Bundeskartellamt agrees with the Fusion of “Südwest press” and “Stuttgarter Zeitung” | EUROtoday

With the takeover of the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” by the “New Press Restry” in Ulm, the media panorama in Baden-Württemberg is going through the best revolution in many years. The focus course of that has been noticeable for a few years ought to proceed to speed up. Thanks to the financial power of Baden-Württemberg, the press focus course of happened slower within the publishers within the southwest than in different federal states. According to the editorial community Germany (RND) and the Funke media group, the SWP is prone to grow to be the third largest coat producer. The liberal “Stuttgarter Zeitung” lastly says goodbye to its nationwide declare.

The proven fact that the Ulm writer “New press company”, which publishes the “Südwest Press” (SWP), now takes over the “Medienholding Süd” with the Stuttgart leaves and the “Black Forest messenger” for a double -digit million quantity, a uniform coat with a circulation of greater than 600,000 newspaper intercourse copies might be produced. The SWP in East Germany is already supplying the “Märkische Oderzeitung” and the “Lausitzer Rundschau” with the nationwide pages. The sale of the “Medienholding Süd”, beforehand a part of the Southwest German Media Holding (SWMH), which additionally publishes the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, was introduced on the finish of May. On Monday, the Bundeskartellamt introduced that – opposite to preliminary considerations – the merger agrees. “The takeover of the ‘Black Forest messenger’ by the publisher of the ‘Südwest Press’ is competitive because these two titles in parts of Baden-Württemberg are the only competitors in the area of ​​regional newspapers. Nevertheless, we had to share the merger,” stated Andreas Mundt, President of the Federal Kartellamt, on Monday.

The Ulm newspaper group and the SWMH have been negotiating the takeover for a few 12 months. Because the “Neckarchronik”, which was printed in Horb with a circulation of round 4,500 copies, had not too long ago bought the anti -antitrust regulation. The Bundeskartellamt expects “individual positions dominating individual markets” by way of the merger. Due to shrinking reader and commercial markets, the enterprise quantity is just too low to ban a merger (Bagatell market shaft).

For the publishing managers, the query now arises which double constructions are being damaged down: The SWP is already producing the coat in its Berlin workplace at this time. Will she additionally do that for the Stuttgart leaves sooner or later? In Stuttgart, an workplace group, below the management of the SWP, provides the “Südkurier”, the “Südwest Presse”, the “Heilbronner voice”, the “Baden Latest News”, the “Badische Zeitung” and the “Rhein Neckar Zeitung” with state -political articles. In the long run you possibly can after all even be for the Stuttgart titles.

Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) known as on the weekend on the event of a celebration for the eightieth anniversary of the “Südkurier” in Constance to “repeatedly defend the value of independent media”. “Anyone who thinks they can save yourself good journalism,” stated Kretschmann, “they ultimately pay a high price – the price of the loss of trust, the price of disorientation, the price of the division.” This didn’t consult with the deliberate merger, however normally to the way forward for newspaper journalism.