Faced with growing competition by globally uniform players such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, RTL Group wants to focus more strongly on its core brand RTL.
The strategy is worked out in the project “RTL United” as part of which German subsidiary Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland will rebrand its streaming service TVNow into RTL+, writes German industry magazine DWDL. The name change is planned for the second half of 2021.
To avoid confusion, German TV channel RTLplus is to be given a new name. Furthermore, Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland wants to appear under the catchier name RTL Deutschland in future.
An interesting detail: The clear labelling of the streaming service as an RTL product suggests that RTL has apparently given up hope of gaining ProSiebenSat.1 as a partner for the service after all. At launch, the competitor had been invited to distribute its channels on TVNow, explaining why the service had been given a neutral branding:
However, ProSiebenSat.1 is pursuing its own path in the streaming sector with Joyn, the platform operated with Discovery. A strong, central German streaming platform that competes at eye-level with the US players thus remains a long way off.
Commenting on the overall branding project, an RTL Group spokesman told Broadband TV News: “We are working on a comprehensive redesign and repositioning of the RTL brand. We will sustainably strengthen RTL as the leading European entertainment brand and harmonise the brand architecture across the entire RTL Group. From the corporate brands to the channel and format brands, and across all digital platforms. The focus is on an RTL brand that stands for positive entertainment and independent journalism, as well as inspiration, energy and attitude.”
“Roll-out is planned for the second half of 2021, starting with RTL Group and RTL Deutschland and then gradually across the other European RTL families of channels,” he added.
