Munich - The annual "Medientage Munich 2008" kicked off Wednesday in the Bavarian capital with the country's top media executives focusing on their rapidly changing industry and its impact on the entertainment industry and society.

Under the motto "Media Summit: The World of Advertising is Changing - Value and Effectiveness in the Glut of Digital Media," top-level managers and over 600 experts at the three-day congress were set to take part in some 90 panels to review trends and developments, backgrounded by the current financial situation.

Wolf-Dieter Ring, president of the Bavarian state center for new media, greeted the executives at the so-called "elephant round," which draws together virtually all leading figures in the industry.

Highlighting the top-calibre array of executives, the keynote speaker was James Murdoch, chairman and CEO of the London-based News Corporation, Europe and Asia, and son of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

After Ring outlined a general review of the problems facing the industry, including digitalization, the Internet and the effects of Google on the industry, Eberhard Sinner, Bavarian Minister of State, took to the podium for the opening speech.

Sinner backed Ring's remarks on the economic components of broadcasting, but stressed that "television and telemedia should not be reduced only to the function as a profitable investment.

"We should never become tired of stressing the character of cultural goods and social authority. At a time of economic crisis, these functions take on greater significance," he said, and argued that competition in the media market was the key to many things worth aiming for in media policy, leading to economic success.

Murdoch, in his keynote speech titled "Enduring values and new challenges: doing business in the digital age," argued that "straightaway we need to change that defensive mindset - even in today's climate of uncertainty, when we know we are going to have to live through some very harsh economic weather."

But unlike a flood, he stressed: "It hasn't swept away everthing that we knew. Values, tools, rules, whatever you like to call them - they survive. And so do the companies that apply them, of the values of customer focus, of challenging the established order, and of trying to be a better business."

In the following panel discussion, Helmut Marquart, Chief editor of the weekly news magazine Focus, presided with his usual wit and knowledge of media affairs.

The panel was taking place in an "atmosphere of a financial crisis and a crisis of quality," he said, after recent widepsread criticism of German television, which would be basic themes of the discussion.

He noted that two new members to the round that been added, marketing expert Bernd M. Michael and Google representative Philipp Schindler, both could contribute their special knowledge to the round, including the effects Google has on the print and TV sectors.

Others in the round were Andreas Bartl, managing director of ProSiebenSat. 1 group, publisher Hubert Burda, Juergen Doetz, president of the Association of Private Broadcasters, Thomas Gruber, managing director of the public broadcaster BR, Herbert Kloiber, head of the Tele Muenchen group, Fritz Raff and Markus Schaefter, heads of the public networks ARD and ZDF, and Anke Schaeferkordt, managing director of the media group RTL Deutschland. (dpa)