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COLOGNE, Germany — Anke Schaferkordt, the co-CEO of RTL Group, Europe’s leading broadcast company and owner of American Idol producer FremantleMedia, will receive the 2013 International Emmy Directorate Award.
She will be honored at this year’s International Emmys on Nov. 25 in New York.
The Directorate Award is one of the two career honors being handed out at the gala; the other is the Founders Award, which will be presented to J.J. Abrams.
Schaferkordt first joined RTL’s German network RTL Television in 1991 and rose through the ranks to eventually become CEO of RTL’s German operations, Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, in 2005.
Last April, she was named co-CEO of parent company RTL Group, which operates 53 television and 28 radio channels across 10 countries. She has retained her role as CEO of RTL Deutschland and also is a member of the executive board of media giant Bertelsmann, RTL Group’s majority shareholder.
Schaferkordt has driven continued growth at RTL — group revenue hit a record $7.9 billion (€6 billion) last year — through a combination of long-term strategic planning, tight cost control and an obvious passion for television programming.
Schaferkordt was famously the first international television buyer to see the potential in the CSI franchise. The long-running crime procedural has been a major moneymaker across RTL’s European networks ever since.
“Anke Schaferkordt has been a driving force behind RTL’s growth — both in Germany, Europe’s largest and most competitive television market, and since 2012 across the Group’s worldwide operations,” said Bruce Paisner, president and CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. “Her passion for programming, combined with a long-view strategic approach, make her an outstanding leader in the international TV industry. We look forward to adding her name to the very distinguished roster of recipients of the academy’s Directorate Award.”
Schaferkordt said she was “deeply honored” by the announcement and noted that the TV business was in a state of transformation to adapt to the digital world “while keeping our focus on the core of what we do: producing the best content to entertain and inform our audiences.” She thanked the International Television Academy and her “dedicated team of first-class TV entrepreneurs.”
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