Berlin, 07/20/2017

Diversity in German TV and Film

Members of the panel from the podium discussion
Women feature less frequently than men in German audiovisual media, the figure being two men to every one woman across all TV programmes combined.
When women do feature, they tend to be young. Above the age of 40, women start disappearing from programmes.
Men explain the world: experts, game show hosts, journalists and spokespersons tend to be male.
On children's television, too, the overall number of males featured is clearly higher than the total of females, the ratio being four to one.

On 12 July 2017 the results of a study entitled ‘Audiovisuelle Diversität? Geschlechterdarstellung in Film und Fernsehen in Deutschland’ (Audiovisual diversity? Gender representation in film and television in Germany) were presented at the Berlin Academy of the Arts. The research was supported by Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland and other leading German broadcasting groups and film sponsors.

For the purposes of the study, which was initiated by German actress Marie Furtwängler and her Malisa Foundation, and conducted by the University of Rostock's Institute for Media Research, over 3,500 hours of TV programmes from 2016 and more than 800 German-language feature films released over the last six years were analysed. For Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, programmes aired by its channels RTL Television, Vox, RTL II and Super RTL were examined. The study is the most representative research yet on the depiction of women and men in German TV programmes and movies.

At the unveiling of the study's results in Berlin, Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland was represented by Frank Hoffmann, Managing Director Programming RTL Television, who also took part in a podium discussion of the research findings with fellow panel members Thomas Bellut (Director-General of ZDF), Maria Furtwängler, Wolfgang Link (Head of the Management Board of ProSiebenSat.1 TV Deutschland), Petra Müller (CEO of the Film and Media Foundation North Rhine-Westphalia) and Karola Wille (Chairwoman of ARD and Director of MDR).

Frank Hoffmann observed: "We have to make progress in ensuring that more programmes featuring strong female characters are successful. Television used to be very strongly influenced by US fiction. Now we have a chance to break the mould, because we're focussing more on producing our own content."

Hoffmann then went on to stress the gratifying results for Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland in some areas, saying: "RTL explains the world through women's' eyes, and has done so for a long time already: to take but a few examples, think of Antonia Rados, Katja Burkard, Frauke Ludowig and Ilka Essmüller. Our viewers have grown older with us and also want to see older women on the screen."

In a video statement, Anke Schäferkordt, CEO of Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland and former Co-CEO of RTL Group, underscored her firm belief that: "diversity is one of the driving forces of modern society, and especially of a strong economy."

You can watch Anke Schäferkordt's video statement  here (only available in German).

One pleasing result was that when the results are considered at channel level, in many respects Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland emerges in a substantially more favourable light than its competitors. For instance, the Group's fiction programmes already feature a balanced proportion of men and women today.

The study's findings will be analysed in detail and discussed within Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland to pinpoint precise areas where the Group can do better, and ascertain where it's already on a pretty creditable footing.

For full details of the study and more background information, click here  .