Coming to town. Importance of agglomeration factors for media cluster development in the German online video industry

ABSTRACT

Online video consumption is growing strongly, opening up opportunities for new players to enter this evolving market. Media clusters can capitalise on this trend by trying to attract some of these new actors. In any case, there is not a lot of insight about location decisions of online video producers as of yet. To identify these factors, all 1,910 professional producers distributing their online video content on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitch in Germany were identified and surveyed. The data from 101 respondents show significant differences between producers located in and outside media clusters for 23 of 26 items operationalising the importance of exogenous and endogenous agglomeration factors. The survey data were then used to develop a model with five principal components (Network Building, Media Ecosystem, Human Resources, Public Funding/Infrastructure and Personal Lifestyle options) and 13 variables, which may be used to elaborate a broader model.

KEYWORDS:

• Online video
• media cluster
• YouTube
• video creators
• agglomeration

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the European Web Video Academy for their support and contributions as project partners in the research project “The Online Video Industry in North Rhine-Westphalia”.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Therefore, production companies producing long-form content for streaming media offerings (e.g. Netflix) as well as large (media) companies with successful channels were not retained.

2. Using the thresholds of 50,000 subscribers on YouTube and 20,000 subscribers on Twitch, it was furthermore ensured that only video creators with a certain degree of professionalisation were included in the sample.

3. The fourth leading media cluster in Germany, Munich,(e.g. Krätke & Taylor, 2004) was not retained since the agglomeration of online video companies is significantly higher in Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg than in Munich (Berlin (246), Cologne (140), Hamburg (111), Munich (60)). Therefore, all companies located in these cities were considered – varying with the size of the city within a radius of up to 12 km around the city centre in Cologne and up to 20 km around the city centre in Berlin.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the State Chancellery of the State of North-Rhine Westphalia [1].

Notes on contributors

Christian Zabel

Christian Zabel is Full Professor for Innovation and Corporate Management at TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences since 2016. His research focuses on production and distribution processes in digital media, especially online video. Since 2018 he is spokesman for the media economics division of Germany’s Communication research Association DGPUK. Before he headed the product management of t-online.de, Germany’s largest online publisher. From 2008 to 2012, he was executive assistant to Deutsche Telekom’s CEO René Obermann, overseeing strategic cooperations with the media industry. Christian Zabel studied journalism in Dortmund and Brussels and holds a master’s degree in political science from Sciences-Po Paris.

Sven Pagel

Sven Pagel is Full Professor for Information Systems and Media Management at Hochschule Mainz – University of Applied Sciences. As a degree program director, he is responsible for the B.Sc. “Media, IT & Management”. His research interests include digital moving image communication in online media, UX and user research, and digital transformation. From 2004 to 2013 he was spokesman of the Communications Research group at Dusseldorf University of Applied Sciences. He previously worked for ZDF, SWR and arte in the IT, digital TV and internet editorial departments. He is an author and reviewer for renowned professional journals.

Verena Telkmann

Verena Telkmann is a research assistant in the field of production structures for digital media and a doctoral candidate at TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences. In research she focuses on digital media production and media economics. She completed her bachelor’s degree in business administration with a focus on marketing in 2014 at the institute for dual study programmes at the university of applied sciences Osnabrück and her master’s degree in communication, multimedia and market management in the year 2017 at the university of applied sciences Dusseldorf. She gained practical experience in online marketing of CHECK24 Mobilfunk GmbH.

Alexander Rossner

Alexander Rossner is a research assistant to the professorship for Information Systems and Media Management at Hochschule Mainz – University of Applied Sciences. He is currently completing his master’s degree in geoinformatics. Alexander Rossner successfully completed his bachelor’s degree in Media, IT & Management at Mainz University of Applied Sciences in December 2017, studying part-time while working as a trained media designer for digital & print as Junior Art Director in a small-sized media agency in Mannheim.