Frankfurt, 12 Nov. 2020. On 1 January 2020 Dr. Torsten Rossmann will take up the position of Chairman of the Supervisory Board of AGF Videoforschung GmbH. Currently deputy Supervisory Board Chairman and the long-time CEO of WeltN24, he will succeed Martin Berthoud. Berthoud will resign his position at the end of the year and leave the Board at the end of March 2021. Long the Director of Programme Planning at ZDF, he had already retired that position in the spring of this year. Rossmann’s deputy on the AGF Supervisory Board will be Guido Modenbach, EVP Research, Analytics & Consulting of the Seven.One Entertainment Group. Rossmann and Modenbach will also take on the chairmanship of the Annual Meeting, which is currently likewise held by Berthoud with Rossmann as his deputy.
Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf, Chair of the Executive Management of AGF Videoforschung: “We greatly look forward to working with Torsten Rossmann and Guido Modenbach in their new functions. We respect both as capable and knowledgeable members of the Supervisory Board, who have a great interest in the continuous development of AGF’s research activities. With their expertise and deep knowledge of the market, they will assist AGF Executive Management as dialogue partners who help implement forward-looking projects and further expand our reach research.”
Rossmann has been on the AGF Supervisory Board since it was reorganised as a limited corporation in 2017. WeltN24 is one of the first new shareholders that AGF took on board just under four years ago. Journalist and media manager Rossman bought broadcaster N24 in 2010 as part of a management buy-out. When N24 Media GmbH was acquired by Axel Springer in February 2014, Rossmann became CEO of WeltN24 GmbH, which owns broadcasters Welt and N24 Doku. Since October 2020 he has worked as a staff consultant at Axel Springer SE for the company’s TV and video strategy. Rossmann: “Like the TV market as a whole, AGF also faces the challenge of adapting to changing market conditions in an increasingly convergent digital media environment, and continuously growing its offerings for measuring video usage. I’m glad to support Executive Management in this way, and to continue the work begun under Martin Berthoud. We of the AGF Supervisory Board can draw on the expertise and commitment of many important market partners to reach the shared goal of a neutral, reliable and in every way competitive offering for measuring the usage of video content.”
Guido Modenbach has been EVP Research, Analytics & Consulting at Seven.One Entertainment Group since April 2020, in addition to his duties at marketer Seven.One Media, where he has been CEO Market Intelligence since 2010. Prior to that he held positions at Gruner + Jahr and IP Deutschland. Modenbach is a true research expert, who has made a name for himself with well-known market and media studies like the “Media Equivalence Study” together with Google and Mediaplus. He has contributed his specialist knowledge to AGF in various functions and groups for over ten years. “With sincere thanks to Martin Berthoud for his forward-looking and tireless efforts for AGF, I am very glad to continue to support the central goals of AGF together with Torsten Rossmann and the entire Supervisory Board. Cross-platform video and cross-media advertising campaign measurement is more in the focus of interest than ever,” explains Modenbach.
Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf thanks outgoing Supervisory Board Chairman Martin Berthoud for his decades of work for AGF. Up until April 2020 Berthoud was Director of Programme Planning at major German public broadcaster ZDF. “AGF considers itself lucky to have been able to depend on a person as capable and committed as Martin Berthoud. Among other things, he had the difficult task of transforming AGF from a GbR to a GmbH, which he accomplished with success and great diplomatic skills. Anke Weber and I always found him to be a mediating and solutions-oriented contact person in Executive Management, who also contributed his comprehensive knowledge of reach research. We wish him all the best in his new life phase.”
Martin Berthoud represented ZDF on AGF committees since 1998, and was several times Chairman or Deputy Chairman on the board of what was at that time the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Fernsehforschung GbR. Under his chairmanship, the GbR (private civil-law association) was turned into AGF Videoforschung GmbH (limited-liability company) in 2016/17. Thereafter he was Supervisory Board Chairman of AGF. “Being involved in providing reliable, high-quality, transparent, fair and comparable video usage data to the changing media market was a lot of fun. With their great experience and expertise the new Supervisory Board Chairmen will be a great help to AGF Executive Management in meeting the continued challenges of making video usage comparable with cross-media and platform-specific data in high AGF quality.”
About AGF Videoforschung GmbH (www.agf.de)
AGF Videoforschung GmbH specializes in impartial video research. AGF continuously tracks the use of video content in Germany on a quantitative basis and analyzes the data collected. It invests many millions of euros per year to continuously refine its instruments in order to deliver reliable data on the use of video content to the market on a daily basis. AGF consults closely with all market partners, including licensed TV stations, advertisers and media agencies.
Press contact:
Juliane Paperlein
Head of Corporate Communication | AGF Videoforschung GmbH |
T +49 69 955 260-55 |