DuMont, the name is a power in Cologne. The newspaper “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” and “Express”, the publisher dominates the newspaper market in the cathedral city. Later, the publisher of the “Kölnische Rundschau” and other newspaper companies came from outside North Rhine-Westphalia to. M. DuMont is currently the fifth largest German newspaper publisher with a total circulation of its titles of nearly one million copies.
Alfred Neven DuMont, born in 1927, united in itself the sense of the Verlegertum as enthusiasm for the arts. He was an entrepreneur and creative at the same time. Not only wrote in his newspapers, but wrote novels already played in his youth theater, later at the Munich Kammerspiele. His father Kurt Neven DuMont was publisher in the tenth generation, his mother was the daughter of Gabriele painter Franz von Lenbach. In his home near Cologne, visitors could see how much Neven DuMont lived with and in art. He possessed not only that, it was fun.
Photo: AP A Cologne institution: Alfred Neven DuMont reads 1964, the first edition of the newspaper” Express “.
After 1950, after studying Philosohie, history and culture in Munich, followed by, as stated in his biography, “practical Preparation for the activity in the newspaper business. ” In Axel Springer Verlag (inter alia, the “world” out there) and at the “Sueddeutsche Zeitung”. He then studied at the Medill School of Journalism in Chicago. A proof of how seriously it took the publisher in spe with journalism. More than half a century the young Neven pilgrimage to an American elite university to be taught in an older democracy than that of his home in newspaper making.
In 1953, the entry into the publishing house M. DuMont, the equally families Neven DuMont and DuMont Schütte belongs. In an interview with the newspaper “Welt am Sonntag” from 2005 Neven said when asked whether such a career as his would still imagine: “Unthinkable One has to put in the time to understand the Cologne was a broken.. and encrusted world amusisch, conservative, even reactionary. The awakening came later. Since I could put maybe more fun to our then small company after my studies in the United States, as that would be possible today. “
1955 two other businesses in the biography sober in its brevity and yet meaningful: “journalistic director of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” and “Prince Carnival in Cologne”. To date, the carnival is not only a part of Cologne, but also by DuMont. As serious as it may be received in the past few years in the publishing house.
In 1964, the young publisher the tabloid “Express” and took over both the editorship. 1967 his father died, what Alfred at the age of forty years made the chairman of the management of the publishing house. Only later he had to adherence to the dynastic principle to give up – at least, what the operational management concerned. Over the decades, were added radio and TV holdings. Again and again, DuMont had stressed: “I believe in the future of newspapers”
Photo: AP The fact that he once gave also a pretty carnival prince, believed immediately: Alfred Neven DuMont 1977.
In 1990, Neven DuMont at the head of the supervisory board. The publisher was the publisher – very active. In publishing, it was regular, no important decision would be taken without the consent of the patriarch. And he made decisions. In particular, to expand with the publisher over the borders of the Rhineland addition. Participation in the “Abendzeitung” in Munich he gave in 1986, although again. 1991, just after the Wall came down, the media company but took over the Central German printing and publishing house in Halle an der Saale. In the same year was Neven DuMont publisher of the “Mitteldeutsche Zeitung”, which had been operating as SED district newspaper under the title “Freedom”.
As Axel Springer had Also Alfred Neven DuMont used repeatedly for German unity. The end of the division of Germany the “critical patriots” was, as he was called again, a political concern – and offered its publisher at the same time business opportunities
Controversial investments
<. p id="p9" class="text prefix_1 artContent"> Several years later, two more important, extremely momentous acquisitions. In 2006, DuMont initially a majority stake in loss-making “Frankfurter Rundschau”. The Berlin Verlag with the “Berliner Zeitung” and the “Kurier” and “Hamburger Morgenpost” three years later went to Cologne. Neven DuMont took over the title for 152 million euros of the British entrepreneur David Montgomery, who was for a while as the greatest villain among newspaper managers, because he had dared to come to terms with financial investors. For the structurally conservative newspaper industry an absurdity. Alfred Neven DuMont was then celebrated in Berlin, as received the Savior. For the then almost 82-year-olds it was indeed a special coup.
A lot of joy had his publisher then not with the acquisitions. The “Frankfurter Rundschau” had to be sent a few years later into bankruptcy. The Berliner Verlag had to save even more under a traditional publisher. Whether Neven regretted the two investing? The Dortmund Formatt Institute ruled in a newspaper study, the acquisition of the “Rundschau” have turned out to be “fatal mistake”
Yet one suspects:. The acquisitions were not mere gestures of an elderly newspaper czar who wanted to show the industry once again, that he could give. Of course Neven DuMont loved the applause. But even more he loved newspapers. Even so he stepped repeatedly criticizing the media policy in appearance, repeatedly demanded a relaxation of antitrust law. The “biggest competitor” of the newspapers, the publisher said last year, “Facebook, Google, Twitter and Ebay”.
International DuMont was restrained, it remained at a 25 percent shareholding in the Israeli newspaper house “Ha’aretz”, which entered the house in 2006. Participation may also have been symbolic, but Neven had a keen interest in Israel and the Middle East. Avi Primor, the former Israeli ambassador to Bonn, the publisher once called a “best Germans … who can deal more honestly with the past and could”.
“We want to survive “
With his wife Hedwig Alfred Neven DuMont had three children. Markus, an artist who died in 1995 at the age of only 28 years. Son Konstantin was intended as a successor, he was by the end of 2010 Member of the Board. This was followed, at least in publishing the rift between father and son. Today Konstantin Neven DuMont, among others Managing Director of a real estate company. The board followed him his sister Isabella. She changed earlier this year as vice-chairman of the Supervisory Board. There Christian DuMont Schütte has presided, who represents the family Schütte. Alfred Neven remained honorary chairman.
CEO of M. DuMont has since last year, the manager Christoph Bauer. After a difficult 2012, the publisher wrote in the following year again a small profit. On a newspaper publisher had told Congress last fall: “We will settle at lower commissions and must charge higher prices.” The decisive factor: “We want to survive.”
the end of August to the first part of the memoirs of the publisher appear:. “My life The years 1927 to 1968 “. The cover picture shows a young man looking in his paper with visible satisfaction. So Alfred Neven DuMont is remembered. At the age of 88 years, he has now died in Cologne.
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