Media Managers on What Makes a Successful Media Product

The team led by Isabelle Krebs and Marcel Verhoeven at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research surveyed 39 media officers from Switzerland, Germany, and Austria to get their take on what determines the success of media products. The team examined serial, multi-part, and one-off formats in the fields of information (e.g. Swiss radio news program Echo der Zeit and German interview series Jung & Naiv), entertainment (e.g. The Voice and Swiss TV series Der Bestatter), and infotainment (e.g. SF DOK and Watson.ch). The interviews focused on the factors for success of the various media products, for instance, brand identity, audience involvement, aesthetic aspects, leadership, process management. According to the results, there are essentially no inherent factors that guarantee success. The findings also show what is defined as success, and they reveal the extent to which success is interpreted as financial profit, an aspect that applies equally across a range of media. The installation presents quotes from the interviews in breaking-news format using an LED ticker display.

Krebs/Verhoeven team: Pascal Barro, Stephanie Grubenmann, Stefanie Hangartner, Juliane Lischka, Isabelle Krebs, Gabriele Siegert, Christoph Sommer, Marcel Verhoeven, Bjørn von Rimscha.