Stephan Schäfer was Co-CEO of RTL Germany for almost a year. The media group has now announced that Schäfer is leaving the management “on the best of terms” and is leaving the company. The departure is all the more surprising because Schäfer, as a member of the Gruner + Jahr Executive Board, had made a name for himself as one of the advocates of the merger of RTL and Gruner + Jahr and, among other things, founded the Ad Alliance advertising association in 2016, in which the Cologne TV company and the Hamburger publishing house jointly marketed advertising space. It was like a letter of application for a managerial position at the future media giant.
Against the background of Schäfer’s departure, the sentence now seems like an irritating punch line: “He remains connected to RTL as a consultant.” It’s a bit like someone walking out the front door and coming back in through the delivery entrance. When asked by SZ, a company spokesman said on Wednesday that Schäfer would primarily contribute his journalistic expertise as a consultant: “His creative impulses are very much appreciated at RTL – regardless of office and function.”
In these times, journalistic expertise and creativity are apparently not the skills primarily required of a CEO to lead a company through the current crises. The fact that the CEO of Bertelsmann and RTL Group, Thomas Rabe, will take over the chairmanship of the new four-man management of RTL Germany in the future shows how seriously the situation is assessed at the parent company Bertelsmann – i.e. the man who Schäfer once started with the had commissioned post.
In the future, a four-person team will manage the company
“I have never experienced that so many external negative factors occurred at the same time. This is such an extraordinary situation, active action is necessary,” said Thomas Rabe to the FAZ. At the request of the SZ, a spokesman named which factors Rabe meant: “War in Ukraine, the corona pandemic, inflation, energy supply and supply chain problems – all these factors affect our business.” He also referred to the RTL Group’s half-year figures: bookings and prospects have continued to deteriorate in most European advertising markets in recent months. In the second half of the year, the group expects the TV advertising markets to decline by up to eight percent.
In view of these challenges, Rabe prefers to trust the team of a newly formed four-strong management team under his leadership for “active control”. The previous second co-CEO, Matthias Dang, is also part of this team. RTL only took over Gruner + Jahr’s magazine business for 230 million euros in August 2021 and beginning September then entrusted the delicate task to this management duo, television entertainment and magazine journalism. Dang had already been part of the management of RTL Germany, and Rabe made Stephan Schäfer from Gruner+ Jahr his second CEO.
Schäfer already had a steep career path behind him, only in March 2021 after the departure of the previous G+J publishing boss Julia Jäkel he was promoted to CEO of Gruner + Jahr, by the way, at the same time as RTL managing director responsible for content and brands. At this point in time, the reputation of the “wonder weapon” preceded it, as the industry magazine did horizon had titled. Profit-increasing staff reductions and the restructuring of proven titles had already led him to the G+J Executive Board in 2012. At one point he was editor-in-chief of five lifestyle titles, including Beautiful living and Eat Drink. When he joined the board, Jäkel also handed him over the management of the “G+J Life” publishing group with 20 magazines. During this time, Schäfer was considered the driving force behind uncomfortable measures to assert the publisher in the difficult market, including the controversial merger of the star– Political editing with that of the magazine capital was his work.
In an official statement, Stephan Schäfer is now looking forward to his consulting work and sees “RTL Germany and Gruner + Jahr in a good starting position to become a national media champion in Germany”.