Mediasteak – the “fillets” of television
Good ideas from Germany. The young portal Mediasteak recommends the best from media libraries. A short interview with its founders Laura Pohl und Anne Krüger.
How did you get the idea of developing Mediasteak and the “Best of the Media Libraries”?
Anne Krüger: It was in 2012 while I was studying at the Berlin University of the Arts. When once again the tiresome discussion came up about how bad German television is, I called out: “I love watching TV!” and counted off the great documentaries and films I’d seen at the media libraries alone in the past week. A friend suggested I should share the tips in a blog. Because now fewer and fewer people want to watch linear TV – and who has the time and the desire to click through all the media libraries? We’ve been running Mediasteak since 2013, and thanks to the nomination for the Grimme Online award and the 2014 Lead Award we soon got a lot of media attention.
What criteria do you use to choose your “fillets”, and how does Mediasteak differ from similar services on the Net?
Anne Krüger: To begin with, the subject has to interest us or be important for us at the moment. These are often very personal preferences. If the piece is then also filmed well, exciting and worth viewing, it becomes a fillet.
Laura Pohl: Sometimes we’re also made aware of a documentary by broadcasters or users, or have seen the film before at the cinema or at the Berlinale. The themes that interest us most are pop culture, subcultures and politics. This range covers the tastes of our fairly demanding public. Mediasteak differs from similar services because of its personal curation. We watch everything we recommend and write our own texts about the video.
Dream job: binge-watching. What does a working day look like at Mediasteak?
Anne Krüger: As soon as we get to the office in the morning, we coordinate things at an editorial meeting and decide who watches which documentary and handles it as a “filet”, our name for our recommendations. In addition to viewing video content, we produce our “Best-Of Film Lists” for our partners, work on our app, which we’ve developed for Apple TV, and prepare film events. Actually, we never watch the documentaries and films during working hours but only in the evening or at home in the mornings.
Laura Pohl: We search the media libraries of the broadcasters and other video platforms every day to see what’s new. That we ourselves watch our recommendations is absolutely important to us. Because, for one thing, they interest us, and for another it’s only in this way that we can get the quality we’re aiming at. So we binge-watch a lot. It’s our job and it’s our passion!
Most popular posts on Mediasteak (February 2017)
- Documentary: Wer ist Donald Trump: www.mediasteak.com/wer-ist-donald-trump-arte
- Satirical videos on America First, XY Second: www.mediasteak.com/everysecondcounts
- New York Times video on people jumping from a 10-metres high tower: www.mediasteak.com/ten-meter-tower
- Swansea Love Story, documentary about the heroin epidemic in a city in Wales. www.mediasteak.com/swansea-love-story-teenage-heroin-epidemic-vice
- Louis Theroux – Im Tal der Pornos (Louis Theroux: Twilight of the Porn Stars), very popular documentary on the changes in the porno business. www.mediasteak.com/louis-theroux-does-porn
