The cultural and creative industries have evolved into a forward-looking sector with high growth and employment potential. The German Bundestag’s Commission of Enquiry on Culture in Germany categorized the following industries as part of the cultural economy in the narrower sense: the music and theatre business, publishing, the art market, film, broadcasting, architecture and design. The creative industries also include the advertising, software and video games sectors. If you add together the turnovers of all these industries, Germany’s creative economy now achieves almost the same gross domestic product as the car industry. More than 800,000 people work in creative occupations.
Music and Theatre
Germany’s music and theatre landscape is extremely vibrant and rich – not least as a result of the autonomy of the 16 Länder in cultural matters. Some 130 professional orchestras and more than 300 theatres as well as numerous festivals guarantee great diversity and high standards. The rock and pop music scene is also very active and bands like Tokio Hotel and Wir Sind Helden have large numbers of fans outside Germany.
Film
German film productions have celebrated major successes in the last few years, a fact demonstrated by two recent Oscars as well as prizes at international film festivals. German feature films’ market share in domestic cinemas has risen from 7 to 25 %. Directors like Fatih Akin, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Tom Tykwer, Caroline Link and Doris Dörrie are attracting large numbers of cinemagoers.
Art Market
The new generation of artists has made the German contemporary art scene internationally known. Five thousand artists live and work in Berlin alone, which is considered Europe’s largest gallery centre with some 380 galleries. Germany leads in Europe with 17 different art fairs, including Art Cologne, one of the most important events of its kind on the international art market.
Advertising
Measured in terms of advertising investment, the advertising business in Germany – whether on television, in newspapers or on the Web – is worth more than 30 billion euros. Roughly 185,000 people work in the advertising industry proper – for example, in advertising agencies and media enterprises. The agencies are mainly concentrated in large cities like Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin.
Design and Architecture
Germany has a tradition of "good design". However, the simplicity of the Bauhaus avant-garde has today given way to a diversity of styles and possibilities. Design from Germany – whether in fashion or the field of product design – is innovative, intelligent, bold and stunning. When it comes to architecture, one area in which Germany has developed special expertise has become a major export success: environmentally friendly building techniques that help preserve natural resources.
Media and Publishing
The German media landscape is being transformed by the Internet. More than half of all German households have a broadband Internet connection and the .de top-level domain is one of the biggest there is. Despite the strong impetus for change arising from the Internet and the new crossmedia orientation of the media, Germany remains a country of book and newspaper readers. Publishers put some 95,000 books on the market and sell nearly 9,000 licences abroad every year. The book fairs in Leipzig and Frankfurt are important industry meeting places. Overall, the range of media is extremely diverse – with 350 daily newspapers, 2,300 periodicals, 460 radio stations, more than 200 television stations and just under 500 online services. Sixty thousand men and women work full-time in journalism.
Software/Games
The "creative class" also includes IT specialists and video game developers. After all, the software industry is also thriving on a constant stream of innovation and its turnover totals 23 billion euros a year. Germany is home to SAP, |Europe’s largest and the world’s fourth largest software company. Increasing importance is accruing to the interactive entertainment industry, which already achieves sales more than twice as high as those of German cinemas. A cluster of games developers is concentrated in and around Berlin.
