2024-09-15 04:05:33
Many media companies are considering this, but the “taz” is taking a radical step. Next year, the left-wing media outlet will end its printed daily newspaper.
From autumn 2025, there will no longer be a printed daily newspaper “taz”. After the issue on October 17, 2025, the newspaper will stop printing its daily editions from Monday to Friday, as the company announced at the cooperative meeting in Berlin. The daily newspaper will then no longer be available on paper, but will continue to be available to read from Monday to Friday as a digital edition via e-paper. This ends a decades-old tradition: According to the newspaper, it has been published daily in print during the week since April 17, 1979.
This makes the left-wing newspaper brand, with a daily newspaper circulation of around 46,000 copies (Monday to Friday, second quarter of 2024), one of the first media companies in Germany to make such a drastic cut. Publishers and editorial teams have been discussing for years how long printed newspaper editions will be worthwhile and how long there will be demand among readers. In recent years, media companies have expanded their digital offerings.
The move by “taz”, which is backed by a cooperative, has been in the works for some time. A change was made years ago: Since November 2022, there has been a weekly newspaper published on Saturdays (“wochentaz”, circulation in the second quarter: 70,000 copies sold). This will continue to be available, including in print. It will be available for sale for a week. The weekly newspaper also replaced the weekend edition of the daily newspaper.
In future, the newspaper, which has its headquarters in Berlin, will primarily distribute up-to-date content via its website. Unlike other publishers, the newspaper does not use a paywall. The content is free of charge. In parallel, there is a solidarity model in which users can decide whether and how much they want to pay for the content on the website.