Newspaper death

The newspaper crisis or the death of newspapers are key words for various phenomena in the history of the press. Sometimes a partial exit of the publishers for newspapers and magazines from the market of print media , but on the other hand also an increasing monopoly of the press, especially with daily newspapers, is understood.

Factors in the print media are falling sales and falling advertising revenues. A theory called Riepl's law is also discussed in this context .

Situation in Germany

While the total circulation of daily newspapers (daily number) in 1983 was a high of 30.1 million (accumulated for the FRG and the GDR ), in 1991 27.3 million copies, in 2018 it was 13.5 million. The losses were evident in both subscription and retail sales. The editions of e-papers are increasing . In particular, the daily newspapers are losing their shares among younger buyer groups. However, the growth in the digital media business masks the decline in paper spending

Concept history

Many comments and reports take individual events, but also theses on economic development, as an opportunity to look at the death of newspapers, the newspaper crisis and the problems of print media against the background of the rapid spread of the Internet .

1991

The sales decisions of the Treuhandanstalt in April 1991 led to the “Leipziger Zeitungssterben” until the beginning of 1992.

2009

The year 2009 was marked by a severe recession in many industrialized countries . The 2007 financial crisis had a long-term impact on the real economy . Newspaper publishers also felt the effects of this recession. During the economic crisis between 2007 and 2009, the global advertising market collapsed by 44 billion euros.

2010

In September 2010, decided German Bishops' Conference as a co-partner setting the weekly newspaper Rheinischer Merkur as an independent newspaper and the liquidation of the Rheinischer Merkur GmbH (CEO: Bert G. Wegener). Most recently, the newspaper made a loss in the single-digit million range every year.

2012

In November 2012, the reported Frankfurter Rundschau the bankruptcy of. It was taken over by the publishing house Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Frankfurter Societät and Karl-Gerold-Stiftung in order to ensure continued operation.

El País had to lay off a third of the workforce in October 2012.

The supervisory board of the Financial Times Deutschland - it has made a total of around 250 million euros in losses in the 12 years since its foundation - decided to stop the issue. The last issue was published on December 7, 2012.

The US political weekly Newsweek ceased its print edition in December 2012 and has only appeared online since then.

2013

In January 2013, the WAZ media group announced that it would completely close the editorial office of the Westfälische Rundschau on February 1, 2013.

The Washington Post was sold to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for $ 250 million in early August 2013 . The public response was great; Many comments took the transaction as an opportunity to look at the die-off of newspapers, the newspaper crisis and the problems of print media against the background of the rapid spread of the Internet and mobile Internet (smartphones).

In August 2013 it became known: Axel Springer AG sold Berliner Morgenpost , Hamburger Abendblatt , Hörzu and other media for 920 million euros to the Funke media group in Essen. The handover took place on January 1, 2014.

2014

In March 2014, the evening newspaper from Munich filed for bankruptcy. It was taken over by the Straubinger Tagblatt / Landshuter Zeitung media group in July 2014 and has been printed in Straubing since then.

2019

In 2019, the DuMont media group sold the Berliner Verlag , which publishes the Berliner Zeitung and the Berliner Kurier , among others . The printing of the daily newspaper Die Welt Kompakt and the Hamburg local section of the daily newspaper Die Welt was discontinued by Axel Springer Verlag on December 31, 2019. In addition, the world sports division was discontinued at the end of 2019. In November 2019 it became known that the German federal government was planning measures to counter the increasing “press concentration”.