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overview
holdings
chronology
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overview
This profile considers the PCM Uitgevers group.
It covers -
introduction
PCM Uitgevers (PCM Publishers) is the third-largest newspaper
and magazine publisher in the Netherlands,
with substantial book publishing interests. Like Wegener
and De Telegraaf most revenue
comes from the Dutch market. Employment is around 3,600
people, down from 5,000 in the early 1990s.
PCM was formed through the 1995 merger of Perscombinatie
(which had acquired book publisher Meulenhoff & Co
in 1994) with newspaper publisher de Nederlandse Dagbladunie.
The Nederlandse Dagbladunie newspaper group was
acquired from Reed-Elsevier
in 1995.
Until 2004 the group was controlled by foundations - the
Foundation for Democracy & Media, De Volkskrant Foundation
and the Foundation for the Promotion of the Christian
Press in the Netherlands - and commercial investors, notably
the Aegon insurance giant and the ING bank (the organisation's
major creditor). Foundation involvement reflected the
Christian Democratic and Social Democratic party origins
of several of the papers, consistent with the 'pillarisation'
of Dutch society that saw most organisations formally
or unofficially affiliated with one of the four pillars
(Roman Catholic, Protestant, Socialist or Liberal). De-pillarisation
from the early seventies resulted in a realignment of
some newspapers and magazines, with accompanying declines
in market share. PCM has been recurrently criticised,
for example, for apparently supporting ailing sheets such
as het Parool with profits from de Volkskrant.
In 2004 a majority stake in PCM was sold to UK private
equity firm Apax Partners. The sale was characterised
as providing opportunities for the Foundation and investors
to unlock capital and for PCM to gain additional funding
to expand its book publishing operations and thereby reduce
dependence on newspaper publishing amid severe declines
in Dutch newspaper readership figures.
structure
PCM owns five of the six national daily newspapers and
three major regional dailies.
PCM's nationals
are de Volkskrant, Algemeen Dagblad, Trouw,
NRC Handelsblad (combining de Nieuwe Rotterdamse
Courant and het Algemeen Handelsblad) and het
Parool in Amsterdam.
De Volkskrant was launched in 1921 as a morning
newspaper for Roman Catholic workers. It historically
had strong links with the church's trade union movement.
Algemeen Dagblad, a national morning daily, was
established in 1946. Trouw was launched as an
underground resistance sheet in 1943 and originally was
strongly targetted at a Reformed Church readership, the
other side of the confessional divide to de Volkskrant.
NRC Handelsblad, an up-market evening newspaper,
was formed in 1970 through the merger of the Nieuwe
Rotterdamse Courant (established in 1844) and the
Algemeen Handelsblad that dated from 1828. het
Parool originated as a resistance sheet, aligned
with the socialist party, and has faced problems with
de-pillarisation as it has sought to emphasise local content
in competition with Wegener and other titles.
PCM
regional papers include the Rotterdams Dagblad,
de Dordtenaar and de Rijn en Gouwe.
Rotterdams Dagblad reflects the 1991 merger of the
Rotterdam Het Vrije Volk (founded 1900) and Nieuwsblad
(launched 1878).
studies
There are no major English-language studies of PCM. Background
is provided by Adrian Lijphart's The Politics of Accommodation
- Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley:
Uni of California Press 1968) and 2002 paper A network
analysis of Dutch mass media concentration (PDF)
by Meindert Fennema & Eelke Heemskerk.
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