2. Business Performance
The 2021 financial year was again dominated by the pandemic. Corona set the agenda in many areas. Significant numbers of staff had to perform their duties from their desks at home for the entire year. Nevertheless, Germany’s biggest news agency has developed further in crucial areas, set new standards and has achieved many of its goals. The management and editors-in-chief have energetically driven forward the digital transformation of dpa in all entrepreneurial and journalistic fields.
Over the past financial year, dpa worked intensively on the further pursuit of its marketplace strategy. In the meantime, the use of the dpa ID, which regulates access and use of the marketplace, has been expanded to almost 25,000 users. Media professionals and communication experts regularly access the services and tools of dpa and its partners. In this way, the provision of dpa content for the many journalists in the home office was able to be placed on an even broader and more reliable basis. The newly published website dpa-id.de as well as separate talk formats have further enhanced the awareness of the marketplace and contributed to the acquisition of additional users and partners.
In addition to this strategically important field, dpa continued to work on streamlining its brand portfolio. With the approval of the supervisory board, the agency decided to merge dpa-digital services GmbH with the parent company with retroactive effect from 1 January 2021. In addition, it was also decided to absorb the photo agency Zentralbild GmbH into the parent company, for which the supervisory board gave its approval.
In addition, dpa has been working intensively on the two business areas of audio and video. For example, the much-acclaimed dpa-Audio Hub was launched. It provides legally compliant current sound bites from politics, business, culture and sport, expert interviews as well as ambient tones from all over the world.
Many audio and podcast producers now use this service. Further attention was paid to moving image activities and the integration of the TNN (TeleNewsNetwork) brand into dpa’s video production processes. The business area of commissioned video moved from Rufa Rundfunk-Agenturdienste GmbH to the Custom Content division under the umbrella of the parent company. Stronger synergy effects in interaction with other commissioned productions and better marketing opportunities are the aim of this restructuring. The appointment to the Rufa management of Silke Brüggemeier, who performs this function in addition to her duties as Deputy Editor-in-Chief and Head of Visuals, underlines the role of video and audio as strategic business areas of dpa with promising market opportunities.
In connection with numerous crises, such as the pandemic, climate change, Afghanistan, floods or most recently the war in Ukraine, the amount of disinformation and false news on the internet continues to grow considerably. Against this background, the agency has further strengthened its commitment in this socially relevant field under the umbrella of dpa infocom GmbH. Worth mentioning here are the newly added fact-checking activities for WhatsApp and TikTok. Factchecking for Facebook has already been running successfully since 2019. The Faktencheck21 initiative received a strong response from the entire industry. The agency offered a large number of workshops and training courses, especially for regional publishers, and launched the Factify expertise platform with tips, tools and practical examples. The project is supported by the Google News Initiative. Together with research and data projects, the platforms have meanwhile developed into a growing business area for the dpa group.
The activities in the area of commissioned productions are also successful. The dpa’s custom content team was again able to ensure noticeable growth. Among other things, cooperation with the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) should be mentioned here, which, in connection with Corona and the flood disaster, has registered an increased need for communicative support and content for various warning systems.
Today’s modern, multimedia and digital real-time journalism demands profound changes from editorial offices. Production processes, work organisation and mind-set all have to be adapted or completely overhauled. Naturally this applies to dpa as well. The chief editors have drawn up central guidelines and established this in the editorial teams. The focus is on an openness to change, data-informed work, networking with customers, sustainability, equal opportunities and diversity. The chief editors are convinced that the total of nine guidelines form a strong basic framework for a long-term successful, quality-oriented and modern news agency.
A key success factor for the editorial team is data-informed work. In order to keep the utility value of digital services and products at a consistently high level, dpa must know how its customers use news, images and videos in their offerings. With the new position of Head of Content Development, whose responsibilities include the content-related, organisational and structural aspects of data-informed work, dpa is setting a new priority and underlines its ambitions in this direction.