Interactive Publishing 99 -Executive Summary (10) - Zimmermann - TA-Media - Munck

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Executive Summary

Embracing Change - Changing Culture
Sverre Munck, Executive Vice President, Schibsted Multimedia (Oslo)Bio
Kurt W. Zimmermann, Member of the Executive Board, TA-Medien (CH)Bio

"In most advanced internet economies, traditional media players - and in particular newspapers - have not been amongst the leaders terms of deploying resources into this area. Most attempts have been defensive in nature, and as a consequence this arena is currently dominated by totally new companies and brands," said Munck.

"In Norway and Sweden this is not the case, with traditional media companies and newspaper titles among the market leaders. Schibsted ASA has played a leading role in this development. Even though the beginning was quite adventurous with the acquisition of an ISP operation in 1995".

Munck said, "The internet is creating the most dramatic shift in business ever." And while Schibsted until recently had been a traditional publishing house, Munck was convinced that online publishing and traditional publishing can produce positive synergistic results. "We have to use all our channels, and we have to promote our products through these different channels," he said. Philip Halliday of the Financial Times and Kurt Zimmerman, member of the Executive Board, TA Media (CH) agree to this notion although itt still receives a lot of resistance from many media owners.

TA Media has taken a similar approach to Schibsted, but has moved at a slower pace. They started in 1995 with internet activities, then went into TV and radio recently. "The big difference to the traditional business of publishing was to learn to share the customer base with partners when going into the internet business. This was new for us," said Zimmerman.

While it was not too difficult to convince the board of TA Media, publishers of the Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger, to get into the internet business, Zimmerman says, "TA media just bought minority share of Blue window, an ISP. This was hard to convince the board to do, because it is far away from our core product," explained Zimmermann.

"Does internet change corporate culture about getting into markets you wouldn't have gone into otherwise?" questioned a member of the audience. "Not necessarily," said Zimmerman. "We decided to stay in the Swiss German part of Switzerland and not to branch into the rest of the country or into Germany."

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