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3.1 Media Industry in Hamburg

According to the nextMedia.Hamburg initiative, Hamburg has more than 23.000 companies within the media/IT industry and therefore is one of the leading content locations in Europe. The vast majority of Germany’s top 25 printed publications is produced in Hamburg.

With 150 companies, the region is also positioning itself as a Gamecity, serving games to more than 760 million users worldwide. Additionally, around 34% of 96.000 companies within the service sector are offering information and communication services, such as advertising or marketing (nextMedia.Hamburg 2016b) and can be considered part of the media industry as well.

Hamburg’s creative workforce generates more than EUR 10 billion in revenues every year with an added value of EUR 2.8 billion. The diverse portfolio of companies at all levels of the media and digital economy’s value chain is considered to be of utmost importance for the economically relevant combination of content & technology and Hamburg’s success as a “media city” (nextMedia.Hamburg 2016c).

According to Hamburg Chamber of Commerce (2015b), the City of Hamburg is seizing emerging business opportunities during the digital transformation and media convergence. It states effective networks between politics and industry as important facilitators in this regard, listing nextMedia.Hamburg, an initiative for the media/IT industries in Hamburg created by the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the Hamburg@Work e.V. association and the Hamburgische Gesellschaft für Wirtschaftsförderung (Hamburg Business Development Corporation), among many other initiatives, associations and public-private partnerships.

The top 5 cultural and creative industries in terms of employment are software/games, advertising, press, design and architecture in 2013 (Hamburg Chamber of Commerce 2015b). The most significant job growth occurred in the software/games industry which gained 4,082 jobs since 2009. Hamburg’s traditional advertising industry only grew slightly during this period and the press industry declined moderately with 1,076 jobs lost (see table 7).

According to Hamburg Chamber of Commerce (2105b) data, Hamburg is ranking fourth among Berlin, Cologne and Munich as “media cities” in terms of employees working in creative industries. In terms of revenue however, Hamburg only lost its leading position to Berlin in 2012, underlining Hamburg’s valid strategic alignment as a “media city” (see table 8 and fig. 8).

Figure 8: Revenue trends in the cultural and creative industries in German media locations from 2006 to 2013 in EUR million

The strength of Hamburg creative industries is also reflected in training opportunities and perspectives in higher education at local universities. Both public and private universities offer various fields of study that are related to the media industry. According to Hamburg Chamber of Commerce (2015b) the number of people training for creative careers at local universities is equal or even larger than in Berlin, the arguably largest city in Germany.

For a more detailed look into Hamburg’s media industry, the largest 3 sectors - software/games, advertising and press - provide ample insights that separates Hamburg from other locations in Germany.

Software/Game Industry

Based on Hamburg Chamber of Commerce (2015b) data, Hamburg has grown significantly in the software/games sector over the past years. However, in terms of employment the region still remains far behind other “media cities” in Germany with around 14,000 employees in 2013 compared to Munich (28,455), Berlin (25,180) and Cologne (22,181). Despite the strong growth in employees of 40% since 2009, Hamburg remains outpaced by Berlin’s growth of 80% in the same period.

Although Munich is dominant in the traditional software industry, Berlin and Hamburg are the centres for the games industry in Germany. Hamburg has gained the reputation as Germany’s leading city for game development over the past years, which can largely be attributed to the “Gamecity:Hamburg” initiative founded in 2003, a public-private partnership facilitating the development of this industry sector in Hamburg (Hamburg Chamber of Commerce 2015b).

Based on number of employees, 4 of the top 10 game development companies in Germany are based in Hamburg (Games Wirtschaft 2016a). Evidently, Hamburg based browser game startups excelled over the past years, clearly outpacing other industry competitors. Goodgame Studios, Bigpoint and Innogames alone employ more personal (2,050) than the rest of the top 10 combined, of which Gamigo also has offices in Hamburg (see table 9). In addition some of the top 20 ranking game companies have offices in Hamburg as well (e.g. Kalypso Media).

Despite latest turmoils in the German game industry - during which Goodgame Studios radically reduced its staff by 500 people to 700 employees in Summer 2016 (Games Wirtschaft 2016c) - the sector itself remains strong with many open positions at Bigpoint and other companies in Hamburg and Berlin (Games Wirtschaft 2016b).

Interestingly, it is difficult to gather detailed software/game industry revenue data for the City of Hamburg. Other than in the advertising or press sector, performance data is not shared as transparently.

In 2008 the software/games industry generated combined revenues of EUR 1.16 billion in total (Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft 2012). Since the game sector in particular was responsible for the enormous growth in employees from 2009 to 2013, newer revenue data would be interesting to analyse.

Unfortunately, no recent data source with combined turnovers could be found.

Advertising Industry

According to Hamburg Chamber of Commerce (2015b), Hamburg is the largest and most important location for the advertising industry in Germany. In terms of employment, the advertising sector is second only to the software/games industry within the creative industries in Hamburg.

With around 13,000 employees in 2013, it clearly outpaces Munich (10,524), Berlin (9,217) and Cologne (8,259), the other three “media cities” in Germany. The reported revenues of EUR 2.6 billion in 2013 are the region’s second largest after the press industry (in creative industries).

The German Werben & Verkaufen magazine (2015) reports eight out of the top ten creative agencies in Germany as having offices in Hamburg in its creative ranking 2015, underlining the industries qualitative performance in Hamburg (see table 10).

The magazine transparently evaluates important creative awards such as Cannes Lions, Clio Awards, ADC Deutschland (ADC nails), New York Festival and calculates a creative score for the annual ranking of German advertising agencies.

Among the 15 largest owner operated advertising agencies in Germany, 8 have their headquarter in Hamburg and an additional 2 have major offices within the city (see table 11), serving as an additional indicator for Hamburg as Germany’s number one location for the advertising industry.

Press Industry

Despite falling numbers of employees due to the digital transformation and increasing shift from print to digital media within the press sector, Hamburg remains the leading city for the press market in Germany, according to Hamburg Chamber of Commerce (2015b). With just under 10,000 employees in 2013, the sector beats all other “media city” locations in Germany - Berlin (9,158), Munich (8,909) and Cologne (5,548). With reported revenues of EUR 3.9 billion in 2013 it not only dominates the region as the strongest creative industry sector but outpaces Berlin (EUR 3.0 billion), Cologne (EUR 2.1 billion) and Munich (EUR 2.0 billion) with a turnover of EUR 396,000 per employee.

Historic publishers such as Axel Springer, Gerd Bucerius, John Jahr and Richard Gruner are at the heart of Hamburg’s prominent image as a “media city”. Despite recent shifts by large publishers such as Axel Springer SE towards Berlin (Manager Magazin 2003), many major press outlets are still based in Hamburg. Newspaper and magazine publishers such as DER SPIEGEL, DIE ZEIT, Gruner + Jahr, Bauer Media Group, Funke Mediengruppe, Hubert Burda Media, Jahreszeiten Verlag, Mediengruppe Klamt and many others are at the core of Hamburg’s press industry.

Among the 12 largest German media corporations (four of which are TV outlets (ARD, ZDF, RTL Group and ProSiebenSat.1 Media) and one is Bertelsmann, owning both RTL Group and Gruner + Jahr), 2 have their headquarter in Hamburg and all of them operate major offices in Hamburg (see table 12).

Since the technology-driven creative industry evidently is a major facilitator of Hamburg’s economic development, many of the Hamburg based startups focus on business models close to the media and digital industry as is evident by taking a closer look at the venture capital investments and startup activities in Hamburg.