Focus

Logo of Focus

FOCUS is a news magazine that was first published on January 13, 1993. Its role model and competitor at the time was DER SPIEGEL magazine, the only magazine in this segment at the time. "A few months before FOCUS went on the market, the publishing house was in a difficult economic situation. Many people advised me against launching a second news magazine in Germany. Even within my own company. The rest of the story is well known. After a few weeks, the new magazine successfully established itself on the market and, against all expectations, became a great success," publisher Hubert Burda is quoted as saying on the Hubert Burda Media website. Alongside him, journalist Helmut Markwort is one of the founders of FOCUS.
Market researchers put the target group targeted by Burda and Markwort, the so-called info-elite (educated and information-hungry, primarily younger people), at around 3 million readers. This readership is thought to have a need for a politically neutral magazine with articles that can be consumed quickly and are illustrated with graphics. Initially, male and younger readers than those of SPIEGEL magazine were targeted. Short texts illustrated by graphics are still typical of FOCUS today. Politically, the magazine belongs to the conservative or liberal-conservative camp. Since then, FOCUS has managed to assert itself on the market. With the slogan "Facts, facts, facts", Markwort creates the FOCUS advertising message par excellence. From the outset, FOCUS forms its own publishing unit within the Burda Group (FOCUS Magazin-Verlag GmbH). Markwort is initially both managing director and editor-in-chief of the magazine. FOCUS reporting focuses on portraits of people who are changing our world - in politics, business, science, health, society and culture.
Until its relocation to the capital Berlin in 2017, the editorial team was based in Munich. FOCUS magazine reaches millions of readers, both in print and digitally. In 1996, FOCUS Online launched its own digital information portal, which is now operated by BurdaForward, which is also part of Hubert Burda Media. FOCUS sees itself as a companion, guide and inspiration for those who are curious about the world. The magazine covers the entire spectrum of socially relevant topics like no other news magazine, both in terms of content and visually.

Key Facts

Audience Share3.41%
Ownership TypePrivate
Geographic CoverageNational
Content TypePaid
Active Transparency
company/channel informs proactively and comprehensively about its ownership, data is constantly updated and easily verifiable

Ownership

Ownership StructureFOCUS magazine is published by FOCUS Magazin Verlag GmbH, which ultimately belongs to the Hubert Burda Media Group via a network of subsidiaries. The company is wholly owned by the Burda family. Hubert Burda currently holds 25 per cent of the company, while his two children Jacob Hubert Linus Burda and Elisabeth Furtwängler have each held 37.5 per cent of the Group holding company since 2017.
Voting RightsThe Burda family decides jointly on the direction of the Group.
Individual Owner

Media Companies / Groups

Facts

Founding Year1993
Founder
  • Helmut Markwort
    is a journalist, media entrepreneur and politician. Markwort has been an FDP member since 1968, from 2018 to 2023 he was a member of the Bavarian state parliament for the FDP and from 2019 he was also one of the members of the Bavarian Broadcasting Council delegated by the state parliament. Through several companies, he holds shares in various media companies, including Antenne Bayern, Antenne Niedersachsen, Studio Gong and München TV. Markwort has worked as a journalist for various newspapers and media such as Stern and the publisher Hubert Burda. As a result of the third broadcasting judgment and the resulting opening of the broadcasting sector to private companies, Markwort was involved in the founding of Radio Gong. He was also the founding managing director of Antenne Bayern. He was involved in the founding of the weekly magazine FOCUS, published by Hubert Burda, and was its first editor-in-chief, becoming its publisher in 2009. Markwort was also editor of FOCUS Money, FOCUS TV and other publications under the FOCUS family brand. He also held leading positions in other Burda Group publications, for example as Managing Director of Burda Broadcast Media GmbH and as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Playboy Deutschland Publishing. He was also a member of the Supervisory Board of FC Bayern München AG until 2014. During his career, Markwort hosted several talk shows and also took on roles in several TV series and films. He had to give up his role as host of the Sunday regulars' table on Bayerischer Rundfunk in 2017 due to his candidacy for the FDP in the Bavarian state election campaign. The raffle for a role in a BR production initiated by Markwort, the proceeds of which were used to finance his election campaign, also caused a stir. Bayerischer Rundfunk ultimately prevented the casting, having previously assumed that the auction was planned for charitable purposes. In the meantime, Markwort has largely retired from leading positions. He still writes regular articles for FOCUS in the "Helmut Markwort's Diary" section.
  • Prof. Dr. Hubert Burda
    born Hubert Dietrich Burda in 1940, son of the publishing couple "Senator" Franz Burda (1903-1986) and Aenne Burda (1909-2005), studied art history, archaeology and sociology at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. He received his doctorate in 1966 with the thesis "The ruins in the pictures of Hubert Roberts". Burda has made a name for himself worldwide as an entrepreneur, publisher, digital mastermind, art historian and editor-in-chief. Today, the managing general partner of Hubert Burda Media Holding stands for the success story of his media group. His first marriage (1967-1972) was to art historian Christa Maar (1939-2022); their son Felix Burda, born in 1967 and also a doctor of art history, died of bowel cancer in 2001 at the age of 33. Burda has been married to the doctor and actress Maria Furtwängler-Burda since 1991; their children Jacob Burda and Elisabeth Furtwängler-Burda have each held 37.5 percent of the Group holding company since 2017. When Hubert Burda took over his father's Offenburg publishing house in January 1987, it still reported a turnover of DM 500 million. In 2010, he handed over operational management of the company to Paul-Bernhard Kallen - the current Chairman of the Board of Directors - who was succeeded by Martin Weiss as the new CEO in 2022. Hubert Burda was editor of Bunte for twelve years, from 1974 to 1986. First as a vacation replacement for his father and Bunte inventor Franz Burda, then from 1976 onwards as the fully responsible editor-in-chief of the magazine. The young editor already had a certain idea of how an editorial office works, having gained experience in various editorial staffs of American magazines during a stay in the USA. As a publisher, Hubert Burda knows how to operate in different, seemingly contradictory worlds: in the world of journalism, publishing and printing - as well as in the visual arts and literature. With the founding of the news magazine Focus in 1993, he wrote German journalistic history and achieved unprecedented commercial success. The introduction of a new news design with graphics and charts makes it possible to convey complex content more quickly.
CEO
  • Manuela Kampp-Wirtz
    is Managing Director of FOCUS Magazin Verlag GmbH. From 1995 to 2001, the communications scientist worked for MVG Medienverlagsgesellschaft, including as advertising manager for brands such as Cosmopolitan, Joy and Shape. She then moved to Condé Nast as advertising manager for Vogue before joining the Burda People Group as Head of Sales & Marketing in 2008. There she was responsible for the publications Bunte and Instyle, among others. After another move to Condé Nast, Kampp-Wirtz returned to Burda in 2012, first as Managing Director of the Burda Style Group and then, from 2021, as Chief Publishing Officer. She is strategically responsible for brands and products in the areas of news, fashion, lifestyle, food and TV.
  • Philipp Welte
    is Managing Director of FOCUS Magazin Verlag GmbH and a member of the Management Board at Hubert Burda Media. After studying political science and empirical cultural studies at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, the educated daily newspaper journalist worked as a freelance journalist until 1992, when he moved to Leipzig during the start-up phase of the public broadcaster MDR, part of ARD. In 1994, he joined Hubert Burda Media as Head of Communications, where he took over responsibility for Bunte as Publishing Director at the end of 1998. In this role, he launched the German InStyle in 1999 as the world's first license of the successful US-brand and founded the Burda People Group, which also included the entertainment unit STARnetONE in Berlin, responsible among other things for the production of Bambi, the most important European media award. At the end of 2006, Welte moved to Axel Springer, where he became CEO of Bild T-Online AG in 2007 and in this role assumed responsibility for Bild.de. At the beginning of 2008, the media group entrusted him with the task of Chief Marketing Officer and left him in charge of the emerging multi-channel marketer Axel Springer Media Impact. At the end of 2008, he was appointed to the Executive Board of Hubert Burda Media, where he has been responsible for the Group's national publishing business since then.
Editor-In-Chief
  • Franziska Reich
    has been editor-in-chief at the news magazine FOCUS since 2023. After training at the Berlin School of Journalism in 2000, she worked for STERN magazine - as a parliamentary correspondent, business editor, reporter with a focus on portraits and social reportage, and finally as a writer for all departments. In 2014, she became head of copywriting at STERN, followed three years later by a move to head the politics/economics department in Hamburg and the Berlin capital office. Before moving to FOCUS, she was responsible for communications at the aid organizations Bread for the World and Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe for two years. In January 2022, she will then take over as head of the politics department at the news magazine.
  • Georg Meck
    has been Editor-in-Chief at the news magazine FOCUS since 2023. He has also been Editor-in-Chief of FOCUS Money since 2021; he joined Burda from Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, where he was responsible for the business section for many years.
Other Important People
  • Jörg Harlan Rohleder
    is Editorial Director and responsible for the Agenda department; he is also Editor-in-Chief of the lifestyle magazine FOCUS Style.
ContactFOCUS Magazin Verlag GmbH
Arabellastr. 23
81925 München
Germany
redaktion@FOCUS-magazin.de
+49 (0)89/92 50 - 0; +49 (0)30 / 75 44 30 - 0
www.FOCUS-magazin.de
RevenueMissing Data
Operating ProfitMissing Data
Advertising (in % of total funding)Missing Data
Market ShareMissing Data
Headlines
Meta DataThe financial data of FOCUS Magazin Verlag, which publishes FOCUS, is not published in its own annual financial statements. They are included in the annual and consolidated financial statements of Burda GmbH, which is ultimately part of Hubert Burda Media.
Sources
Documents (PDF)
  • Burda-Konzern: Rundfunkbeteiligungen
    File
  • Burda-Konzern: Beteiligungen an Printmedien in Deutschland
    File
  • Burda-Konzern: Digirale Angebote
    File
  • Burda-Konzern: Beteiligungen an Printmedien im Ausland
    File