Traditional Hamburg publisher: RTL plans to cut 700 jobs at Grunar+ Jahr

After merging with the Gruner + Jahr magazines, RTL took a closer look at the magazine titles. Now 700 jobs are to be cut and 23 titles are to be discontinued or sold. Core brands such as “Stern”, “Geo” and “Brigitte” will remain.

After the merger with the TV broadcaster RTL, many magazines are to be discontinued at the traditional Hamburg publisher Gruner + Jahr. Flagships like “Stern”, “Geo”, “Brigitte” and “Capital” should be continued, RTL announced. However, many other magazines, including mainly offshoots of the main issues, are to be discontinued, sold or only published digitally.

Management expects around 500 jobs to be cut. A further 200 jobs are to be eliminated through sales. The elimination of around 700 jobs would affect more than one in three of the 1,900 full-time jobs in the magazine segment, most of which are based in Hamburg.

RTL boss: “Focus on core brands”

RTL boss Thomas Rabe informed the staff at the publishing house’s headquarters on Hamburg’s Baumwall about his plans. “We have decided to focus on the core brands and to develop them further with investments of around 80 million euros until 2025,” explained the manager.

“The network of TV, streaming and publishing businesses of RTL Germany makes sense.” He creates significant added value of around 75 million euros annually in important areas “such as content, marketing, tech & data and corporate functions”.

Now, together with the employee representatives, socially acceptable solutions are to be developed for the employees concerned.

Protest by employees and union

RTL Germany, headquartered in Cologne, had integrated the German magazine division of the Hamburg publishing house into its portfolio in 2022 and is hoping for synergies. Both areas belong to the Bertelsmann Group. In recent months, RTL has examined the magazine portfolio. Top managers from Gütersloh and Cologne took a close look at all the publishing titles and recommended what should be kept and what should possibly be sold.

There had been protests from employees and trade unionists against a possible sale of the titles of the Hamburg publishing house, which for decades was one of the most powerful media houses in Europe.