Sportschau in the Digital Age

How do you guide a traditional TV brand into the digital future? Dr Sebastian Göllner, Head of Programming at WDR Sport and Sportschau, talks about innovation strategies that enable successful TV formats to establish themselves online – and reveals what his biggest flop in the job has been so far.

Werksgelände: What does a Head of Programming at Sportschau actually do?

Sebastian Göllner: In addition to its TV broadcasts, Sportschau offers content across a total of 16 platforms, including the website, its own app, numerous social media channels, radio programmes, live audio streams and digital out-of-home offerings. All of this is editorially managed and produced at the Sportcampus at WDR in Cologne. The programme management team – I am one of four managers in this team – is responsible for all these offerings. This means we spend a lot of time on strategy, budgetary matters and personnel management. The job sits at the interface between editorial management and general management.

What experience or skills should you bring to the job?

The four of us in our management team bring a variety of long-standing professional experience in editorial work, namely in TV, audio, online journalism, social media and format development. Strategic thinking is important, as is a good overview of the market and, of course, leadership experience and a willingness to embrace change.

What appeals to you about your job?

It’s very, very varied; you deal with lots of different topics. We produce programmes for millions of people, and it’s a real pleasure when they’re so well received. Personally, I also see the shift towards digital content as a wonderful challenge.

What are the biggest challenges in your job?

On a personal level: lots of deadlines every day; you have to stay on top of a wide range of topics. That requires discipline and good personal organisation. I consider it a great privilege to work in public service broadcasting, but sometimes the coordination within the ARD takes a lot of time and energy when you want to drive change towards digital products within such a large media system.

What has been your biggest failure in your job so far, and what did you learn from it?

In the 2010s, we developed our own quiz app with sports questions for the ‘Sportschau’ programme. It wasn’t as successful as we’d hoped. Looking back, I’d say we gave far too little thought to distribution and marketing – both paid and editorial. We’d approach that very differently today.

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