MANAGEMENT REPORT
I. FUNDAMENTALS OF THE COMPANY
The purpose of the company is the collection, processing and distribution of news, images, audio, graphics and videos of all kinds. To this end, a close-knit network of editorial offices and correspondents’ bureaus in Germany and around the world guarantees the company’s own news gathering, that is impartial and independent of ideologies, economic and financial groups or governments. This is stipulated in the articles of association of dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH.
dpa supplies all types of media with this material: newspapers, magazines, radio stations and online services. Institutions, organisations and companies are also among the customers of Germany’s largest news agency and represent important sources of revenue, alongside the media.
With its services, the company operates mainly in Germany. The approximately 170 shareholders of dpa are also drawn from the domestic customer base. In addition, dpa services are offered and distributed in more than 100 countries, both in German as well as in Arabic, English, Spanish, French, Serbian and Russian. In this way, dpa helps to disseminate German topics and the German perspective abroad, as well as to promote the important values of press freedom and independence.
1. Overall economic and sector-related conditions
Germany’s economic situation in 2023 was largely shaped by the consequences of the war in Ukraine, rising energy prices and the increased cost of living. The average inflation rate was 5.9%. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports a decline in the price-adjusted gross domestic product of 0.3%. This means that the recovery of the German economy from the effects of the pandemic has not continued. In addition, unfavourable financing conditions due to rising interest rates and lower demand from Germany and abroad have led to a deterioration in sentiment. Compared to the overall economic situation, however, the service sectors were once again able to expand their activities compared to the previous year. Overall, however, the increase was weaker than in the two previous years. The largest price-adjusted increase was recorded by the information and communications sector at +2.6%, continuing its long history of growth. The number of people in employment increased by 0.7% in 2023. The country’s economic output was generated by an average of 45.9 million people in employment in Germany.
Overall, the media industry is under pressure both economically and socially. Traditional daily newspapers are continuing to struggle with the impact of the digital transformation. Although half of the German population still reads newspapers every day, according to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Media-Analyse (agma), the overall reach continued to decline compared to the previous year, as agma 2023 shows. Newspapers reached a total of 34.6 million people over the age of 14, which corresponds to a readership of 49.4% of the German-speaking population. Regional subscription newspapers have the highest reach with 28.6 million readers per day (previous year: 29.1 million). Newsstand newspapers reach 7.7 million readers per day (previous year: 8.2 million) and national subscription newspapers 3.8 million (previous year: 3.9 million).
The new TZ-Konvergenzdatei (convergence file), which is based on data from agma 2023 on daily newspapers and the daily digital facts (ddf) of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Onlineforschung (agof), provides a more differentiated picture of the reach of journalistic publications. This provides combined print and digital reach figures for daily newspapers. According to this, digital and print newspapers combined reach 64.1% of the German-speaking population over the age of 14 every day. Regional subscription newspapers in particular are read: 51.4% of Germans browse the print and online editions of the titles daily and 77.6% weekly. According to the TZ-Konvergenzdatei, daily newspapers are popular with executives and civil servants as well as the self-employed and freelancers. In these categories, 73.3% (executives) and 70.5% (self-employed) maintain the habit of reading newspapers daily.
Digital sales of electronic daily newspapers rose by 7.3% year-on-year to 2.77 million copies sold in the fourth quarter of 2023. This was reported by the German Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers (BDZV). 1.69 million issues of digital newspapers – and therefore well over half of all sales – are purchased as regular subscriptions. This is an increase of 9.8% compared to the previous year and shows that reading digital publications is becoming a habit for more and more readers. According to the joint study “Trends in the newspaper industry 2024” conducted by the BDZV and Highberg (formerly Schickler), companies in the newspaper industry expect the share of digital sales to triple within five years. According to the study, key opportunities lie in further growth in the paid content sector and in the digitalisation of existing print subscriptions.
Online media consumption in Germany remains very high. According to the 2023 online study conducted by public broadcasters ARD and ZDF, eight in 10 people use the internet every day to access various formats such as videos, media libraries, news, music streaming, podcasts and social media. Every second German citizen watches video content online every day, while 37% consume digital audio content daily. The growing popularity of the ARD and ZDF media libraries, which have become an integral part of Germans’ media consumption, is particularly noteworthy. The public broadcasters both recorded record figures last year, with more than half the population (ARD 54%, ZDF 55%) accessing programmes there.
Podcast usage in Germany also remains high – even if the figures are now stagnating and appear to have peaked. According to a study commissioned by the digital association Bitkom, 43% of German citizens aged 16 and over consume podcasts – this corresponds to 29.7 million people, the same level as in 2022. Among younger people aged between 16 and 29, more than half listen to podcasts (52%).