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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
In due course the Germans followed the strategy of centralization (Bajka, 1998).
Passauer built its headquarter in Warsaw and started managing regional titles as
branches of Polskapresse, representative of Verlagsgruppe Passau. Cira (2000),
bringing back classical work of Ansoff (1965), noticed that the company used several
widely known business strategies. Firstly, horizontal diversification - buying the same
type of media, namely regional dailies. Secondly, vertical diversification through
establishing printing houses and trying to create a network of distribution. Finally,
although in the meanwhile, Passauer concentrated its managing structure and
established a media broker.
For almost two decades of presence in Poland, German investor applied various
modes of business operations. Settling in the capital of the chosen region Passauer
tried to take over the biggest newspaper, which seemed to be a very reasonable and
successful assumption. According to the Furhoff’s theory of the spiral of circulation
(1967), a title with the highest circulation outperforms its competitors. One might say
that the Germans consistently obeyed this rule and it turned out to be profitable. In
most of the cases they won the battle for the leadership in particular regions.
Furthermore, in accordance with the theory of household coverage (Gustafsson,
1978) the strongest newspapers not only won the competition but also drove the
competitors out of the market. It is a general rule that regional dailies rarely have any
competition in their reach. In addition, Passauer conquered the smallest markets and
subordinated sublocal weeklies through incorporating them into the regional dailies.
The expansion of German group was fast and without any scruples likewise in the
Czech Republic and Slovakia. It was manifested in buying shares in publishing
companies and also in harsh take-overs and mergers. During the interviews with the
journalists it turned out that Passauer did not want and allow workers to found trade
unions in newsrooms. Ruling with the iron fist were also visible when one of regional
dailies belonging to the group published an unfavourable article about Polish
president. CEO of Verlagsgruppe Passau (Franz X. Hirtreiter) forced the editor-inchief
to place a disclaimer and to leave the newspaper. Moreover, Hirtreiter himself
sent a humble apology to the president. This occurrence was maliciously called as
“Bavarian homage” (intended historical context of the Prussian Homage). It was also
acknowledged as an independent journalism myth collapse.
It is worth remembering that Verlagsgruppe Passau is a family running business. It
was founded by Hans Kapfinger and for a few dozen of years his family took care of
the company. Today it is run by the family of Diekmann. Each year the head of the
family (Axel Diekmann), sometimes accompanied by his son (Alexander), visited
editorial offices in Poland, where over thousand workers are hired and
advertisements revenues are about 5 million euro monthly.
In the year 2007 the Polish board with Diekmann’s approval introduced a nationwide
title, called “Polska The Times”, which was based on regional dailies, and resembled
Czech version of the regional titles unification. Unlike the Czech market, where
Pasauer gained a monopolistic position, in Poland the Germans held about one third
of the regional press market. Consequently, the project did not succeed. However,
Polish assets of Verlagsgruppe Passau provided about one third of the whole group
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