Zodiak to make Australian and German moves

Zodiak Media Group plans to add German and Australian production outposts to the existing group structure.

With the various RDF Media and Zodiak brands in the enlarged group, the company comprises about 50 traditional and digital production entities across 20 countries. But it does not have units in Australia and Germany.

“Germany is an exception and we will look to address that over the next twelve months,” said  David Frank, Zodiak Media Group CEO (pictured). “We will address Australia too. It’s all about value for money, but we are contemplating a couple of acquisitions of existing businesses. In Germany it might be a start-up or an acquisition. If it’s an acquisition it will be a small or mid-sized, rather than big, company.” These deals will be important, albeit not huge. “I don’t see us doing a transformative acquisition in the near future because we don’t need to,” Frank said.

He added that a research and development unit will be created as Zodiak attempts to steal a march on the competition by understanding audiences better.

“As producers we spend a lot of time dreaming up ideas in isolation and we need to look more closely at consumer trends and choices. That’s how Secret Millionaire came about. We will add an R&D element to group HQ.” Across the group, there will be double-digit growth in net profit this year, Frank predicted. He will be giving the keynote address at this year’s MIP TV.