ABSTRACT
Asked if we find media moguls in Germany hardly anybody in this country would answer yes. Even those who approach the situation with a critical mind most probably would prefer to say that we have a number of large media companies that more or less control the different media markets. But the label mogul does not really describe the situation well, even though Germany shows the classic feature of ‘mogul-land’: a high degree of media concentration on all relevant media markets. Furthermore Germany is the national base of one of the real giants on the world market, Bertelsmann. And there are other companies of international significance, such as Springer, Bauer, Burda or Kirch. But who actually owns and controls Bertelsmann? Certainly not a person who is interested in an image as a mogul.
