Abstract
Europe in the 1990s will be a dynamic media market, demanding a wide variety of products. Mass communication will give way to market-segmented media. This market will not be dominated solely by a few giants, but will have room for players of all sizes. The electronic and print media will complement each other. The European market of the 1990s will not be unified: linguistic, psychological, and cultural barriers will maintain and perhaps even strengthen local markets. And competition for both markets and rights will grow. This suggests that the successful European media companies of the 1990s will need to be sensitive to a variety of cultures, as well as experienced, managerially competent, and in possession of a strong infrastructure in both the international and local markets.
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Mark Matthias Wössner is chairman of the Executive Board of the Bertelsmann Corporation, where he began as an assistant to the management in 1968. Dr. Wössner has implemented Bertelsmann's corporate philosophy of editorial plurality, participative management, fairness, self-realization in the workplace, and delegation of responsibilities.
Bertelsmann is one of the world's largest media corporation, with a turmover in the 1988/89 fiscal year of $7.45 billon and pretax profits of $423 million. It has a presence in over thirty 89 fiscal year of $7.45 billion and pretax profits of $423 million. It has a presence in over thirty countries. Its U.S. properties include RCA Records; Bantam, Doubleday, and Dell; the Literary Guild; and other Doubleday book clubs. The Bertelsmann publishing companies achieve 68 percent of their sales outside Germany; 80 percent of their book and record club sales are international.
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Wössner, M. European media markets in the 1990s. Book Research Quarterly 6, 37–43 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02683673
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02683673