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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Third case – Mecom
Polish assets of Mecom were divided into two parts: Presspublica – a company
governed by Mecom and very inconvenient partner, that is the Treasury, which is very
unique situation; and Media Regionalne, the company managing regional dailies. The
most important title of Presspublica was “Rzeczpospolita”, with about 110 thousand
daily sale on average. A couple of times the broadsheet was going to be privatized,
never successfully. Thus, Mecom still had to cope with subsequent governments
always trying to regain either shares or influence on the management staff.
Media Regionalne was established in October 2006 and the main task of the
company was to run the former Orkla’s regional titles. Furthermore, most of the
employees stayed at the same professional position, e.g. the CEO of the new firm
remained unchanged. However, the first interviews with Mecom’s CEO, David
Montgomery, left Polish crew disillusioned. The British investor, known as a
businessman without scruples, announced that newly bought assets had to be more
profitable. It was expected that profitability of the company should increase from 7 to
35%. Soon after that the staff were going to experience the gravity of situation and
David Montgomery’s words.
In last years of Orkla’s presence in Poland the Norwegians managed to take over
three regional dailies in Pomerania. Unfortunately, there was still one competitive title
belonging to the Polish owner (one of two existing regional dailies in the whole
country). To push the rival out of the market the Brits merged their three newspapers
into one big and strong title. Since that time the competitor’s position has no longer
been the leading one, in terms of readership and sale. Moreover, Media Regionalne
decided to issue a local free press in this region to make the opponent’s condition
even weaker. It is highly probable that the Polish newspaper will eventually
disappear. It is worth adding that the regional department of British company
dismissed each fifth worker as a consequence of the fusion.
Contrary to Orkla and Passauer, Mecom is a quite new company as it had its first
public offer in March 2005. The Brits had their foreign divisions in Norway, Denmark,
Poland, and in the Netherlands. They also invested in Germany, buying well-known
publishing houses and newspapers. However, when the economic crisis appeared
and Mecom’s shares in London stock exchange dramatically dropped the British
withdrew from Germany rapidly. It may be taken for granted that this example is
somehow characteristic of Mecom’s business strategy. British investors were not so
bound to any particular market that it could restrain from selling their shares in case of
emergency.
Polish market was never considered as very important or even vital for Mecom,
moreover, it seems to be the most dissimilar to media in other divisions. Keeping in
mind Hallin and Mancini’s models (2004), Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands
were labeled as democratic corporatist countries, whereas Poland was going towards
a polarized pluralist one. It seems to be significantly easier to run a business in much
the same socio-political environment.
One distinctive feature should be emphasized. Mecom has been founded quite
recently in the Internet era and it might be easily noticed that online investments were
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