Written Essay

Bauer Media Group

Bauer Media is a multinational media company in Hamburg, Germany. Founded in 1875, they have expanded a huge amount and they now operate in 16 countries across the world. Bauer Media is privately owned and managed by the Bauer family, and their headquarters is based in Hamburg. The Bauer family have been building up and expanding their business for over 130 years!

Astonishingly, the world-wide business started off in a small printing house in Germany. It has now grown into a worldwide publishing and media company that makes around 300 magazines over the world in 15 countries, plus online, TV and radio stations. Bauer’s first UK project was the launch of “Bella” magazine in 1987. Bauer Media soon became the UK’s third largest publisher. Bauer then decided to expand even more over the UK as they bought Emap Consumer Media and Emap Radio in 2008. Bauer Media joined the Bauer Media Group in January, 2008 after buying Emap Consumer Media for £1.4 million. This purchase put them on top in the UK and crowned them the leading publishing group.

Bauer Media has many different platforms including online, magazines, TV and radio stations. They cover every modern platform available, which puts them ahead of a lot of their competitors.

	TV	Radio	Online	Magazine
FHM	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Kerrang!	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Heat	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Magic	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Smash Hits	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

In the table above I have shown the platforms that are available for each of these products. The ones with more platforms are likely to have a larger audience, as their products can be reach in more ways. Having more than one platform is a great way for the products to expand their reputation and to essentially expand their audience.

How Bauer Media have grown over the years is great. They started off in a small printing office, but managed to become the leading media and publishing company in the UK. Their heritage stretches right back to 1953 when they launched Angling Times, and they bought Motor Cycle News in 1956. Both of these magazines still run to this very day. In 1990, Bauer bought the radio station Kiss FM and also Liverpool’s Radio City. They then expanded even further by buying radio station Magic. In order to expand their business, Bauer needed to stay ahead of their competitors. The best way to stay ahead in the media world is to buy out your competitors and that is exactly what Bauer did.

This year, there was great controversy as one of Bauer Media’s magazines was stopped as it was accused of being pro-Nazi. The magazine was called Der Landser, and publication was stopped as it was accused of honouring pro-Nazi troops who fought in World War 2. Bauer Media explained that they took these accusations extremely seriously and looked into it straight away. They asked German lawyer, Otmar Kury to review the content in the magazine. The situation came to light from an article posted by The Guardian. The details of what went on were available to everyone that could see and it wasn’t a positive effect on Bauer’s corporate image. In order to gain back their good reputation, Bauer came out and tried to make things right by stopping the publication of the magazine that had been previously published for 43 years. However, Bauer have gone to great trouble to make it lawful to publish the magazine in Germany by making sure that the magazine did not mention the crimes of those it honoured. They also publish other military magazines that have been accused of glorifying Nazi’s and Hitler in particular. These magazines are within the German law so publication has not stopped.

Among the many platforms, there has to be a dominant one. In this day and age there has been a great decline in some platforms. Products with only online, only TV and only magazine are declining. As the products expand, the platforms expand and so customers are able to reach this product in a number of ways, making it available at almost any time. The leading platform is online. The reason that it is the leading platform is because it is available 24/7. Customers want this and so if a product expands and makes them more accessible then the number of customers is likely to rise. A great example of a leading product in the online world is Netflix. Netflix achieved a world first when the provider won an Emmy for best TV programme. The reason they won this is because they were able to create a new audience. This audience was then suitably named the binge audience. This means that people can watch whole series in one big go, 24/7. By expanding their audience and creating a completely new one, Netflix have topped the scale.

Netflix offer a HUGE amount of programmes suitable for a large, varied audience. The service provides a product for almost everyone’s taste. By meeting the demands of the customers and also staying ahead of their competitors, it is likely that Netflix will not decline for a long time. Creating a completely new audience took a lot of work and Netflix managed to do this successfully. This is the perfect way for them to stay at the top of the market.