Thirteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the new capital of the Federal Republic of Germany has become one of the most important media and publishing centers in the country.

But the local daily newspapers continue to be weakened by the absence of advertisers and social-historical heterogeneity of the readership.

Gruner + Jahr offers a tabloid, Berliner Kurier, which has a daily circulation of 152,400.
Photo courtesy of Ifra

In the wake of the relocation of the chancellery, government and two parliamentary assemblies in 1999, the major communication groups became established in the new capital city. Numerous television companies opened up new local stations, e.g. the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF or the private companies SAT.1 and RTL. Others (the news station N24 or Spiegel TV) relocated their head offices.

Several major newspaper publishers followed suit. After the move of the head office of the Axel Springer publishing company (Die Welt, Berliner Morgenpost, Die Welt am Sonntag) to the Kochstrasse, the opening of a representative office of the Bertelsmann group in the capital, scheduled originally for 2003, at the prestigious address of number one, Unter den Linden, opposite the Museum of German History, also constitutes a new signal. Then there are the associations of national and local newspaper publishers that have preceded the (today imminent) arrival of the private radio and TV companies.

Six daily titles based in the city

Twelve years after the official reunification of Germany, Berlin has once again become one of the country’s main media and publishing centers, trailing Hamburg where Stern, Bild and Hamburger Morgenpost are based but certainly ahead of Frankfurt Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau and Munich Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Today, the Berlin region is covered by five local editions of inter-regional daily newspapers, FAZ, Frankfurter Rundschau, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Bild and Die Welt, published in Berlin since 1993, six daily titles based in the city (the popular titles BZ and Berliner Kurier, the broadsheets Berliner Zeitung, die tages-zeitung, Berliner Morgenpost and Der Tagesspiegel, of which the latter two are published also on Sunday).

But this relocation in the media sector does not mean that it is all plain sailing for the local daily newspapers.

Many titles have disappeared in recent decades, especially in the eastern part of the city. Numerous attempts to establish new titles have likewise failed. The economic situation of the survivors is somewhat perilous. All newspapers report considerable financial losses totalling millions of euros and the majority have been suffering from a falling-off in the numbers of their readers for many years. For example, Berliner Zeitung and Berliner Morgenpost lost a total of 135,000 readers during a five-year period. This drop is especially brutal for the first title, originally from the east that in 1990 had nearly 400,000 readers as opposed to only 191,000 today.

Advertisers get cold feet

“A major share of our readers consisted of older, low-income people who did not necessarily do well from reunification,” explains Christine Richter, who is responsible for the Berlin/Brandenburg section of Berliner Zeitung. “Many have died since and the others, generally of a conservative nature, had difficulty accepting the changes and western re-orientation of the newspaper after it was taken over by Gruner + Jahr.”

Christine Richter

No competing title, even among the popular tabloids, has been able to capture these readers who seem to have disappeared as far as newspapers are concerned, and switched to the other media, such as radio or television

In general, the level of penetration of the regional titles in the capital is low: approximately 28 percent compared to 35 percent in Frankfurt, 43 percent in Stuttgart and 49 percent in Constance.

“This level has continued to drop by 1 percent per annum since 1994,” according to Lorenz Maroldt, deputy editor in chief of Der Tagesspiegel.

Lorenz Maroldt

Besides economic causes (drop in advertising, higher paper price) that affect all European and worldwide publishers, the weakening of the local newspapers also can be explained by local factors.

• Competition of the other media: Berlin has no fewer than four TV stations and 19 local radio stations. “This is a heritage of the Cold War, during which propaganda filled the airwaves,” Richter said.

• The city as a whole is still less affluent than the other major German cities. So far, it has not attracted the expected level of investments. As a consequence, advertisers are staying away and advertising rates are stagnating: 3.80 euros per mm.

For Der Tagesspiegel, 3.80 euros for Morgenpost as opposed to 7.90 for Die Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich), 15.80 euros for Die Stuttgarter Zeitung and 34.95 for Die Westdeutsche Zeitung (Düsseldorf). (Editor’s note: prices were originally given in Deutschmarks and subsequently converted to euros)

The bursting of the Internet bubble at the end of 2000 and beginning of 2001 saw the exit of the high-tech advertisers, leaving the large telecommunication companies and especially local businesses, distributors and large retail stores, all of which have significantly tighter budgets.

If the businesses do not have much money, nor the readers, especially in the east, then the newspapers should adapt to cater to more modest lifestyles. But price per copy for street sales (65 cents on average in Berlin as opposed to nearly twice this amount for titles in the west) and for monthly subscriptions (20.65 euros for Der Tagesspiegel as opposed to 35.20 for the FAZ) show that the east are already hitting the floor and reflect a continuing economic imbalance between Germany east and west.

Whether from the east or the west, newspapers are experiencing many difficulties in selling copies on the other side of a wall that no longer exists. Only 16 percent of Der Tagesspiegel readers and 21 percent of the readers of Die Berliner Morgenpost live in the eastern areas, or almost the same proportion (20 percent) as the western readers of Berliner Zeitung.

“Every morning, at the kiosks in Berlin, a veritable referendum against unification takes place,” is how Michael Maier, editor in chief of Berliner Zeitung once summed up the situation. The separation persists in the minds, different tastes and lifestyles. There is very little to unify the working class and aging readers from the east and the yuppies that tend to frequent the shops on the fashionable Friedrichstrasse. Even the languages sometimes differ: “The readers quickly establish the origin of the author of an article, they are highly sensitive in matters of credibility,” Maroldt said.

Win over the “neo-Berliners”

In an attempt to overcome this problem, the editorial teams have pursued a policy of diversity: Der Tagesspiegel has enticed journalists from the east, Die Berliner Zeitung has recruited western writers from Spiegel, FAZ, Süddeutsche Zeitung ... to the point that the newsroom practically comprises equal numbers of journalists from the east and the west. A modernization, launched in September 1997, completed the newspaper’s transformation: the logo recalls that of Le Monde, the layout based on large vertical rules and small portraits is along similar lines to that of The Wall Street Journal. The final product is a quite amazing mixed bag: well-researched political essays, coverage of international stories, high-end cultural analyses and local pages where readers can obtain more information on their district, etc.

But neither of the two titles as yet manage to reflect the image of a reunified city.

“Berlin continues to function by sectors and communities,” Richter explained. “The high society at the Tiergarten, the members of the multicultural communities in Charlottenburg, the advocates of alternative lifestyles in Kreuzberg, the students in Prenzlauer Berg …”

Any efforts to develop a genuine local micro-cell for the 16 city districts require resources as well as many pages.

The hopes of Berliner Zeitung, as well as those of the other Berlin titles, will rest in the future on new readers, ideally free of habits and prejudices. But these are fewer in number than supposed: “Some years ago, it was predicted that the city would have five million inhabitants by 2010,” Maroldt said. “But today no one believes this, and the population is levelling off at 3.4 million inhabitants.”

As the under-30 age group represents just about 15 percent of its readership, Berliner Zeitung is now offering special subscription rates for students and has created a weekly section for schools to which pupils are invited to contribute on a regular basis.

A cooperative agreement and “division of labor” (quality information for Tagesspiegel, local micro cell for Berliner Zeitung) are frequently called for, but any such agreement at present runs up against the German antitrust regulations. However, a precedent does exist: in December 2001, Mathias Döpfner, newly appointed chairman of the Axel Springer publishing company, announced the merging of the newsrooms of the two newspapers, Die Welt and Berliner Morgenpost (157,000 copies). The two titles continue to exist separately but with common articles and frequently very similar layouts. More than 250 jobs have been eliminated.