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overview
holdings
landmarks
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overview
Germany's Axel Springer group is a major EU magazine and
newspaper publisher with book, film production and internet
interests.
This page covers -
The
group is unrelated to the global professional and science
publisher Springer Science+Business
Media, formerly Springer-Verlag and BertelsmannSpringer.
That group was owned by Bertelsmann
until 2003 and is described in Sarkowski and Götze's
two volume Springer-Verlag: History of a Scientific
Publishing House (Berlin: Springer 1996).
 the
group
Springer is currently the largest newspaper publisher
in Germany, with over 180 newspapers and magazines, and
has been expanding into eastern and southern Europe.
During the late 1960s it was responsible for 40% of all
West German newspapers, 80% of regional newspapers, 90%
of Sunday newspapers, 50% of weekly periodicals and two
thirds of the papers bought in major German cities.
In 1999 its share of the German
market in terms of circulation was 23.7%, trailed by Bertelsmann-controlled
Gruner+Jahr at 3.4%, the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
(WAZ) group at 5.9% and the Stuttgarter
Zeitung group at 5%. It is perhaps most famous for Bild
Zeitung, Germany's highest-circulation paper, distinguished
by an intrusiveness that has extended to ransacking the
apartment of alleged criminals and headlines such as the
9 December 1985 'Sweetheart Beheaded, Cooked & Tinned
in 39 Pieces'.
Springer is also a major book publisher, has seven radio
stations and had a major stake in Kirch's television units
(SAT.1., Kabel 1 and N24).
As of 2001 it was 40% owned by the now moribund Kirch
group, subsequently clawing back that holding. In September
2002 it was reported to be considering a merger with Ringier
but remained independent. It did not proceed with a bid
for Hollinger International's UK print holdings (eg the
Daily Telegraph) in 2004 after the departure
of Conrad Black from that group.
An attempted €2.5bn takeover of broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1
in 2007 failed after rejection by German competition officials.
In 2000 annual sales were over 5 billion marks; at that
time it had around 14,000 staff.
The Axel Springer corporate site is here.
Our chronology of the group's development is here.
background
Axel Springer was born into a provincial newspaper
publishing family. His break came with authorisation from
the British military government of Hamburg to open a newspaper
in 1946. He went on to launch and acquire a string of
papers - most resolutely anti-intellectual, in line with
his comment that too much reflection was bad for Germans
- and magazines characterised by entertainment and conservative
politics.
Springer came to be characterised as Germany's leading
Cold Warrior - swift to denounce those who questioned
the economic miracle of the fifties and sixties - and
then as something of a dinosaur.
Towards the end of his life he expanded into book publishing,
notably through acquisition of what was left of the Ullstein
group, and dabbled in television production and broadcasting.
The latter attracted the interest of Leo Kirch,
who joined with Burda family members
in an unsuccessful takeover after Axel Springer's death.
Kirch at its peak had around 40% of Springer's equity
(subsequently acquired by the Springer family and associates).
expansion
into broadcasting
In 2005 Springer announced that it would pay €2.5
billion for control of ProSiebenSat, Germany's dominant
commercial broadcaster, formerly part of the Kirch group.
Springer had a 11.8% stake in ProSieben as of 2004. The
deal for acquisition of Haim Saban's
stake was expected to give it 100% of the broadcaster's
voting shares and 25% of the preferred shares, with Saban's
P7S1 Holding group gaining a 2.4% stake in Springer.
The takeover was abandoned in 2006 after opposition by
German competition regulators. Axel Springer announced
in December 2007 that it would sell its stake in ProSiebenSat.1
to the company's private equity owners for €509m
(£365m).
In 2006 Axel Springer acquired the Zurich-based Jean Frey
media group, including Bilanz business magazine,
consumer advice paper Beobachter and tv program
magazine TV-Star. Frey had been owned by a group
of investors led by corporate raider Tito Tettamanti,
reportedly concerned to stop the "leftist" Tamedia
and Ringier from acquiring Frey's
flagship Weltwoche (which went to an MBO rather than Springer).
Springer had already acquired the Handelszeitung
and Stock financial papers, along with the TV
Digital guide.
studies
There have been numerous studies of Axel Springer and
Springer journalism in Germany but only one major English-language
work - the very dated Press Power: A Study of Axel
Springer (London: Macdonald 1969) by Hans Dieter Muller.
Gudrun Kruip's 38 page Restricted Support: The Role
of the Axel Springer Verlag in the process of Westernization
(PDF)
and Die Herren Journalisten: Die Elite der deutschen
Presse nach 1945 (Munich: Beck 2002) by Lutz Hachmeister
& Friedemann Siering offers insights into the man
and milieu.
His lasting monument, like Hearst
and Citizen Kane, is likely to be attacks in the
fiction of Heinrich Böll, notably the biting 1974 Die
Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (The Lost Honor
of Katharina Blum) about Springer's tabloid Bild
and 1979 Fursorgliche Belagerung (The Safety
Net).
The 1998 EU Audiovisual & Telecommunications Institute
paper (PDF)
describes Springer's unsuccessful move into cable and
digital television.
For Ullstein see works highlighted in the separate
profile on that group, such as Oron Hale's The Captive
Press in the Third Reich (Princeton: Princeton Uni
Press 1964), Lynda King's Best-sellers By Design: Vicki
Baum and the house of Ullstein (Gary: Wayne State
Uni Press 1988) and Hermann Ullstein's The Rise &
Fall of the House of Ullstein (New York: Simon &
Schuster 1943).
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