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Heinrich Bauer: Overview

Table of contents 
  1. Overview
    1. Introduction
    2. Shape
    3. Kirch
    4. Studies

Overview

This profile considers the Heinrich Bauer media group.


It covers -

  • introduction
  • shape
  • Kirch
  • studies

Introduction

Hamburg-based Heinrich Bauer Verlag, founded in 1875, is one of Europe's largest consumer magazine publishers, with some 82 titles worldwide. It also publishes television guides and puzzle titles. Most imprints are lucrative but editorially undistinguished.

Bauer has around 10.2% of German magazine sales by volume, with around 31 titles. As of 2002 its turnover was around €1.78 billion.

It gained attention outside Europe in 2002 with an unsuccessful bid for the Kirch television and film group. It has been moving into eastern Europe, like competitors such as Axel Springer and Ringier.

Shape

The group is best known for its German and UK television listings guides, which boast some of the largest EU magazine circulation figures, for kids magazines and for adult titles (which formerly included the German edition of Playboy). Major titles are Auf einen Blick, TV Movie and TV Hören und Sehen with around half of the German television listings market. It publishes general interest, culinary, automobile, mens, teenage and home magazines in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. These include Bravo, Tina, Neue Post, Geldidee!, Auto Zeitung and Das Neue Blatt.

It expanded into the UK, France and US in the 1980s. Titles include Real, TV Quick, That's Life!, Bella and Take a Break. Bauer has expanded into the US, with six titles. It has four titles in France, seven in Spain and one in Portugal.

Bauer's eastern European presence includes 12 titles in its Poland, four in Hungary (through a joint venture with Ringier) and two in Romania. The Czech Chvilka Pro Tebe is promoted as

a magazine for competitive readers, featuring crosswords on every page with the opportunity to win attractive prizes of up to CZK 250,000 and a car.

Bauer holds 25% of Radio Hamburg. It has a 32.2% stake in RTL2, the German sister channel of commercial television broadcaster RTL.

Kirch

The Kirch group encompassed film/video production and distribution, cable television and global rights trading (notably though a US$1.54 billion Formula 1 deal). It operated five free-to-air television channels in Germany (SAT.1, ProSieben, Kabel 1, Deutsches SportFernsehen DSF and the news channel N24) and had stakes in Berlusconi-controlled Telecinco (Spain) and Mediaset (Italy). Its feature film, TV film, series, sport and documentary library contained around 63,000 hours of fiction footage.

In February 2002 Kirch's pay tv arm Premiere was reported as losing £1m per day, with upcoming expenditure of £1.8bn in film deals and programming costs over four years to 2006 plus rights for the German football league costing a further £336m up to 2004. Overall group indebtedness was around £5.3 billion. Murdoch-controlled BSkyB had exercised a put option, requiring Kirch to buy back its 22% of Premiere (acquired 1999) for £1.1 billion.

During mid 2002 the money - or merely the patience of its bankers and partners such as Murdoch - ran out. Kirch PayTV announced its insolvency in April, followed by parent KirchMedia and other units.

In November 2002 Bauer announced an 'in principle' agreement by major German to take over much of Kirch's operations. Given opposition by regulators that takeover did not, however, proceed.

Saban gained control of ProSiebenSat and other assets for £915m in August 2003. Deutsche Bank gained Kirch's 40% stake in Axel Springer at that time for US$653 million (in lieu of an outstanding US$725 million loan to Kirch).

Studies

There are no major English-language studies of Bauer.

Mit Politik und Porno: Pressefreiheit als Geschäft belegt am Heinrich Bauer Verlag (Cologne: Bund Verlag 1984) by Hans Dieter Baroth, Erdmute Beha & Henryk Broder offers a dour view of Bauer.

The regulatory environment is analysed in Peter Humphreys' Media and Media Policy in Germany: Press & Broadcasting since 1945 (Oxford: Berg 1994) and Pluralism, Politics & the Marketplace: the Regulation of German Broadcasting (London: Routledge 1991) by Vincent Porter & Suzanne Hasselbach.