Premium content will still rule the future of screens, that's one pattern connecting all TV companies. "The industry is pregnant with change, although it will take more than nine months for it to happen," said Ynon Kreiz, Chairman of online video production company Maker Studios.

Components of future TV are social and interactive, Lisa Donovan as Co-Founder and General Manager of Maker Studios has figured out. Her vision has helped Maker achieve over 5 billion views online per month across its now 10,000+ channels. It's crucial to be part studio and part network.

Hubert Burda in the audience nods approvingly. His wife and actress, Maria Furtwängler, has been a huge fan of Lisa Donovan in the past, and declared the Maker Studios model as one to be watched.

A secret to success is bridging online and linear TV, through partnering or adapting to new technologies.

"We need to closely work together, linear TV and pay TV" all stitched together by Internet access, argued Lutz Schüler, CEO of Unitymedia KabelBW. Customers soon will only have to think about their interests like Formula1 for instance which will be available on all technology platforms and different content forms like games and chats.

Targeted media is what it will lead towards, Samir Arora as Chairman and CEO of Glam Media is convinced. At the moment, customers get highly annoyed by ads online: "If you just bought a car, you don't want car ads." In the future you will like advertising.

In that regard, linear TV will stay for a long time, Chief Digital and Adjacent Officer at Germany's ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, Christian Wegner, is sure about. At least, as long as the model of national ad TV (Wegner) and the cable by subscription model (represented by Schüler) are working together in a strategic partnership. Together they intend to enhance the customer experience.

It's still the case that 185 hours in prime time on US mayor networks generated 67% of revenues vs. 5300 hours of digital content that generated 7% of revenues. "That's frustating!" said Lisa Donovan.

These two German companies mentioned here may not be in a competition but others, like Glam Media with 75.000 websites and Maker Studios with professional artists with 25 mio. views per video, theoretically could be shaking up their market dominance if they were offering their content in the same countries. German versions of Glam and Maker must be just around the corner.

It must be this combination of professional premium content and their implementation into the social and mobile sphere. "It will take a moment in time when people realize that digital content is considered premium, and then money will flow quickly," Samir Arora added. That's the huge different between print and TV business, he argued, "digital is not an extension of print as a medium, but for TV it is!"

This article was written for DLD Media and first published 21/01/13 on dld-conference.com. Click here for the link. The #DLD13 conference live coverage also included sending out Tweets about every session, interacting with the audience, interviewing speakers and posting highlights on Facebook.