Hamburg Hosts ENEX General Assembly 2025

The historic port city of Hamburg was the venue for more than 60 ENEX partner representatives to attend the annual General Assembly. The meeting was opened by Minister Dr Carsten Brosda who is responsible for Media and Culture in the Hamburg Government. In his bold speech, called ‘The Death of Truth’, he drew a striking parallel between the Disney franchise Star Wars and the slide toward authoritarianism experienced in global politics today.

The AI Assisted Future of Media

Some of the leading companies involved in the AI assisted broadcast and digital sector took part in a panel to discuss the opportunities of this new tech revolution. The panel was hosted by Jo Schmaltz as part of ENEX’s Innovation Exchange which aims to inform ENEX’s partners with knowledge-share sessions to help shape future strategies and purchases. The panel included Fred Petitpont, CTO of Moments Lab; Daniel Url, Chief Product Officer, Fonn Group; Olivier Barnich, Head of Innovation, EVS and Claire Humphries, Product Manager, Grass Valley.

New Threats

Sky News Europe Correspondent Siobhan Robbins, who is based in Berlin, chaired a session which focused on the threat to ENEX’s partner in Serbia – N1. Student led protests have been growing for a year in the country and N1’s news teams have come under intense pressure from government security forces. The panel also included Artem Oblovatnyi, Head of International Cooperation at 1+1 Ukraine, Mirja Kivimaki, Head of International News at MTV Finland and Rolandas Agintas, Head of News of LNK, Lithuania all of whom discussed the various threats posed by Russian action in Ukraine.

Miniature Wonderland, Germany’s Most Popular Attraction

The first day of the conference ended on a lighter note with the co-owner of Miniaturwunderland, Sebastian Drechsler explaining the background to the success of this most popular tourist attraction. Sonja Schwetje, CEO of RTL Nord and former Chairwoman of the ENEX Board of Directors was the host.

What can News Publishers Teach Broadcasters?

On Friday October 17^th the ENEX Assembly opened with a speech from Dr Gregor Peter Schmitz, Editor in Chief of Stern magazine, one of Germany’s most famous publications. Stern is based in Hamburg and was acquired by Bertlesmann media group which also owns RTL. What can publishers teach broadcasters? was examined including contributions from Susan Daly, Managing Editor of The Journal, Ireland and Rasa Lukaityte-Vnarauskiene, Editor in Chief of Delfi, Lithuania. As it turns out many of the problems facing publishers overlap with those facing broadcasters!

Creator Power, The New Competition for Media

Another threat to established media brands (or is it an opportunity?) is in the creator economy. Why are individual news creators more successful than well known media brands in reaching large audiences on social applications? This session was chaired by Colm McGlinchey, ENEX’s Digital Editor who quizzed the CEO of We Are Era, Tobias Schiwek. We Are Era is a new generation media company and home to Europe’s largest digital studio and a leading network of creators.

New Business Models for Commercial Media

The theme of future-proofing media businesses was continued when ENEX Head of News, Mark Evans, interviewed Sky News UK’s Executive Director of Business Operations, Andrew Thomson. Sky has their own 2030 strategy which aims to grow new revenues from diversified sources.

New Partner: AnewZ Azerbaijan

A new partner has joined ENEX – ANEWZ from Azerbaijan. Rufat Hamzayev, Executive Director addressed the audience to brief them on the powerful news operations already established in this one-year old English language channel headquartered in Baku.

Capturing The Moment

Red Bull is a much appreciated content partner of ENEX and apart from the ready supply of Red Bull drinks, always available at our conferences this year one of their top sports photographers spoke about the behind the scenes challenges of ‘Capturing The Moment’. Dean Treml has photographed a wide array of sports but particularly specializes in the hazardous sport of cliff diving.

Access Denied: Reporting Gaza

Also discussed on the final day was a panel focusing on the reporting of Gaza including contributions from Arad Nir, International Editor of Channel 12 News, Israel; Mahmoud Mushtaha a Gazan journalist and Tim Singleton, International Editor of Sky News.

The panel was hosted by Gunhild Tinmannsvik, Foreign News Coordinator at TV2 Norway and was mostly conducted on zoom and is not available on YouTube.

Who is the Future of Our Industry?

Lastly, the conference ended on the uplifting contributions from young journalists who are just entering the profession. How do they see the future of the industry and their own part in it? Simon Hof from RTL Germany’s Journalism School chaired the panel with contributions from: Maëlle Couillard, Hannah Kaiser, Marie Möllecken and Michelle Seidel. Also featured was Sophie Merle, Professor of Journalism from ESJ Pro University in Montpellier.