Monographie Bonn-Rhein-Sieg

CULTIVATED AND CREATIVE – BONN IS DRAWING ATTENTION TO ITSELF
Although, in its capacity as a media city, Bonn does not
enjoy the same status as Cologne or Hamburg, more than
7.5 percent of Bonn’s employees work in the field of
media today. As a location for the cultural and creative
industry, the UN city is living life in the fast lane and
providing stimuli both at a regional and international
level.
For a city to be perceived as a location for media and the
creative industry, involves a certain degree of prestige. After
the “Bericht aus Bonn”, which was an absolute must for
politically interested viewers every Friday for 36 years, before
having to give way to “Bericht aus Berlin”, Bonn temporarily
lost some of its glamour in the German media landscape at
the start of the new millennium. Today, however, the Rhine
metropolis can once again rightfully hold its ground as an
important media location. The largest media operation by
far is Deutsche Welle (DW), which has had its headquarters
in the Schürmann building since 2003. With about 1,000
persons in its permanent employ, the state-owned foreign
broadcasting service of the Federal Republic of Germany is
considered a top dog in the Bonn media scene. Its service
offer comprises five TV channels in four languages, as well
as radio programmes and digital services in 30 languages.
The flagship is “DW News”. This TV programme is presented
in English and, since 2015, can be received almost everywhere
on earth. Whilst DW broadcasts topics of international
relevance worldwide from its base in the UN city, the WDR
studio in Bonn takes the opposite approach in that it reports
on those topics that are of importance for the people in
Rhineland. This refers to topics from the world of politics,
business, culture and sport. The “Lokalzeit aus Bonn”, one of
the most successful regional broadcasts in Germany, is a
mouthpiece for the Bonn/Rhein-Sieg region. The third member
of the group is Phoenix, the public-law specialist field
broadcaster that is located in the former ZDF capital city
studio. The programme consists of documentation, news
and discussion shows, in addition to presenting special
event transmissions. Radio Bonn/Rhein-Sieg provides
regional protagonists a voice. In addition to this, print media
is also on a sound footing in Bonn/Rhein-Sieg. Apart from
the General-Anzeiger, among others, Bonner Rundschau,
Express, Rhein-Sieg-Anzeiger and Rhein-Sieg Rundschau,
Rhein-Zeitung as well as numerous advertising journals and
city magazines compete for the readers’ favour.
Media Davos on the Rhine
Bonn, as “Davos of the media world”? With the annually
hosted Global Media Forum, DW took action and created
facts. What still sounded rather ambitious in 2008 is today
no longer far removed from reality. When the former DW
director Erik Bettermann first invited guests to the three-day
conference, the vision was that nothing less than a media
Davos were to be established. Meanwhile, the international
and interdisciplinary media congress, which is sponsored by
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is hosted in the World
Conference Center (WCCB). Although it might be possible
that the DW event has not quite attained the status of the
World Economic Forum yet, on the occasion of the ninth
meeting in the summer of 2016, about 2,300 participants
from more than 90 countries came together – makers of
media broadcasts and politicians, as well as scientists,
creative artists and activists. With the Global Media Forum,
DW wanted to create an institution for the international
exchange of ideas – and, at the same time, reinforce the
federal city as a conference venue. Both of these points were
successfully realised. Since its start, the number of parti -
cipants has increased almost five-fold and today is at almost
the same level as the World Economic Forum in the Swiss
health resort. For the first time in 2016, the Bonn/Rhein-Sieg
Chamber of Industry and Commerce hosted a workshop in
117