"Newspaper publishers - the shapers of the new media world"?

The organizers of the event promised they would be offering "in-depth insights into magazine issues of the future". But during the course of the entire event at this year's ZEITSCHRIFTENTAGE of VDZ (Association of German Magazine Publishers) in Berlin, I kept reflecting on the title of the program and couldn't help visualizing a question mark at the end of it in my mind's eye. For this reason, my report begins with the Publishers' Night of the Association of German Magazine Publishers (VDZ) on November 17, 2011 and the presentation of the "Golden Victoria" award in the former Berlin headquarters of Deutsche Telekom in Berlin-Mitte. Firstly, detailed reports on the congress have already appeared in the relevant media (ancillary copyright - yes or no?) and secondly I believe that even if you had only attended the evening event, you wouldn't actually have missed anything. Before that, nothing significant had happened - even though it was one of Germany's biggest media events. Have you heard of the author Virginia Ironside? The entire event reminded me of the title of one of her books. I became increasingly convinced of the truth of this (slightly adapted) book title of hers: "No, I don't want senior citizen publishers!"

It may be quite legitimate for our President Wulff to thank Henry Kissinger for helping us to survive the end of the Second World War in his speech. But if this comparison is intended to reflect the state of mind of publishers in this year of 2011, it gives me a real headache: this is precisely the spirit in which our current elderly publishers and their managing directors are operating. They are dreaming of things they created in the post-war period - the German economic miracle, Ludwig Erhard's industrial age, the times of the Cold War and freedom from censorship. These are all things they dissociate themselves from today. At the time they were able to divide up the market between them - they were entirely in their element and held self-congratulatory celebrations once a year. Those were the good old days. It was a great era - but unfortunately it is now long gone. However, it seems these people are still a long way from putting it behind them and moving on.

I found the "Golden Victoria" award ceremony disconcerting and simply sat through it. In previous years you could at least show yourself to be interested while enjoying canapés and red wine. But this time around the catering room remained closed until the end of the presentations - presumably to force the audience to take part in the Victoria ritual.

Just like old-fashioned school teachers who would threaten punishment to make sure their truths were heard by unwilling school children. When it was finally time to dig in and enjoy the social chit-chat, the "who's who" had already moved on. But the senior citizens didn't even seem to notice. Being so elderly, they may simply have been too exhausted and needed to take an extended nap.

The next morning after a good night's sleep everyone was able to meet up with their dear colleagues once again to attend the next "high point" of the event. Here, Chancellor Merkel gave publishers secure confirmation of the monopoly of magazine distribution which - if there were no other way - would simply be enforced by the government. Merkel's statement on ancillary copyright: "We haven't forgotten" was received with relief by (almost) the entire audience. That's the way they are - if they're not good enough themselves, they simply get their political friends to help out.

If ever one risked mistakenly reflecting on advertising losses and the lack of concepts in a digital world, it was easy to quickly escape into the past again with one's friends - where the biggest innovation was designing the weekly cover pages to adorn street kiosks.

My sad conclusion: no innovations are happening here. The markets are elsewhere. The digital media world remains an analogy. And if publishers were not senior citizens but ostriches, a lot of sand would be needed to stick all those honorable heads in. By the way: I had even lost my appetite for canapés and red wine by that time. After this event, the whole thing felt like a senior citizens' book club - and, to echo Virginia Ironside's title again, "No, I don't want to join a book club!" Not yet, anyway!

Dieter Reichert

Dieter Reichert is co-founder of censhare AG. In his function as CCO, he is responsible for the strategic development and worldwide marketing of the censhare publishing system. Over the course of 20 years he has acquired an in-depth knowledge and expertise in the publishing industry, and is a visionary and founder of various media specific IT companies.

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