Strategic Tour d'Horizon
Media Economics: What applies in sports also applies to the media business: The tighter the margins, the more important strategy becomes. A study compares common business models and is thus breaking new ground.
Media economics What applies to sport also applies to the media business: the narrower the margin, the more important the tactics. A study compares common business models and is thus doing pioneering work: there can never be enough guidance for company captains, especially when the economic winds are dying down and the competition, which is always sailing along within sight, immediately exploits the slightest maneuvering error. For the course strategists of the bobbing media ships, there have so far only been glaring but unreliable buoys, which have been exhausted in market-screaming copycat appeals (à la "The Bertelsmann Method"). In comparison, Insa Sjurts' study, updated against the backdrop of the gloomy mood in the industry, looks like a lighthouse built on a solid scientific foundation. On the one hand, because the Flensburg professor of media management covers all major German and global publishing, radio, TV and Internet companies with her high beam. On the other hand, because she lays a solid conceptual foundation for her beacon.
"Coopetition" on the riseDon't worry: this comparative presentation of "strategies in the media industry" - currently under the microscope due to the recession - is also readable and worth reading for all those who are not (yet) familiar with the "structure-conduct-performance approach". This is because Sjurts plunders the fund of her concept-heavy university prose, but illustrates it throughout with illuminating tables and diagrams.
At the heart of the study are the ten-page portraits of German print and broadcasting companies with market power. The selection of publishing houses sorted according to newspapers (including FAZ, SZ, taz) and magazines (Bauer, Burda, Gruner+Jahr, Milchstrasse et al.) does seem somewhat arbitrary at times. Springer, for example, is present in both categories, while the more experimental Holtzbrinck Group is not mentioned at all.
Overall, however, the overview, first published in 1996, is convincing due to the creation of valid benchmarks in the central areas of strategy (cost leadership or differentiation, core or niche market), behaviour (reactive or innovative, mixed form "coopetition") and internationalization (from regional to global). The corporate policy of private and public radio and TV broadcasters is also analyzed and critically assessed from these perspectives.
It is striking how fundamentally different media companies are from the old economy: While the old economy predominantly relies on unbundling, the new economy is increasingly focusing on diversification. This is a reaction to the blurring of boundaries between media, telecoms and information technology that comes with digitalization. This cross-media trend becomes particularly clear in the second part of the study, which is dedicated to the global players (from AOL Time Warner to Bertelsmann and Disney to Murdoch's News Corp.) in the media market.
Sjurts, who is much quoted in Germany but hardly known here, is not only a serious researcher but also an instinctive educator. There is no other way to explain the numerous bon mots about culture and the founders of individual media companies with which she loosens up her tightly-knit information package. For example, the Bauer publishing group is described as an "icon of the cost squeezer" and Hubert Burda as a patron "who everyone who doesn't want to fall out of favor calls Dr. Burda". Germany's flagship company Bertelsmann, on the other hand, is merely said to be returning to its core business of content packaging and distribution "not entirely without internal resistance". It is a prankster who associates these moderate tones with the fact that Gabler Verlag was still part of the Bertelsmann-Springer specialist publishing group when it went to press.
Which media house will be on the move tomorrow: Insa Sjurts provides the first clues.
Oliver Classen
"Coopetition" on the riseDon't worry: this comparative presentation of "strategies in the media industry" - currently under the microscope due to the recession - is also readable and worth reading for all those who are not (yet) familiar with the "structure-conduct-performance approach". This is because Sjurts plunders the fund of her concept-heavy university prose, but illustrates it throughout with illuminating tables and diagrams.
At the heart of the study are the ten-page portraits of German print and broadcasting companies with market power. The selection of publishing houses sorted according to newspapers (including FAZ, SZ, taz) and magazines (Bauer, Burda, Gruner+Jahr, Milchstrasse et al.) does seem somewhat arbitrary at times. Springer, for example, is present in both categories, while the more experimental Holtzbrinck Group is not mentioned at all.
Overall, however, the overview, first published in 1996, is convincing due to the creation of valid benchmarks in the central areas of strategy (cost leadership or differentiation, core or niche market), behaviour (reactive or innovative, mixed form "coopetition") and internationalization (from regional to global). The corporate policy of private and public radio and TV broadcasters is also analyzed and critically assessed from these perspectives.
It is striking how fundamentally different media companies are from the old economy: While the old economy predominantly relies on unbundling, the new economy is increasingly focusing on diversification. This is a reaction to the blurring of boundaries between media, telecoms and information technology that comes with digitalization. This cross-media trend becomes particularly clear in the second part of the study, which is dedicated to the global players (from AOL Time Warner to Bertelsmann and Disney to Murdoch's News Corp.) in the media market.
Sjurts, who is much quoted in Germany but hardly known here, is not only a serious researcher but also an instinctive educator. There is no other way to explain the numerous bon mots about culture and the founders of individual media companies with which she loosens up her tightly-knit information package. For example, the Bauer publishing group is described as an "icon of the cost squeezer" and Hubert Burda as a patron "who everyone who doesn't want to fall out of favor calls Dr. Burda". Germany's flagship company Bertelsmann, on the other hand, is merely said to be returning to its core business of content packaging and distribution "not entirely without internal resistance". It is a prankster who associates these moderate tones with the fact that Gabler Verlag was still part of the Bertelsmann-Springer specialist publishing group when it went to press.
Which media house will be on the move tomorrow: Insa Sjurts provides the first clues.
Oliver Classen
