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All-rounder: multi-jobber
Thomas Rabe
Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka/ dpa
Thomas Rabe
(57) made short work of it.
Just returned from vacation, he quoted
Stephan Schäfer
(48) at the beginning of this week.
Schäfer is co-boss and identification figure of RTL Germany, the most important national subsidiary of the RTL Group (sales: 6.6 billion euros) - which Rabe also manages in addition to his job as Bertelsmann boss.
Rabe Schäfer explained that one must now go their separate ways.
The looming recession, the need to save - the external circumstances have changed in such a way that other qualifications are now needed at the top of RTL Germany.
His.
This is what people who know about the conversation say.
The personnel and their circumstances reveal the enormous cliffs facing the media group Bertelsmann (recent sales of around 19 billion euros) and its boss Thomas Rabe.
And they provide insights into the special understanding of leadership of one of the most influential media managers in the country.
Rabe had tried something hussar-like new with the redesign of RTL Germany under Stephan Schäfer: the merger of the magazine publishers Gruner + Jahr (Stern, Brigitte) and the RTL Group in Germany (n-tv, Deutschland sucht den Superstar) with two main goals: To save costs and set up a national streaming offer under the RTL+ brand as local competition for global providers such as Netflix or Disney.
Goal by 2026: 8 million subscriptions for RTL + from Germany alone, RTL Nederland should contribute 2 million.
A Herculean task that seemed unsolvable to many in the industry.
Schäfer got to work anyway from September 2021.
The trained journalist, ex-editor-in-chief (Brigitte, Schöner Wohnen, Essen & Trink) and CEO of Gruner + Jahr invested heavily in journalists and formats in order to upgrade the content of the RTL brand and to fill RTL+ with subscription attractions;
the money for this was mainly provided by the advertising business, which flourished in boom times.
Alone: The market for TV advertising in Germany fell by around 3 percent in the first half of the year, and RTL Germany's operating profit fell disproportionately by five percent to 191 million euros, with sales of 1.2 billion euros.
An alarm signal for Rabe, who is known for his cost sensitivity and therefore prefers to work with the management consultancy McKinsey.
It didn't help Schäfer that Rabe celebrated the number of 4.5 million subscribers for RTL + in the semi-annual report.
The new management will soon be history
With him as boss, hard times will now dawn on the still unfinished construct RTL Germany - especially for the remnants of the Hamburg publisher Gruner + Jahr, which already operates only under RTL Germany.
Although Rabe tried to spread calm in the official press release and announced that Schäfer's ex-colleagues would now "take over the management of RTL Germany's business" under him, only to be supplemented by the future COO
Andreas Fischer
, who had previously worked as Head of corporate development at RTL Group, one of his most important assistants was:
Matthias Dang
as before as co-CEO,
Alexander Glatz
as old and new CFO and
Oliver Radtke
as before "as responsible for the overall coordination of the merger of RTL Germany and Gruner + Jahr (G+J)".
According to information from manager magazin, the announcement will only have a very short half-life.
Radtke, next to Schäfer the second envoy from Gruner + Jahr in the four-man management team of the merged RTL Germany, is already planning his exit, CFO Glatz will involuntarily have to prepare for his departure, and Matthias Dang, who is responsible for marketing the advertising space, must hope for Rabe that he remains steadfast.
After Dang found out about Schaefer's fate on Monday, he hesitated over whether to get out.
Rabe was then able to change his mind.
After all, Rabe has already arranged for fresh top staff in the past few months and expressly asked the personnel consultancy EgonZehnder to look for female top executives in particular.
The result: A specialist from the cosmetics industry will soon be joining RTL Germany as the new CFO and Glatz's replacement.
A manager from the second management level of a Burda holding is to come as the new head of HR, but she has not yet dealt intensively with editorial content in her professional life.
construction sites abroad
Rabe is a boss who actually likes to delegate, but who throws himself into the fray with all the more verve when his strategic ideas don't seem to work out - so far mostly with economic success.
At RTL Deutschland, he will be mainly busy over the next few weeks with setting up his savings plan and otherwise familiarizing himself and his new top staff with the inner workings of RTL Deutschland - classic onboarding.
Those who prove themselves can hope for further promotion within a year.
Rabe, who also heads the supervisory board of the lurching Dax group Adidas, is reluctant to do the triple job of group boss, RTL group boss and RTL Germany boss for longer, he let know internally.
After all, he is also facing real construction sites in other places in the Bertelsmann Reich.
In order to oppose the big platforms like Netflix or Amazon, he wants to create the largest possible units himself.
In the book business, for example, Bertelsmann is already the market leader with Penguin Random House.
With the purchase of US rival Simon & Schuster for almost 2.2 billion dollars, Rabe wants to expand its position.
However, the concerns of the authorities in the USA seem considerable, at the beginning of August star author Stephen King (74) also spoke out against the merger in the antitrust proceedings.
A second major project by Rabe is also shaky.
The RTL holding M6 is to merge with the private broadcaster competitor TF1.
Here, too, the cartel watchdogs have announced clear reservations, a decision will probably be made in October.
Seen in this way, his new part-time job offers a tangible change with - at least from Rabe's point of view - countable successes.
Editor's note: Bertelsmann is a shareholder of manager magazin publishing company.
