Gruner + Jahr

Gruner + Jahr

Type	Subsidiary
Genre	Publishing house
Founded	1965
Founder(s)	Henri Nannen Gerd Bucerius John Jahr Sr. Richard Gruner
Headquarters	Hamburg, Germany
Area served	Europe
Key people	Bernd Klaus Buchholz (CEO) Torsten-Jörn Klein (head of International Magazines)
Products	Newspapers, magazines
Employees	12,500
Subsidiaries	Brown Printing Company (100%) Prisma Presse S.N.C. (100%) Motor Presse Stuttgart (59,9%) NEWS Publishing Group (50%) ...
Website	http://www.guj.de/

Gruner + Jahr, picture taken from the belltower of St. Michaelis Church

Gruner + Jahr GmbH & Co. KG is the largest European printing and publishing firm. Its headquarters is in Hamburg, Germany.

History

Originally founded on August 1, 1948 as the Henri Nannen publishing house, Gruner + Jahr was created in 1965 from a merger by acquisition, by publishers John Jahr Sr. and Gerd Bucerius joining the printing firm of Richard Gruner. In 1969, Richard Gruner retired, and thanks to the entrepreneurship of Reinhard Mohn, Bertelsmann acquired 25% of the ownership. Over the next fifteen years, the firm grew by expansion, acquisition (publishers Kindler & Schiermeier) and merger (Spiegel Verlag and Motor-Presse Verlag). By 1976, Bertelsmann owned a 74.9% stake, and the Hamburg publishing family Jahr owned 25.1%, a balance which has been maintained through 2007.

In 1978, Gruner + Jahr became the first German publishing house to expand into other European and International markets. Over the next twenty years, publishing houses in France, the USA, and Spain were purchased, and a number of new magazines were started in Germany including Impulse, Schöner Essen, and Gala.

In 2005, Gruner + Jahr exited the U.S. magazine business, selling its women's magazine portfolio to the Meredith Corporation and its business magazine portfolio to Mansueto Ventures. In 2005-2006, Gruner + Jahr participated in the Du bist Deutschland marketing campaign.

In 2006, Gruner + Jahr surpassed Hubert Burda Media to become the largest European publisher, based on market share.^[1]

Publications

Gruner + Jahr publishes approximately 285 magazines and newspapers in 22 countries, including Poland, Spain, Russia, France and the People's Republic of China. As of 2007^[update], Gruner + Jahr publications include:

Stern Geo GeoLino Financial Times Deutschland National Geographic Deutschland Brigitte

P.M. Magazin Eltern Eltern Family Capital Unternehmermagazin impulse Art – Das Kunstmagazin

Neon Gala Schöner Wohnen Essen & Trinken YPS Auto Motor und Sport

Operations

Headquarters G+J at “Baumwall”
with Hamburg subway in front, view from Elbe river side.

Bernd Kundrun is Chairman of the Board, and also a member of the executive committee of Bertelsmann. Gruner + Jahr has more than 12,500 employees and had gross profits for 2005 of 2.62 billion euro, of which 57% were from outside Germany.

Subsidiaries

In addition to direct publishing, Gruner + Jahr own interests in a number of other publishers and printers. They own 60% of Sächsische Zeitung, 56% of the NEWS Publishing Group, 50% of the Financial Times Deutschland, 37.45% of Prinovis, 25.5% of Spiegel Publishing, and 95% of Henri-Nannen-Schule, a journalist school in Germany.

Gruner + Jahr owns several publishers and printers outright (100%), including the fourth largest U.S. magazine printer, Brown Printing Company in Waseca, Minnesota; East Greenville, Pennsylvania and Woodstock, Illinois, and the second largest magazine printer in France, the Prisma Presse S.N.C. in Paris.

Henri Nannen Prizes

Gruner + Jahr annually awards the Henri Nannen Prizes, in five news categories: best reportage, best investigative report, best documentary, best humor piece, and best photojournalism article. The prizes are awarded in May for the previous year.

2004

• Reportage: Stefan Willeke of "Die Zeit" for "Herr Mo holt die Fabrik" the 16 months of disassembling a coking plant in Dortmund and moving it to China^[2]
• Investigative: Freddie Röckenhaus of Süddeutsche Zeitung and Thomas Hennecke of Kicker for their investigation of financial scandel at "Borussia Dortmund"^[2]
• Documentary: The reporting team of Uwe Buse, Ullrich Fichtner, Mario Kaiser, Uwe Klussmann, Walter Mayr and Christian Neef from Der Spiegel for "Putin's Ground Zero" on the Beslan school hostage crisis^[2]
• Humor: not awarded to an individual^[2]
• Photography: Yang Yankang for his photoessay on Chinese Christians in Geo^[2]
• Lifetime: Peter Scholl-Latour^[2][3]
• Freedom of the Press: Irina Chalip of the Belarus publication Belorusskaja Delowaja Gaseta^[2][3]

2005

• Reportage: Bartholomäus Grill of Die Zeit^[4]
• Investigative: Kayhan Özgenç of Focus for exposing the Volkswagen scandel in his piece "Die VW-Affäre"^[4][5]
• Documentary: Henning Sussebach and Stefan Willeke of Der Zeit for their report "Operation Lohndrücken"^[4]
• Humor: Kurt Kister for his column "Unsere Besten" in Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin^[4]
• Photography: Jim Gehrz of the Minneapolis Star Tribune for his photoessay on Jessica Clements entitled "Against All Odds"^[4]
• Lifetime: Joachim Fest^[4]
• Freedom of the Press: Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of the weekly Armenian paper Agos^[4][5]
• Editorial: Jim Amoss, editor-in-chief of the US newspaper The Times-Picayune^[4]

2006

• Reportage: Klaus Brinkbäumer of Der Spiegel
• Investigative: Klaus Ott, Markus Balser and Hans Leyendecker of the Süddeutsche Zeitung
• Documentary: Alexander Smoltczyk of Der Spiegel
• Humor: Hans Zippert of Die Welt^[6]
• Photography: Alessandro Scotti of Geo^[6]
• Lifetime: Robert Lebeck, photographer
• Freedom of the Press: Dmitri Muratow and the editorial staff at Novaya Gazeta, the independent Russian newspaper

2007

• Reportage: Sabine Rückert for "Wie das Böse nach Tessin kam" ("How evil came after Ticino") in Die Zeit

Notes

1. ^ (9 February 2007) "Neun Gewinner und ein Verlierer" Kress Reports Kressverlag gmbh, p. 16
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} "Henri Nannen-Preis 2005 geht an Stefan Willeke (Die Zeit), Freddie Röckenhaus (Süddeutsche Zeitung) und Thomas Hennecke (Kicker)" (20 May 2005) Presse Portal
3. ^ ^{a b} "German News - Deutsche Ausgabe: English Edition" Saturday, 21 May 2005
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} "Eine ganz große Bühne" (15 May 2006) Kress News Service "Henri Nannen Preis 2006"
5. ^ ^{a b} "Özgenç ve Dink'e Alman ödülü" (14 May 2006) Radikal internet baskısı in Turkish
6. ^ ^{a b} "Henri Nannen Preis 2007 geht an:" ("Henri Nannen Prize 2007 Goes To:") Presseportal, 11 May 2007, in German

See also

Companies portal

• Computer Channel

References

• Schneider, Wolf (2000) Die Gruner-+-Jahr-Story: Ein Stück deutsche Pressegeschichte Piper, Munich, ISBN 3-492-04265-1
• Steidle, Otto and Kiessler, Uwe (1991) Verlagshaus Gruner + Jahr Hamburg Oktagon Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-927789-15-1

This article is based in part on material from the German Wikipedia.

External links

• Gruner+Jahr AG & Co KG homepage in English
• G+J Media in English