 16
52351 Düren
Phone +49-2421-222 383
pressestelle@
kreis-dueren.de
> Stadt Lünen
Simone KöAer
Willy-Brandt-Platz 1
44532 Lünen
Phone +49-2306-104 150 1
simone.koeAer.02@
luenen.de
> Fröndenberg an der Ruhr
Bahnhofstraße 2
58730 Fröndenberg/Ruhr
Phone +49-2373-976 224
[email protected]
> Kreis Me=mann
Marion Strack
Düsseldorferstraße 26
40822 MeAmann
Phone +49-2104-992 030
kulturamt@
kreis-meAmann.de
> Filmservice Münster.Land
Nicola Ebel
Klemensstraße 10
48143 Münster
Phone +49-251-492 138 0
[email protected]
> Essen Marke<ng GmbH
Anke Borm
Rathenaustrasse 2/
Theatergasse
45127 Essen
Phone +49-201-887 204 5
[email protected]
> Stadt Hamm
Katja Johannpeter
Werler Straße 3
59065 Hamm
Phone +49-2381-173 484
johannpeter@
stadt.hamm.de
> Pro Herford
Stadtmarke<ng GmbH
Manfred Bischoﬀ
Goebenstraße 3-7
32052 Herford
Phone +49-221-189 150
[email protected]
> Stadt Herne
JuAa Daniel
Rathaus
Rathausplatz
44626 Herne
Phone +49-2323-16-224 9
Phone +49-2323-16-258 3
[email protected]
> Stadt Hürth
Claudia Dahmann
Christa Derigs
Friedrich-Ebert-Str. 40
50354 Hürth
Phone +49-2233-531 80
[email protected]
[email protected]
> Wirtscha)sförderungsGesellscha)
Stadt Kevelaer mbH
Ruth Keuken
Venloer Straße 33-35
47623 Kevelaer
Phone +49-2832-953 7 0
[email protected]
> pro Wirtscha) GT GmbH
Julia Peschke
Herzebrocker Straße 140
33334 Gütersloh
Phone +49-5241-851 086
julia.peschke@
pro-wirtscha,-gt.de
> Kreis Minden-Lübbecke
Sabine Ohnesorge
Portastraße 13
32423 Minden
Phone +49-571-807-221 30
s.ohnesorge@
minden-luebbecke.de
> Köln
Stabsstelle Medien Köln
Roland Berger
Stadthaus Deutz –
Westgebäude
Willy-Brandt-Platz 2
50679 Köln
Phone +49-221-221-245 71
Roland.berger@
stadt-koeln.de
Stabsstelle Medien Köln
Andreas Füser
Stadthaus Deutz –
Westgebäude
Willy-Brandt-Platz 2
50679 Köln
Phone +49-221-221-246 61
andreas.fueser@
stadt-koeln.de
> KulturStadtLev
Kulturbüro
Anke Holgersson
Am Büchelter Hof 9
51373 Leverkusen
Phone +49-214-406 4170
anke.holgersson@
kulturstadtlev.de
> Mülheim an der Ruhr
Volker Wiebels
Ruhrstr. 1
45468 Mülheim an der Ruhr
Phone +49-208-455 135 0
Volker.Wiebels@
stadt-mh.de
> WFMG Wirtscha)sförderung Mönchengladbach
GmbH
Pascal Hermanns
Lüpertzender Straße 6
41061 Mönchengladbach
Phone +49-2161-823 798 9
[email protected]
> Stadt Ne=etalWirtscha) und Marke<ng
Christoph Kamps
Doerkesplatz 11
41334 NeAetal
Phone +49-2153-898 800 2
christoph.kamps@
neAetal.de
> Tourismus und Marke<ng
Oberhausen GmbH
Helmut Kawohl
Essener Str. 51
46047 Oberhausen
Phone +49-208-824 573 3
helmut.kawohl@
tmo.oberhausen.de
> Stadt Recklinghausen
Reinhold Hegemann
Rathausplatz 3
45655 Recklinghausen
Phone +49-2361-501 351
[email protected]
> Stadt Rees
Ludger Beltermann
Markt 1
46459 Rees
Phone +49-2851-511 76
ludger.beltermann@
stadt-rees.de
> Wirtscha)sförderung
Rhein-Er) GmbH
Andrea Barisic
Willy-Brandt-Platz 1
50126 Bergheim
Phone +49-2271-994 99-11
aba@wfg-rhein-er,.de
> Rhein-Kreis Neuss
Robert Abts
Oberstraße 91
41460 Neuss
Phone +49-2131-928 750 0
robert.abts@
wfg-rhein-kreis-neuss.de
> Kreis Siegen-Wi=genstein
Hans-Peter Langer
Koblenzer Straße 73
57072 Siegen
Phone +49-271-333 116 1
hp.langer@
Siegen-WiAgenstein.de
> Wfg Wirtscha)sförderung
Kreis Soest GmbH
Sonja Peck
Villa Plange
Sigefridwall 20
59494 Soest
Phone +49-2921-30-226 1
[email protected]
> Stadt Viersen
Axel Greuvers
Heimbachstr. 12
41747 Viersen
Phone +49-2162-101 463
[email protected]
> Stadt Wiehl
Angelika Stückemann
Zentrale Koordina@on
Bahnhofstr. 1
51674 Wiehl
Phone +49-2262-992 55
[email protected]
> Wuppertal
Lutz Ahr
c/o Bergische
Entwicklungsagentur GmbH
Kölner Str. 8
42651 Solingen
Phone +49-212-881 606 70
[email protected]
Wuppertal Marke<ng GmbH
Simone Neutert
Friedrich-Engels-Allee 83
42285 Wuppertal
Phone +49-202-563 283 9
neutert@[email protected]
Contacts > 51
Die Lügen der Sieger
Imprint
Imprint
Publisher
Film und Medien
S@,ung NRW GmbH
Kaistraße 14
40221 Düsseldorf
Phone +49- 211- 930 500
Telefax +49- 211- 930 505
info@ﬁlms@,ung.de
www.ﬁlms@,ung.de
© Film und Medien
S@,ung NRW GmbH,
Februar 2015, 4. Auﬂage
Editorial Team
Sabine Bull (Leitung)
Stefanie Hadding
Loraine Lenz
Design and Layout
Design: Anna B. Design
Layout und Satz:
Layout and SeCng:
Stephanie Cremer
bfg-cremer.de
Transla<on
Mar@n Blaney
Print
Labude.corporate products
52
Thank you
We thank all the contributors
from the media state of
North Rhine-Westphalia who
provided a quota@on and
thus assisted in the crea@on
of this brochure.
Special Thanks to
Jörg Laumann, Doris
Hatzinger, Monika MosesSchick, Lena Schütz-Kraan,
Thomas Riedel, Petra Vohn,
Stefanie Waschk, Torsten
Zarges, Werner Schwaderlapp, Oliver Baumgarten
Photos
From le, to right
Cover 1
Carolin Kebekus
Cover 2
NFP, UFA Cinema/
Foto: Stephan Rabold
p. 3
Brainpool/Willi Weber, WDR
p. 4
Kölntourismus, Staatskanzlei
Nordrhein-Wes?alen/
Uta Wagner
p. 5
Arno Petersen/Tourismus
NRW e.V., Film und Mediens@,ung NRW/Heike
Herbertz
p. 6, 7
Kölntourismus, Düsseldorf
Marke@ng & Tourismus
GmbH, Mark Ansorg/
Dortmund, Schütze/
Rodemann/BildarchivMonheim, Bertelsmann,
Deutsche Telekom,
RTL/Pick, WDR/Sachs
p. 8, 9
RTL, Funke Mediengruppe,
Bertelsmann,
Deutsche Telekom AG, WDR,
Staatskanzlei NordrheinWes?alen/Ralph Sondermann, Staatskanzlei NRW,
Landesanstalt für Medien/
Fox Foto Uwe Völkner, BBDO
p. 10, 11
NFP, ac@on concept,
Brainpool/Willi Weber,
X Verleih, Wenders Images,
Film und Mediens@,ung
NRW (2x), Kurt Krieger,
Pandora Film (2x), Ron
Howard
p. 12, 13
Concorde, UFA Cinema/
Foto: Stephan Rabold,
www.manfredesser.de, NFP,
LiAle Shark Entertainment,
Wolfgang Groos, Heima?ilm,
Constan@n Film AG,
X Filme/Chris@ne Halina
Schramm, Pandora Film
p. 14, 15
Universal Pictures Interna@onal, Tradewind Pictures/Senator Film, Constan@n
Filmverleih, X Verleih, Ziegler
Film, Splendid Film, Film und
Mediens@,ung NRW (2x),
ARRI Film & TV Services,
Augenschein
p. 16, 17
WDR/Herby Sachs, WDR/
Thomas Leidig, WDR/
Melanie Grande, RTL/Stefan
Gregorowius (3x), Jens
Hauer, ZDF/Willi Weber (2x),
Brainpool, WDR/ Max Kohr
(2x), Brainpool/Willi Weber,
ProSiebenSat.1, RTL (5x),
Brainpool/Boris Breuer, RTL/
Willi Weber, WDR Aardman
Anima@ons Ltd., RTL/Nadine
Dilly, WDR/BeCna FürstFastré, ARD/Michael Böhme,
ZDF/Fabian Preuschoﬀ,
WDR/dpa, WDR (5x), RTL/
Guido Engels, Vox, Super
RTL, UFA Show and Factual
Da muss Mann durch
p. 18, 19
Brainpool/Willi Weber, (2x),
Brainpool/Boris Breuer,
Brainpool/Frank Hempel,
ProsiebenSat.1 (2x), Carolin
Kebekus, Broadview Pictures, ITV Studios, Ansager &
Schnipselmann, RTL, Mar@na
Hill, Jan Böhmermann, FFP
New Media
p. 20, 21
WDR/Mar@n Menke,
RTL/Gordon Mühle,
ZDF/David Slama, SWR/
Thomas Kost, ARTE (2x),
ZDF/Stephanie Kulbach,
ARD, Geißendörfer Filmund Fernsehproduk@on KG,
ac@on concept, Network
Movie, MMC Studios, WDR,
Rowboat, Zeitsprung
p. 22, 23
WDR/Annika Fußwinkel (2x),
WDR/Brill, WDR/Herby
Sachs, Verband lokaler
Rundfunk NRW, 1Live, radio
NRW, Deutsche Welle
p. 24, 25
Mediengruppe DuMont
Schauberg (2x), Funke
Mediengruppe, Rheinische
Post, Bastei Lübbe, HandelsblaA, Kiepenheuer & Witsch,
Emons Verlag
p. 26, 27
Dirk Becker Entertainment,
Dieter Eikelpoth, Peter
BoeAcher/Kra,werk,
Goldene Kamera, c/o pop,
Helmut ZerleA, Kompakt,
Patrick Buenning, Wolfgang
Niedecken
p. 28, 29
Henkel (2x), Brandt, afri cola,
BBDO Germany, Grey
Deutschland, IP Deutschland,
OND
p. 30, 31
Electronic Arts (2x), Frame 6,
Ahoiii, Studio Fiz Bin,
Bigitec, m2p entertainment,
The Good Evil, Funa@cs,
Daedalic, Blue Byte/Ubiso,
p. 32, 33
Facebook, kalaydo.de,
RTL Interac@ve, BVDW,
European Web Video Academy
p. 34, 35
Electronic Arts (4x), Gesamtkunstwerk Entertainment,
Trickstudio LuAerbeck,
Elevision, Ubiso,, Simyo,
bam! Interac@ve, Secusmart,
Coupies
p. 36, 37
Huawei (2x), Deutsche
Telekom AG (2x), E-Plus
Mobilfunk (2x), Vodafone (2x)
p. 38, 39
NetCologne (2x), Eutelsat
Deutschland, ASTRO Strobel
Kommunika@onssysteme,
Unitymedia, ANGA Verband
deutscher Kabelnetzbetreiber
p. 40, 41
Coworking Space GarageBilk
(2x), Mediakra, Networks,
Tobias Kollmann, Pixum,
STARTPLATZ, UFA LAB Köln
(2x), Railslove, Maple Apps
p. 42, 43
KHM/Miriam Gossing (2x),
ifs interna@onale Filmschule
Köln (2x), Prof. Michael
Steinbrecher, Folkwang
Universität der Künste, RTL
p. 44, 45
Deutscher Webvideopreis,
Cologne Conference (2x),
RTL/Frank Hempel,
lit.cologne, Interna@onale
Kurzﬁlmtage Oberhausen,
Interna@onales Frauenﬁlmfes@val Dortmund Köln
p. 46, 47
Staatskanzlei Nordrhein
Wes?alen/Fotoagentur Fox,
Film und Mediens@,ung
NRW/Heike Herbertz,
NRW.Invest, Mediengründerzentrum NRW
p. 48, 49, 50
Staatskanzlei NordrheinWes?alen/Ralph Sondermann,
Staatskanzlei NordrheinWes?alen/Fotoagentur Fox,
Staatskanzlei NRW, Claudia
Nussbauer, CREATIVE.NRW,
IKT.NRW, Film und
Mediens@,ung NRW (7x),
Anastasia Ziegler, Mediengründerzentrum NRW,
NRW.Invest, NRW.Bank,
Industrie- und Handelskammer Ostwes?alen zu
Bielefeld, Landesanstalt für
Medien NRW/Fox Foto Uwe
Völkner, Landesanstalt für
Medien NRW/AnneAe Etges
p. 52
NFP
p. 53
NFP
p. 54
X Verleih
Cover 3
Camino Filmverleih,
X Verleih
Cover 4
WDR
Sources (selec<on)
German Entertainment and
Media Outlook 2010-2014.
Price Waterhouse Coopers
(Hg.). Oktober 2010
Die Kultur- und Krea@vwirtscha, im IHK-Bezirk Köln,
Eine Standortanalyse unter
besonderer Betrachtung der
Medienwirtscha,, Prognos
AG i.A. der IHK Köln (Hg.)
August 2014
Krea@v-Report NRW –
Ökonomische Bedeutung
und Potenziale der Kulturund Krea@vwirtscha, in
Nordrhein-Wes?alen,
Prognos AG i.A. des Wirtscha,sministeriums NRW
(Hg.) Juni 2012
Medienausbildung in
Nordrhein-Wes?alen –
Ausbildungsberufe und
Studiengänge. Ministerium
für Bundesangelegenheiten,
Europa und Medien (Hg.).
Mai 2009
Film- und Fernsehproduk@on
in NRW im Vergleich zu
anderen Bundesländern
2011 und 2012, FormaAIns@tut (Hg.). Juni 2014
Useful websites
www.ﬁlms@,ung.de
www.medien.nrw.de
www.mediengruenderzentrum.de
[email protected]
www.wimwenderss@,ung.de
[email protected]
www.ikt.nrw.de
www.nrwbank.de
www.nrwinvest.com
www.aim-mia.de
www.nrw.de/
landesregierung/
staatskanzlei
www.mbem.nrw.de
www.mweimh.nrw.de
www.m*jks.nrw.de
The selec@on of the companies and loca@ons described
serves as an example for the
region and does not claim to
be complete.
Imprint > 53
Cloud Atlas
Notes
54
To Life
A Hologram for the King
Film und Medien
S ung NRW GmbH
Kaistraße 14
40221 Düsseldorf
Phone +49 -211-930 500
info@films ung.de
www.films ung.de
&