Riepl speculators
It’s worth noting that the stock campaign against the Zürcher Oberländer is not a provincial farce, but a sign of the times: The newspaper business is becoming tougher, more devious, or simply more capitalist.
Column The share campaign against the Zürcher Oberländer is not a provincial farce, but a sign of the times: In 1913, a certain Wolfgang Riepl, later editor-in-chief of Nuremberg's largest newspaper for many years, wrote a doctoral thesis on the history of the news business from antiquity to his time. As a rule, dissertations are long forgotten after 91 years. Not so Riepl's. Even today we still quote "Riepl's law", which essentially states that new media never replace old media, although its validity has recently been called into question: The business model, indeed the genre of the daily newspaper, seemed to be threatened by the Internet as much as by free newspapers. The all-clear can still not be given. The Swedish mother of all commuter newspapers has now spread like an oil slick: Metro currently prints around 5 million newspapers a day in 38 editions, 100 cities and 16 countries from New York to Hong Kong, from Prague to Milan. The company describes itself as the fourth-largest newspaper group in the world, a claim that is open to debate. There is no doubt, however, that the Swedes are on their way to becoming the McDonald's of print media.
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In Switzerland, we know that this development does not necessarily threaten the established newspapers. According to the Wemf study, the distribution newspaper 20 Minuten has 78,000 readers. But even Blick - with 736,000 readers - has slightly more readers despite this competition and despite the price increase. The free paper has therefore evidently attracted many thousands of young people who had previously abstained from reading newspapers. Even if this is ultimately a victory story, it should not be proclaimed too loudly: Because although people obviously want to read Blick and other paid-for newspapers, many of them no longer want to pay for them.
There is also optimistic news from the Internet front. The loss of print ads in favor of online ads slowed down considerably in 2004. Newspaper advertising losses are currently hovering around minus 65 percent in the job market and minus 45 percent in the real estate and automotive market. At the same time, the economy is improving. Bruce Chizen, CEO of software company Adobe, recently even spoke of the "end of the recession in the advertising industry". Chizen may be a little too quick to extrapolate the US trend to the rest of the world. But in general, he is right. So can we rely on old Riepl after all?
My answer to this is a firm yes and no. The Zürcher Oberländer, one of the remaining regional newspapers, shows just how tough and unpredictable business is today. The unlisted AG, where only registered shares with restricted transferability have voting rights, is facing a campaign in which an agency is buying out its shareholders. This agency already owns 35 percent of the shares. Older shareholders in particular have given in to the speculator offering a multiple of the share price. And neither the NZZ Group nor Tamedia is behind this. Someone is acting on his own account. Someone who is investing heavily because he is obviously convinced that a takeover of the (quite solidly operating) Oberländer is imminent and that a hefty profit can be made on this opportunity. Crass media capitalism in the Swiss provinces: this shows how the situation has changed.
Conclusion: Good newspaper companies will be able to survive, but only by constantly fighting for new ideas and new business models. For decades, publishers in many European countries were able to specialize in golf; the money still flowed. Those days are irrevocably over.
> Peter Glotz is Professor of Communication and Media Management at the University of St. Gallen.
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In Switzerland, we know that this development does not necessarily threaten the established newspapers. According to the Wemf study, the distribution newspaper 20 Minuten has 78,000 readers. But even Blick - with 736,000 readers - has slightly more readers despite this competition and despite the price increase. The free paper has therefore evidently attracted many thousands of young people who had previously abstained from reading newspapers. Even if this is ultimately a victory story, it should not be proclaimed too loudly: Because although people obviously want to read Blick and other paid-for newspapers, many of them no longer want to pay for them.
There is also optimistic news from the Internet front. The loss of print ads in favor of online ads slowed down considerably in 2004. Newspaper advertising losses are currently hovering around minus 65 percent in the job market and minus 45 percent in the real estate and automotive market. At the same time, the economy is improving. Bruce Chizen, CEO of software company Adobe, recently even spoke of the "end of the recession in the advertising industry". Chizen may be a little too quick to extrapolate the US trend to the rest of the world. But in general, he is right. So can we rely on old Riepl after all?
My answer to this is a firm yes and no. The Zürcher Oberländer, one of the remaining regional newspapers, shows just how tough and unpredictable business is today. The unlisted AG, where only registered shares with restricted transferability have voting rights, is facing a campaign in which an agency is buying out its shareholders. This agency already owns 35 percent of the shares. Older shareholders in particular have given in to the speculator offering a multiple of the share price. And neither the NZZ Group nor Tamedia is behind this. Someone is acting on his own account. Someone who is investing heavily because he is obviously convinced that a takeover of the (quite solidly operating) Oberländer is imminent and that a hefty profit can be made on this opportunity. Crass media capitalism in the Swiss provinces: this shows how the situation has changed.
Conclusion: Good newspaper companies will be able to survive, but only by constantly fighting for new ideas and new business models. For decades, publishers in many European countries were able to specialize in golf; the money still flowed. Those days are irrevocably over.
> Peter Glotz is Professor of Communication and Media Management at the University of St. Gallen.
