Streaming platforms have made the world of moving images more confusing, but linear television still dominates. That is what Robert Amlung, Head of Digital Strategy at ZDF, said on Wednesday at the virtual Fiberweek. “The new players” like Netflix and Amazon are “very strong” as direct competitors for the viewers’ money and time, but also “the classic television usage figures are still damn high”.

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In terms of content, Amlung sees the big streaming portals as less of a challenge: “With Netflix, you can see that with all the money that flows in there, but more and more of the same comes. ” At some point the big stories will be told.

In view of the network effects taking hold on the Internet, there will be “a large variety of providers,” says Amlung. Politicians would therefore do well to ensure “the viability of smaller languages ​​and cultures in Europe” in the broadcasting area. Fetching old productions from the archive only works to a limited extent: “Times have changed.”

Big Screen The main use is still in linear television and on the “big screen”, confirmed Cornelius Schauer, Head of Platform Business at Mediengruppe RTL. The private broadcaster resisted time-shifted television for a long time in order to protect the advertising business model. Events, live formats and sports broadcasts would become more important for this area, which “is still our core business”. In addition, RTL is now also relying on its own streaming service TVNow, with which the station is “overall very satisfied”.

At the “aggregation platform” Joyn from ProSiebenSat.1 and Discovery, which, unlike the streaming service from RTL, also records content from third parties, is at least “half of the usage still live”, explained its head of the Partnerships and Business Development division, Constanze Gilles. This has not changed much a year and a half after the launch. “Different tendencies” are observed among the younger generation. However, her broadcaster tries to attract snack consumers back to them via “influencer formats” such as collaborations with YouTubers, described Gilles ” ” We’re already in the world of non-linear television, “said Jörg Richartz, who is responsible for business development and strategy at Deutsche Telekom. The core of the in-house platform MagentaTV is to bring the worlds together and to support “all of our partners’ business models”. Even with IP-based television there are “still many TV centrics”. Since “a lot of moving images are viewed on mobile devices”, convergent scenarios in which users can switch directly from smartphones to televisions are becoming increasingly important for the group. Content should therefore work on all screen sizes, for which adaptive techniques are particularly necessary.

The panelists agreed that short formats that shape viewing habits via Facebook, Instagram and YouTube will not soon dominate the entertainment on screens will. “We do not share the idea that only ‘snackable’ works on the Internet,” said Amlung. Younger users also appreciated the background and depth.

With TV chef Steffen H