Exciting times

Werbewoche: How did you come to the Funke Media Group (formerly WAZ Group)?
Martin Kall: Through contacts. Contact with the owners has come about on various occasions. But that was several years ago.

Why did you give up your position as Chairman of the Funke Media Group?
For Funke, the conclusion of negotiations on the project with Axel Springer is a major step. Both economically and culturally and in terms of the company's prospects. It offers a unique opportunity to become a leading national media company in terms of both content and business. It will accelerate modernization enormously. But it also places demands on the company and requires a corresponding amount of energy. With the time budget I had available, this was inconceivable. That's why I resolved to stick with it until the end. After that, I think it would be irresponsible to manage a company of this size as Chairman of the Supervisory Board with too little time. I am therefore delighted about and for my successor Michael Wüller.

Were you actually the spiritus rector of the takeover?
No. That had already started earlier. It is a great achievement by the shareholders and the management. Together, they have mastered this challenging project very well.

Christian Niehaus, ex-Co-Managing Director of the Funke Group, could have played an important role for the editorial offices of the Hamburger Abendblatt and the Berliner Morgenpost as a former Springer man. Why did he leave Funke?
We are now looking to the future at Funke, repositioning ourselves, and I don't want to "comment" on that any more.

...the WAZ story actually sounds like a thriller...
(smiles) It's not a thriller, but a wonderful entrepreneurial story. After Mrs. Grotkamp decided to buy the Brost family's shares, development accelerated. This created a new, really clear structure and this is being used wisely to move forward for the good of the company. I think that's great.

Am I right in assuming that the cost optimization strategy at the Funke Group's regional newspapers is similar to that at Tamedia - simply one size larger?
Funke has a circulation of around 600,000 in North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as important activities in Braunschweig, Thuringia, Hamburg and Berlin. Tamedia also has a circulation of over 600,000 in various regions of Switzerland. The challenges facing newspaper publishers in Central Europe are very similar. Of course, it's about striking the right balance between consolidation and innovation. On the one hand, we are adapting our structures to the new requirements of the times, but on the other hand we also have to take risks, try out new things and develop digital in parallel in order to become a leader in this area too. The market in Germany is much larger, so the industry is nowhere near as consolidated. In Switzerland, the market share of the two or three largest newspaper publishers is much higher than that of the two or three largest newspaper publishers in Germany.

And now you have brought Rolf Bollmann to the Funke Group...
Good idea, isn't it? (smiles). We were looking for someone who knows the newspaper business from the ground up and has a proven track record of mastering various difficult situations. Bollmann was not only responsible for such an important title as the Tages-Anzeiger at Tamedia, but also made a decisive contribution to consolidating the Zurich newspaper market. He very successfully merged the two major newspapers in Aargau for the Wanner publishing family. And now in Basel he has completely restructured the newspaper company and ultimately saved it. That's one thing. The other is: I hardly know anyone in our industry who has achieved so much in the past 10 or 15 years, including so much innovation. He actually brought 20 Minuten to life, he and his colleagues were the only ones in Europe to forge an association of regional newspapers into a leading national news portal (Newsnet). We were looking for an innovative mind who has a good eye for young talent, but who has also established companies in a healthy and sustainable way. I only made the initial contact. He had to go through all the processes that are rightly required for such an important task. He convinced his colleagues in Germany, otherwise he wouldn't be here now.

Let's change the scene. What are your tasks on the FAZ Supervisory Board?
We are a five-member Supervisory Board. There are two members who are more closely associated with the daily newspaper business, the publisher from Fulda and perhaps myself, although I also have experience in the digital or magazine sector. The Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Karl Dietrich Seikel, comes from the magazine business, but has almost twenty years of experience in the newspaper business as a member of the Board of Directors at Tamedia. In addition, there are two very entrepreneurial personalities who are also very closely associated with the "DNA" of the FAZ and the Fazit Foundation. This board complements each other wonderfully.

The FAZ reported a negative result in 2012. The outlook for 2013 is not rosy either. Where is the journey heading? Are you now taking the development of the online sector more seriously? Compared to its position in the print sector, it has been rather sluggish online to date...
The FAZ aims to be a leading medium in the German-speaking world...

...but it is not yet online...
I wouldn't say that. For example, we have managed to recruit Mathias Müller von Blumencron, a truly proven professional. When it comes to online, you can't just focus on reach. The FAZ newspaper has never had the highest circulation in Germany. That is not our goal at all. Other newspapers may well be. We want to be a leading medium for a very specific target group. We are also doing this - increasingly better - online. But it goes without saying that we can and want to become even better. With FAZ am Sonntag, we have a strong medium that complements the FAZ. Over the past 18 months, the team has not only succeeded in taking Frankfurter Rundschau out of liquidation, but also in positioning it in such a way that it is now healthy for the first time in many years.

This means that the FAZ and its sister company, the Frankfurt office, are very well positioned in one of Europe's strongest regions, the Rhine-Main area. And I don't just mean strong in terms of economic strength, but also in terms of cultural and political strength. However, we now need to develop this further. The new team just started on January 1. You see, even companies that are further ahead in digital, such as the New York Times, Le Monde or Der Spiegel, still have major challenges ahead of them. Just think of the staff changes in all three companies. All media are under extreme pressure today - the pressure is growing enormously. Good harmony between the owners or their representatives, the management and the editorial staff is a decisive strength of companies. Cultivating this and ensuring that it does not lead to mutual paralysis or to individuals being run over is an entrepreneurial challenge. I believe that the companies that manage this better will also adapt more quickly to the new era and ultimately be among the winners. And I see FAZ on this path.

Let's move on to Switzerland. I assume that you also played a key role in the strategy for the PubliGroupe takeover (low offer of CHF 150, purchase of the Tweedy-Brown shares for CHF 190, after Swisscom had already offered CHF 230 million for its 50-% stake in Local.ch alone, purchase of further shares so that Tamedia now holds a 17.6-% stake in Publigroupe). Is that the case?
I would like to make one thing clear: At Tamedia, I have deliberately chosen to join the Board of Directors in a disciplined manner. Leadership lies with the operational managers and the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Acquisitions are VR matters...
Also! And I'm hopefully a good, valuable member of a team. That's important to me, so I can't say much about what and how the strategy is. You would have to ask those who are responsible for it. I really enjoy the whole thing. As Pietro Supino and Christoph Tonini have said, it's a great, unique opportunity to build a strong counterweight to Google. You mentioned the FAZ - if you follow the debate (Schirrmacher's response to Döpfner's open letter to Google regarding its market position) in the FAZ, you will notice - and I believe that this discussion has not yet reached Switzerland enough - that we are grappling with this issue. I see a possible collaboration between Local.ch and Search.ch as an opportunity to ensure that there is at least one Swiss service in this area that can survive in the long term in terms of the quality of service in competition. That's why I think the idea of merging the two companies is absolutely right. We will see what happens next. The chances are there, but you only ever win after ninety minutes - sometimes there's extra time and then a penalty shoot-out. That's what makes football so exciting (laughs).

In December 2012, you said in an interview with Medienwoche that the newspaper crisis would be a thing of the past in a few weeks. That's not the case, the pessimism continues. What can be done about it?
Yes, the crisis! The word used to be associated with living through a certain defined period in which a medium was in crisis. That's why we can no longer talk about a crisis. We are in a process of change that is fascinating. In a certain sense, it is a privilege for someone to be involved in such a process. These are more exciting times for newspaper publishers and media companies than perhaps at any time since Gutenberg triggered a revolution with his printing press. We should rather see this process as an opportunity and get involved, without knowing exactly where it will end up in a new equilibrium.

Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard criticized the lack of ideas in the Swiss media industry at the Swiss Media Forum last week. She mentioned that not a single media project had applied for funding from the CTI (Commission for Technology and Innovation) in recent years? (In retrospect, this statement turned out to be false, as both Tamedia and NZZ have submitted projects to the Commission for Technology and Innovation CTI).
Something is very stable in our society and industry. We are extremely critical of politics and accuse it of being hostile to innovation and helpless. It is only understandable that politicians return the favor. So they accuse the media of similar things. It's almost like a discussion between an old, long-married couple. Both sides would miss something if it weren't for that. I wouldn't get too angry about that. I'm very skeptical about the idea of state funding for media. I believe that innovation is essentially created by the state creating framework conditions in which people can develop and become innovative. Of course, with eight million inhabitants, more than 20 percent foreigners and four languages, Switzerland is not in a position to develop media like in a market with 300 million people. Everything is becoming more and more individualized, more niche-oriented. In some respects, Switzerland is a niche market in terms of size, and you need a certain economy of scale for new technologies. That's why some things are unthinkable in Switzerland. But here, too, it would be good to look beyond the borders. The FAZ rightly discusses the fact that decisive innovations and the monopolization of this sector ultimately originate from a few corporations in the USA and that relatively little has been created in Europe.

When I look at the Swiss media market in comparison, there is a lot to be proud of. For example, we have a fantastically well-developed Sunday market that no other country in Europe has in this form. If you look at the classifieds markets, a company like Jobs.ch or Homegate. ch can compare with any in Europe. Local.ch and Search.ch have also been innovations. Yes, Switzerland has not succeeded in developing Google, but the fact that Google has its most important location outside the USA in Zurich also speaks for the country and its people. Ringier and Tamedia are now among the traditional media groups in Europe with the highest share of digital in total sales. Then there is the regional diversity. The fact that we still have so many regional newspapers, even in very small areas. In Germany, people are debating whether Saarland, with a population of over one million, is still viable at all. People would prefer to merge it with Rhineland-Palatinate. Here, just two cantons have over a million inhabitants and the smallest are around 30,000. Nobody would think of merging them. And they all have their own regional newspapers. That is also innovation. Politicians should certainly recognize that.

Weltwoche media columnist Zimmermann accuses Finanz und Wirtschaft of corporate journalism in its reporting on the Publi- Groupe. Is this gimmickry, profiling or a search for the truth?
When you have to write a column every week for years, sometimes there are fantastic pieces that I read with pleasure and profit, and sometimes all you can really say is that he would have been better off taking a vacation. In this case, a week in the sun would certainly have been better. These conspiracy theories - which, by the way, he rightly pokes fun at in other columns - are simply nonsense. Anyone who knows FuW, Mark Dittli, his team and Tamedia knows that this is simply nonsense. That's all you can say about it. But when you have such great merits as a columnist like Kurt Zimmermann, you can be completely wrong from time to time.

Veit Dengler, the NZZ CEO, said in an interview with Werbewoche that media companies need to develop more in the direction of technology companies. What do you think?
Almost all major newspaper publishers were once printers and therefore have an affinity with technology. This will clearly be a key component in the future too. But technology is only one part. In the media companies I work for, other skills, such as journalism, are still dominant. If I have a strong heart, I'm still not a good runner, I need the muscles to go with it. It's a combination of many things - technology is one of them - but I wouldn't overestimate it.
 
Your statement surprises me. Until now, I've always had the feeling - and it's been said - that you have little interest in the journalistic product.
Tamedia has created many jobs in journalism in the time that I have worked for it - even if some people don't want to believe it. For example, 20 Minuten has expanded enormously by investing so much in online journalism that two very strong news sites have emerged from this company. By preserving the Confederation. Journalism needs a lot of freedom. And not interfering in this can't be wrong in that sense. It can also be a sign of respect for journalism to say that, as a company, we deliberately create framework conditions in which you can develop and expect a high degree of freedom. Now you can say that this is a huge neglect for which I would be responsible, but you can also say, no, he has understood how much creativity and journalism depend on each other and has helped to create the necessary framework conditions.

You've never said that so clearly before!
Well, I have to tell you something new to get you to interview me! I read a newspaper, a magazine, a website, I watch TV: all because of the content. Technology is important, of course. For example, when the thing crashes three times and it's terribly difficult to log in

Dengler means something else. He is thinking of new offers, bundles, etc.
In our industry, many people philosophize about what might be necessary. In the end, the decisive factor is what is available at the editorial deadline, just like in journalism. I think of my dance lessons. When I was 15, some of them used to go to dance lessons and talk to the boys on the bus about who was going to pick up which girl. After the dance lesson, they drove back and talked about who would approach which girl next time. But then there were also a few boys who didn't talk about it at the end or at the beginning, they just did it. We simply need to do more in our industry and talk less about what we should do.

Exactly, and now you can let off steam at the Schweizer Bauer publishing house, which you sold to the current owners at a good price...
You're absolutely right. It's a very good rounding off for me. It's new for me to be "just" an administrator.

You probably have the occasional itch in your board of directors today...
No, no, not that often (laughs). But of course, it's a different role that I had to learn. In that sense, of course, it's a privilege to have such a balance. And then as a co-owner. You can just let off steam and make your own mistakes and stupid things.

Your portfolio is fascinating...
It's really exciting. At Funke, I can see how a large IT department with thousands of users is outsourced and managed with partner companies. At Schweizer Bauer, I ask myself what the new editorial software for our small team will cost, where we will host it and whether we can even afford it. But the unifying factor is that I have the privilege of working with people who are a pleasure to work with. When I got to know the family that owns Funke, that was a decisive reason for my involvement with Funke. But it's also the people who sit on the supervisory board at FAZ and on the board of directors at Tamedia, and at Schweizer Bauer it's the majority owner OGG. The decisive factor for me today is that I work with people who are a pleasure to work with and a win-win situation for both sides. If you can achieve that, then you are also successful as an entrepreneur.

Interview: Pierre C. Meier