merkur.de

Logo of merkur.de

The online portal of the Münchner Merkur, which was founded in 1946, delivers news "from Bavaria to the world. From Miesbach to Berlin. From Munich to New York." This is how the platform describes itself on Merkur.de. It combines local reporting with the (inter)national information needs of a liberal-conservative readership that extends beyond Bavaria. Merkur.de is one of the news portals with the widest reach in Germany and is part of the Ippen.Media network, which includes around 50 news portals. Merkur.de has its roots in the Pressehaus Bayerstrasse in Munich, where the print edition of the Münchner Merkur was founded in 1946. From there, editors report for readers in Munich, Upper Bavaria, Germany and worldwide. The Münchner Merkur's predecessor was the Münchner Zeitung, which was published from 1892 to 1943 before being discontinued by the National Socialists. The reporting on Merkur.de ranges from investigative background reports to current local, national and international issues and hot topics.

Key Facts

Audience Share<0.01%
Ownership TypePrivate
Geographic CoverageLocal
Content TypeFree
Data Publicly Available
ownership data is easily available from other sources, e. g. public registries etc.

Ownership

Ownership Structure Merkur.de is fuelled by content from Münchener Zeitungs-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG (Münchner Merkur) and Ippen Digital GmbH & Co. KG. (central editorial office of the Ippen Group). Both companies are majority-owned by the Ippen family, which exerts its influence through a network of direct and indirect shareholding structures as well as F. Wolff & Sohn KG. In addition to the publisher Dirk Ippen, his wife Magdalena Ippen, his son Jan Andreas Ippen and his nephew Daniel Schöningh hold direct or indirect stakes in the companies.
Voting Rights Missing data
Individual Owner
Group / Individual Owner
  • The Döser family

    Oliver Döser holds a 7 % stake in Münchener Zeitungs-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, which feeds content from the printed Münchner Merkur into Merkur.de. Born in Rosenheim, he has been working for OVB MEDIA since 1994 after various professional stays abroad in the USA and Taiwan. As Managing Director and current publisher, he has been responsible for all business areas of OVB MEDIA since 2003 and is the contact person for all associated media and holdings. Numerous products, brands and services are united under the OVB MEDIA umbrella, including the weekly newspaper "Blick", the Rosenheim local newspaper "echo", numerous local gazettes and weeklies, Radio Charivari Rosenheim and Radio Galaxy. His family has held a stake in the Münchner Merkur since 1982. Döser has further shareholdings, including in Zeitungsverlag Oberbayern GmbH & Co. KG and several media investment companies.
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Media Companies / Groups

Facts

Founding Year1996
Founder
  • Münchner Merkur
    The aim of Merkur.de was to provide local news from Munich and the regions with the provision of the Münchner Merkur (Münchener Zeitungs-Verlag). In the development phase in 2013, the website stated: "Merkur Online provides you with daily regional news from Upper Bavaria and the latest headlines from your home town: Read reports from the city council, the municipalities and the districts. Find out how your local football club fared and what topics were discussed at the general meeting of your shooting club. We also let you know which cultural events are planned in your area and which films are showing at the cinema. Our external editorial teams report daily from your neighbourhood." This was followed by short news items from the districts of Freising, Dachau, Fürstenfeldbruck, Ebersberg, Starnberg and Wolfratshausen.The printed daily newspaper "Münchner Merkur" has been published since 13 November 1946 as the second daily newspaper after the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). The Münchner Merkur (known as Münchner Mittag until 1947) received a licence from the Independent Control Division of the American military government in the post-war period. The newspaper succeeded the Münchener Zeitung, which ceased publication in 1943 due to the war. Although the Münchner Merkur was in competition with the SZ from the outset, it was never able to achieve the circulation and significance of the SZ within Munich. In the countryside, however, it quickly achieved a monopoly-like position. Politically, the Münchner Merkur can be categorised as conservative and was considered to be close to the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) party until the 1980s.
CEO
  • Daniel Schöningh
    the nephew of Dirk Ippen. He holds 30% of the shares in the publishing house F. Wolff & Sohn KG. He is Managing Director of F. Wolff & Sohn KG, Münchner Zeitungs-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG and other holdings of the Ippen family.
  • Jan Andreas Ippen
    Managing Director of Ippen Digital Media GmbH. He holds 8% of the shares in the publishing house F. Wolff & Sohn KG and is considered the digital strategist of the Ippen Group. Ippen trained as a banker and studied industrial engineering in Munich. In 2005, Ippen joined the Markt Group as Head of IT, which at the time was still jointly owned by Funke Mediengruppe, Rheinische Post and the Ippen Group. In 2006, he founded Ippen Digital as a service provider and developer for Internet platforms within the newspaper group and as the operator of the Ippen Zentralredaktion. In 2011, he added the content agency Ippen Digital Media, which is also aimed at external clients.
  • Benjamin Marx
    Managing Director of Ippen Digital Media GmbH. In addition to Ippen Digital, Marx also manages Munich Online GmbH (MOL) and thus the online business of the Ippen publishing house for Munich and Upper Bavaria.
Editor-In-Chief
  • Georg Anastasiadis
    has been Editor-in-Chief of Merkur.de since 2016. An economics graduate and native of Munich, he has helped shape the newspaper for many years in various positions, most recently as deputy editor-in-chief.
  • Markus Knall
    editor-in-chief of Ippen.Digital. He was a trainee at the Münchner Merkur media group from 2007 to 2009 and then worked as an editor at the same company. He has been editor-in-chief of the Ippen Digital central editorial office and of merkur.de and tz.de since 2011.
Other Important People
  • Christopher Härtel
    Publishing Director of F. Wolff & Sohn KG, which includes Münchner Zeitungs-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG and Ippen Digital GmbH & Co. KG, which provide the content for Merkur.de.
  • Larissa Zimmer
    Editorial Director of F. Wolff & Sohn KG, which includes Münchner Zeitungs-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG and Ippen Digital GmbH & Co. KG, which provide the content for Merkur.de.
  • Markus Franz
    CTO of Ippen Digital Media GmbH and a member of the management board.
ContactMünchner Zeitungs-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG / Ippen Digital GmbH & Co. KG
Paul-Heyse-Str. 2-4
80336 München
Germany
info@merkur.de; info@ippen-digital.de
+49 89 5306-0
www.merkur.de; www.ippen-digital.de
RevenueMissing Data
Operating ProfitMissing Data
Advertising (in % of total funding) Missing Data
Market ShareMissing Data
Headlines
Meta DataFinancial data relating exclusively to Merkur.de cannot be provided. According to the imprint of Merkur.de, the portal contains content from both Münchner Zeitungs-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, the publisher of the Münchner Merkur, as well as Ippen Digital GmbH & Co. KG, the central editorial office of the Ippen Group, which in turn supplies around 50 news portals from the Ippen Group with content. For this reason, it is not possible to allocate financial data to Merkur.de alone.
The overall Merkur.de offering consists of two parts with different service providers. With the exception of the contributions of the central editorial office, the following is exclusively responsible for the content of Merkur.de: Münchner Zeitungs-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG.
Contributions from the Zentralredaktion (ZR) of the Ippen publishing group are posted automatically and displayed on pages whose Internet address contains the abbreviation "zr" before the individual numerical code. Ippen Digital GmbH & Co. KG is solely responsible for the content of these pages. KG
The founding year 1996 refers to the first entry for the website stored at Archive.org. Alternatively, the years 2004 (as Rheinischer Merkur, Verlag Rheinischer Merkur GmbH), 2013 (as Münchner Merkur, reference to new website in development), or 2015 (as Münchner Merkur, Münchner Zeitungs-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG) can be mentioned.
Sources
Documents (PDF)
  • Jahresabschluss zum Geschäftsjahr vom 01.01.2017 bis zum 31.12.2017, Ippen Digital GmbH & Co. KG
    File
  • Liste der Gesellschafter, Zeitungsverlag Oberbayern Verwaltungs-GmbH
    File
  • Liste der Gesellschafter, Ippen Digital Media GmbH
    File
  • Eintragung im Handelsregister, F. Wolff & Sohn KG
    File