RTL Television is holding top positions in many program genres, including shows, news, magazines, sport events, series and TV movies, sitcoms, daily soaps and comedy.

In-house and commissioned productions amount to two third of the channel's overall program and play an important role; such programming has much contributed to the profile of RTL Television. This is the key to the success of RTL Television. In addition, RTL has successful sport events like formula one or boxing. Also, RTL aired blockbusters like "Miami Vice" or "The Day After Tomorrow" and most popular US-series like "CSI: Miami", "House M.D.", "Monk" or "Prison Break".

RTL Television is also setting standards in news and magazines. Its main news program “RTL aktuell” improved its lead among the younger viewers. RTL anchorman Peter Kloeppel collected several awards for his reporting on the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Other news programs such as “Punkt 12” and “RTL Nachtjournal” were also ahead of the competition.

An efficient network of subsidiaries

Today, RTL Television is much more than a television channel: Founded in 1984, the broadcaster has evolved into a corporate group with numerous subsidiaries and joint ventures related to its core business of television. They include for example the broadcaster VOX, the newschannel n-tv and RTL interactive, responsible for diversification and digital activities. Shareholdings of the RTL Group in RTL II and Super RTL are also administered by the group headquarters in Cologne.

The regional subsidiaries RTL NORD, Tele West and RTL Hessen produce local broadcasts for the “Guten Abend RTL” slot and provide reports for RTL news programmes. Additional important participations and joint ventures include the RTL school for journalists, CBC, S4M Solutions for Media, a systems and consulting company for the media industry, and the production companies Norddeich TV and Action Concept.