PCM Uitgevers Group

Overview

This profile considers the PCM Uitgevers group.

It covers -

• introduction
• structure
• studies

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.