Categories News magazine Circulation 504,226 (IVW 2014) | Frequency Weekly Publisher Helmut Markwort | |
Editor Helmut Markwort, Jörg Quoos First issue 18 January 1993; 24 years ago (1993-01-18) | ||
Focus is a German weekly news magazine published in Munich and distributed throughout Germany. It is the third-largest weekly news magazine in Germany. It is considered conservative and leans towards economic liberalism.
Contents
Overview
Focus was launched in 1993 to pioneer a new style of journalism for readers short of time. The magazine was positioned against Der Spiegel and from day one has featured many color images and made heavy use of information graphics.
The magazine was founded by Helmut Markwort and Hubert Burda and was first published on 18 January 1993 with an initial circulation of around 478,000. It is part of Hubert Burda Media. The target audience is the "information elite", a term coined by Helmut Markwort who is also famous for his advertising slogan "facts, facts, facts".
For several years Focus has been considered by many to be one of the most successful German magazine launches ever. In November 2004, Uli Baur, who had been involved in the magazine from the start and who had worked with Helmut Markwort prior to joining Focus, was appointed as another editor in chief alongside Markwort. The headquarters of the magazine was in Stuttgart. Later it was moved to Munich.
The Focus Online news portal was launched in January 1996 in close co-operation with MSN Germany. Focus TV was launched later that year as an information magazine programme on the ProSieben TV channel. Spin-offs include Focus Money magazine (launched in March 2000) the educational magazine Focus Schule (launched in January 2004).
In the 2013 elections Focus was among the supporters of the Christian Democrats.
Circulation
In 1999 the circulation of Focus was 794,400 copies. The circulation of the magazine was 579,788 copies in 2010 and 504,224 copies in 2014.
Infiltration by Germany's secret intelligence service, the BND exposed by WikiLeaks
In 2008, WikiLeaks released the 11 pages missing from Germany's infamous 2006 Shaefer report. They revealed that Germany's secret intelligence service, the BND or Bundesnachrichtendienst, had infiltrated Focus with spies, in violation of German law, which barred infiltration of the media by the service.