One of the continent’s leading regional centers for media innovation and business, North Rhine-Westphalia tops the European media industry rankings. Thanks to its status as a creative city, Cologne has a key role to play in the region’s success. Television and film content, for example, is produced in Cologne at the MMC Studios – one of the largest and most modern facilities of its kind in Europe – in the city’s Ossendorf district.
Cologne: a media metropolis
Vibrant centre for
innovation in film and television
Cologne’s streets and squares set the stage
About one third of the content broadcast on German TV is produced in Cologne. The renowned broadcaster WDR (the European Union’s largest public broadcaster) and the media group RTL Germany (Europe’s largest independent broadcaster) as well as numerous production companies play a key role in defining Cologne’s identity as a media city, but also one of pop music and culture.
From the local to the LANXESS arena
Cologne’s music scene, both local and international, is also vibrant and eclectic. In the club around the corner, in repurposed industrial buildings, on the banks of the Rhine, in the city’s soccer stadium, in the event spaces within the LANXESS arena and the Cologne Philharmonic Hall, rounds of applause and calls for encores meet world stars, newcomers and local musicians alike.
Cologne's agile design industry along with its art market, advertising sector, games and e-sports industries attract creative people from all over the world to the city. Cologne’s numerous publishing, gallery, architectural, book, performing arts and press industry enterprises not only benefit from close connections to one another but also deep local roots. The DuMont Media Group, one of the largest and oldest media companies in Germany has, for example, been run by 12th generations of the same family in Cologne.
Prominent newcomers
Cologne is also home to a host of high-profile events, including LitCologne, Film Festival Cologne, the Africa Film Festival, the International Women's Film Festival, Soundtrack_Cologne, the Cologne Film Fair, the German Camera Award and the German Television Award. With Germany’s largest TV series festival coming to Cologne from Munich, the city’s festival scene also looks forward to welcoming a new arrival in 2023. A wide selection of international TV series will be shown, including numerous German and world premieres. The SERIENCAMP FESTIVAL, which attracts filmmakers as well as thousands of series fans to cinemas, will receive funding from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the NRW Film and Media Foundation.
#The media metropolis does not need to worry about young talent. Hundreds of creative young professionals graduate from the International Film School (ifs) and the Academy of Media Arts (KHM), the Macromedia University and the Cologne University of Music and Dance every year.