Focus online

Logo of Focus online

With FOCUS Online, publisher Hubert Burda and FOCUS editor-in-chief Helmut Markwort launched their own digital information portal in 1996. With a highly topical news overview and well-founded background information on every topic, the platform aims to provide orientation in everyday life. FOCUS online aims to report critically and constructively. "With this basic journalistic approach, we actively enrich the social discourse and point out perspectives and solutions. We show the complete picture, away from black-and-white thinking," says the publisher BurdaForward.
The offer initially attracts attention primarily due to the performance-based prices for placing Internet advertising. The first relaunch took place one year after publication, and since then Focus Online has undergone repeated visual, technical and editorial changes. In 1997, Focus Online became the online editorial service with the widest reach on the German-language Internet for the first time. Today, FOCUS Online is still the number one news portal in Germany. The editorial team stands for a new form of digital journalism that focuses on the needs of users. FOCUS Online offers up-to-date content and solutions in all areas that meet a high demand for information - such as telecommunications, finance, politics, sport, health, cars, culture and travel. The news portal asks relevant questions, provides answers, makes recommendations and helps to reduce the complexity of everyday life with constructive approaches.
The FOCUS cross-media brand experience is rounded off with a series of podcasts with exciting, investigative insights, hosted by well-known Focus journalists such as Thilo Mischke.

Key Facts

Audience Share0.02%
Ownership TypePrivate
Geographic CoverageNational
Content TypeFree
Data Publicly Available
ownership data is easily available from other sources, e. g. public registries etc.

Ownership

Ownership StructureFOCUS online is published by BurdaForward GmbH, which is part of the Hubert Burda Media Group. The company is wholly owned by the Burda family. Hubert Burda currently holds 25.1 per cent of the company, while his two children Jacob Hubert Linus Burda and Elisabeth Furtwängler have each held 37.5 per cent of the Group holding company since 2017.
Voting RightsThe Burda family decides jointly on the direction of the Group.
Individual Owner

Media Companies / Groups

Facts

Founding Year1996
Founder
  • Helmut Markwort
    is a journalist, media entrepreneur and politician. Markwort has been a member of the FDP since 1968, was a member of the Bavarian state parliament for the FDP from 2018 to 2023 and was also one of the members of the Bavarian Broadcasting Council delegated by the state parliament from 2019. Through several companies, he holds shares in various media companies, including Antenne Bayern, Antenne Niedersachsen, Studio Gong and München TV. Markwort has worked as a journalist for various newspapers and media such as Stern and the publisher Hubert Burda. Following the third broadcasting judgement and the resulting opening of the broadcasting sector to private companies, Markwort was involved in the founding of Radio Gong. He was also the founding managing director of Antenne Bayern. He was involved in the founding of the weekly magazine FOCUS, published by Hubert Burda, and was its first editor-in-chief, becoming its publisher in 2009. Markwort was also editor of FOCUS Money, FOCUS TV and other publications under the FOCUS umbrella brand. He also held leading positions in other Burda Group publications, for example as Managing Director of Burda Broadcast Media GmbH and as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Playboy Deutschland Publishing. He was also a member of the Supervisory Board of FC Bayern München AG until 2014. During his career, Markwort hosted several talk shows and also took on roles in several TV series and films. In 2017, he had to give up his role as host of the Sonntags-Stammtisch programme on Bayerischer Rundfunk due to his candidacy for the FDP in the Bavarian state election campaign. The raffle for a role in a BR production initiated by Markwort, the proceeds of which were used to finance his election campaign, also caused a stir. Bayerischer Rundfunk ultimately prevented the casting, having previously assumed that the auction was planned for charitable purposes. In the meantime, Markwort has largely retired from leading positions. He still writes regular articles for FOCUS in the "Helmut Markwort's Diary" section.
  • Prof. Dr. Hubert Burda
    born Hubert Dietrich Burda in 1940, son of the publishing couple "Senator" Franz Burda (1903-1986) and Aenne Burda (1909-2005), studied art history, archaeology and sociology at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. He obtained his doctorate in 1966 with the thesis "Die Ruinen in den Bildern Hubert Roberts". Burda has made a name for himself worldwide as an entrepreneur, publisher, digital pioneer, art historian and editor-in-chief. Today, the managing general partner of Hubert Burda Media Holding stands for the success story of his media group. His first marriage (1967-1972) was to the art historian Christa Maar (1939-2022); their son Felix Burda, born in 1967 and also a doctor of art history, died of bowel cancer in 2001 at the age of 33. Burda has been married to doctor and actress Maria Furtwängler-Burda since 1991; their children Jacob Burda and Elisabeth Furtwängler have each held 37.5 per cent of the Group holding company since 2017. When Hubert Burda took over his father's Offenburg publishing house in January 1987, it still reported a turnover of DM 500 million. In 2010, he handed over operational management of the company to Paul-Bernhard Kallen - the current Chairman of the Board of Directors - who was succeeded by Martin Weiss as the new CEO in 2022. On 9 February 2020, Hubert Burda turned 80 years old. Hubert Burda was editor of Bunte for twelve years, from 1974 to 1986. Initially as a holiday replacement for his father and Bunte inventor Franz Burda, he finally took over as editor-in-chief with full responsibility for the magazine in 1976. The young editor already had a certain idea of how an editorial office works, having gained experience in various editorial staffs of American magazines during a stay in the USA. As a publisher, Hubert Burda knows how to operate in different, seemingly contradictory worlds: in the world of journalism, publishing and printing - as well as in the visual arts and literature. With the founding of the news magazine FOCUS in 1993, he wrote German journalistic history and achieved unprecedented commercial success. The introduction of a new news design with graphics and charts makes it possible to convey complex content more quickly.
CEO
  • Dr Tanja Princess of Waldeck
    the Chairwoman of the Management Board of BurdaForward GmbH. Since 2017, zu Waldeck has been responsible for Finance, Business Intelligence, Strategy Implementation and Mergers & Acquisitions as Chief Operating Officer (COO). In 2012, zu Waldeck sold the parenting portal NetMoms, which she founded in 2007, to what is now BurdaForward. Since then, the mother of four has been working successfully for the company - first as Managing Director of the FOCUS Online Group and then as Managing Director of BurdaForward Advertising. Before that, she was a consultant at McKinsey & Company for five years. Princess zu Waldeck will leave BurdaForward at the end of July 2024, as the media group has already announced. She is joining the Swiss media company TX Group and will start in October, as announced by both companies. With the departure of zu Waldeck, Dr Lydia Rullkötter will take over at the helm of BurdaForward - in a management duo. She has held various positions at Burda since 2012 and is currently Managing Director of the internal service provider BurdaServices.
  • Dr Lydia Rullkötter
    previously Managing Director of Burda's internal service provider BurdaServices, will take over the management of the digital publisher BurdaForward on an equal footing with Daniel Steil from June 2024. Rullkötter joined Burda from McKinsey in 2012. For more than seven years, she was Director of Corporate Controlling at Burda Holding before taking over the Accounting, Controlling, Real Estate and HR Services divisions as Managing Director of BurdaServices with its 170 employees in 2022.
  • Daniel Steil
    has been Managing Director of BurdaForward since 2016 and, as Chief Content Officer, is responsible for all journalists and for the content direction of the digital publisher's brands. As Editor-in-Chief between 2011 and 2018, he built Focus Online into one of the news portals with the widest reach in the German-speaking world.
  • Philipp Brunner
    a member of the management board of BurdaForward.
  • Thomas Koelzer
    a member of the Management Board of BurdaForward.
Editor-In-Chief
  • Florian Festl
    has been Editor-in-Chief of FOCUS online since 2018. In February 2023, he and his team also founded the sub-brand FOCUS online Earth, which stands for a technology-open and business-friendly approach to the climate crisis. He has held various positions at the Munich-based news portal since 2005. Among other things, he is Chief of Service, Head of Homepage Desk and Deputy Editor-in-Chief. From 2015 to 2018, Festl was Chief Content Officer and Co-Managing Director of the social network wize.life. Festl completed a traineeship at the Ingolstadt-based "Donaukurier" and worked there in the Munich correspondent office, among other places. The graduate journalist worked as a freelance journalist for the "Augsburger Allgemeine", among others, before joining FOCUS online as news editor in 2005.
  • Carsten Fiedler
    has been a member of the editorial team at FOCUS Online since November 2023. He previously worked as editor-in-chief of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. Fiedler is responsible for producing extensive and in-depth political and social content such as reports, commentaries and analyses for the Burda subsidiary's major digital brands. He is also responsible for the further development of critical and constructive journalism at FOCUS online and the new climate brand FOCUS online Earth.
Other Important People
  • Ulrich Reitz
    has been FOCUS online chief correspondent since 2021. He initially studied political science and German language and literature at the University of Bonn. After graduating, he completed a traineeship at the daily newspaper "Die Welt" and then became editor-in-chief of the "Rheinische Post" and the "WAZ". In 2014, he took over as editor-in-chief of "Focus".
ContactBurdaForward GmbH
St.-Martin-Straße 66
81541 München
Germany
redaktion@focus.de
089/9250-3292
www.focus.de
RevenueMissing Data
Operating ProfitMissing Data
Advertising (in % of total funding)Missing Data
Market ShareMissing Data
Headlines
Meta DataThe financial data of BurdaForward GmbH, in which FOCUS online is published, is not published in its own annual financial statements. They are included in the annual and consolidated financial statements of Burda Digital SE, which is ultimately part of Hubert Burda Media.
Sources
Documents (PDF)
  • Burda-Konzern: Rundfunkbeteiligungen
    File
  • Burda-Konzern: Beteiligungen an Printmedien in Deutschland
    File
  • Burda-Konzern: Digirale Angebote
    File
  • Burda-Konzern: Beteiligungen an Printmedien im Ausland
    File