RTL+ starts all-inclusive entertainment streaming
AThe project has been announced for a long time and is now starting RTL Germany actually with a multimedia app that offers content from all media types. Subscribers have to pay EUR 12.99 per month for the “All Inclusive Entertainment Package”, or EUR 18.99 in the family tariff.
In return, customers have access to 55,000 hours of video and television entertainment, 120 million music titles, more than 100,000 audio books and radio plays as well as thousands of podcasts, including around 200 in-house productions by RTL+. Unlike other streaming providers, RTL+ also brings the content of magazines to the screens, with articles from Gala, Schöner Wohnen, Brigitte and Geolino being found in the app. These magazines from the former publishing house Gruner + Jahr are now part of RTL Germany.
referred to as a milestone Thomas Rabe the start of the multimedia offer. “We know from current studies that when selecting streaming services, users pay close attention to where they can get the greatest variety of content at the most attractive price,” explains the CEO of RTL Germany and Bertelsmann boss. This so-called “bundling” is on everyone’s lips, adds Matthias Dang, who runs RTL Germany together with Thomas Rabe: the RTL teams had “done real pioneering work.”
At the end of the year also for the television
The new offer is available under the name “RTL+ Max” either as a mobile app or via the Internet. Only towards the end of the year can the full range of offers also be used on the television. In any case, that is the “current planning”, said RTL CEO Thomas Rabe when presenting the quarterly figures RTL Group: “We do it step by step”. It is important that users find their way around the app.
Attracting television users to the all-inclusive package is of significant importance because RTL+ initially started out as video streaming. Many users took out the subscription as part of a Magenta tariff from Telekom. In total, RTL+ had 4.5 million subscribers in Germany at mid-year. Together with 1.5 million Videoland customers in the Netherlands, RTL has 6 million streaming customers. By 2026, RTL aims to have more than 10 million customers become streaming subscribers. By then, the business should also be profitable.
“Barrier to win new streaming customers is getting higher”
Success will depend not only on how well the app is received by customers, but also on the economy. “The hurdle to winning new streaming customers is getting higher,” explains Lisa Jäger, partner at strategy consultancy Simon-Kucher, who recently examined the German streaming market. On average, streamers in Germany have 2.1 subscriptions. But 41 percent of those surveyed stated that they would first cancel an existing subscription in favor of a new subscription. Overall, the budget for streaming subscriptions is only 25 euros, for a single subscription users only wanted to spend a maximum of 10 euros.
Apart from the declining willingness to pay, it is also a question of binding the users themselves through the offer. During the first expansion step a year ago, when the music was added to the video (in cooperation with Deezer), RTL+ users complained about the sound quality, for example, and were unhappy that no playlists could be imported. The further development of the app should not only eliminate such shortcomings, but also develop offers that correspond to the personal preferences of the users. Due to the associated technical hurdles, however, the launch of the all-inclusive app has been delayed further and further. RTL actually wanted to start with an “All media, one app” in spring 2022.
Streaming strategically important
For the entire RTL Group streaming of considerable strategic importance because linear television with its fixed time constraints is losing more and more viewers and is therefore also losing relevance for advertising customers. RTL has already invested around one billion euros in the expansion of the streaming offer, which is intended to compensate for this problem. “RTL Group will invest around €350 million in the content of its streaming services this year – the majority of which will flow into the further expansion of RTL+ in Germany,” said RTL boss Thomas Rabe in an interview with the FAZ. The sales are currently not keeping up. In the first half of the year, 158 million euros were invested in content, and sales are estimated at 152 million euros. The streaming revenue thus reached the magnitude of the decline in revenue in the RTL Group: this fell by 5 percent to 3.1 billion euros in the first half of the year.
