Bertelsmann

The Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, headquartered in Gütersloh, Germany, is a major European media, services, and education company operating in 50 countries. According to the Institute of Media and Communications Policy’s 2017 ranking, it is the 16th largest media company worldwide. It was family-led until 1981 and is still controlled by the Mohn family. As a conglomerate, it comprises about 1,200 individual companies or equity interests. This entry further describes the company and discusses its history and business strategies.

Bertelsmann owns subsidiaries in over 50 countries and employs about 77,000 people around the globe as of 2025, two thirds of which are outside Germany. In German-speaking countries, Bertelsmann was perhaps best known for its operations in the book club business, which the company ended in 2015 because of its poor economic prospects. Bertelsmann’s most important businesses have included broadcasting through RTL Group and publishing through Penguin Random House.

In 1835, the printer and lithographer Carl Bertelsmann (1791–1850) founded a publishing business for Christian literature. His son Heinrich Bertelsmann expanded through acquisitions of publishers and the development of a print shop. Heinrich Bertelsmann’s only descendant, Friederike Bertelsmann, married Johannes Mohn (1856–1930), who took over the publishing business following his father-in-law’s death.

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Johannes Mohn added journals and educational book series to the company portfolio and introduced the Bertelsmann Company to the dime novel market. Under the Nazi regime, Bertelsmann published anti-Semitic fiction and war-related literature and became a major supplier of books to the Wehrmacht. Later independent historical research commissioned by the company rejected earlier claims that Bertelsmann had been a resistance publisher and documented the firm’s involvement in the Nazi-era publishing system. After World War II, Heinrich Mohn’s son Reinhard Mohn (1921–2009), in the fifth and most formative generation of family control, instituted Bertelsmann’s book club operations (Bertelsmann Lesering), while adding encyclopaedias and atlases to the company’s business, establishing Bertelsmann as a global corporation. In 1958, Bertelsmann expanded into music by founding Ariola; Sonopress, established as a manufacturing business, developed separately within the group. These two enhanced their economies of scope—economies achieved through multiproduct production.

Between 1962 and 1969, Bertelsmann internationalized its business model, founding book and record clubs across Western Europe and Latin America. The gradual acquisition of the Hamburg-based magazine group Gruner + Jahr (publisher of Stern, Geo, and Brigitte) was completed in 1976, firmly establishing Bertelsmann as a key player in the German media industry. Due to a shortage of capital, it had also induced a major transformation from limited partnership (Kommanditgesellschaft) to a joint stock company (Aktiengesellschaft), which took effect in 1971. On the global scale, in the late 1970s, Bertelsmann bought a majority share in Bantam Books, and, in 1986, acquired Doubleday, the New York-based publishing house, and the RCA record company. The latter purchase made the Bertelsmann Music Group one of the world’s major record labels. In 1981, Bertelsmann experienced a major change in leadership when Reinhard Mohn stepped down as CEO, making philanthropy one of his priorities. Before that, in 1977, he had established the nonprofit Bertelsmann Foundation, which today owns the majority of Bertelsmann’s capital shares. Nonfamily managers took over, though the Mohns continued to control Bertelsmann.

In the early 1980s, with private television about to be established in Germany, Bertelsmann was quick to recognize the economic potential and acquired a 40% share of the broadcasting company Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion. In 1997, its UFA film and television business merged with Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT) to form CLT-UFA, and in 2000 CLT-UFA merged with Pearson TV to create RTL Group.

Majority-owned by Bertelsmann, RTL Group is a Luxembourg-based entertainment company with television, streaming, radio, and content businesses across several European markets. During the last years, the RTL Group has expanded its operations in Eastern Europe. Based in Luxembourg, it has a staff of around 9,260 people and in 2016 generated total revenues of €6.2 billion. Bertelsmann also had interests in the German pay-TV business Premiere, which was rebranded as Sky Deutschland in 2009. Sky became part of Comcast through Comcast’s acquisition of Sky in 2018, and RTL Group announced in 2025 that it would acquire Sky Deutschland, with closing expected in 2026.

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In 1995, Bertelsmann formed a joint venture with AOL, joining forces with regard to their businesses in Europe. The initiative ended in 2000. Between 1998 and 2003, Bertelsmann had major stakes in Barnes & Noble’s online bookstore and Books Online. Under its CEO Thomas Middelhoff (1998–2002), Bertelsmann acquired the major New York publishing business Random House, which is now the world’s largest general trade book publisher in the English-speaking world.

In the year 2008, under the new Chairman and CEO Hartmut Ostrowski, Bertelsmann’s strategy changed and became focused on organic growth. Bertelsmann took over the Brockhaus publishing house in 2009. By that time, the global economic crisis had hit Bertelsmann, and in 2009, the company suffered from the lowest net profit in 5 years. The group earned €270 million, a third less than in the previous year. Bertelsmann responded by launching an efficiency programme, rigorously reviewing all structures and processes within the company and reducing costs by more than €1 billion within 1 year. In the same year, Reinhard Mohn died at the age of 88.

After reporting excellent business numbers again for the 2010 financial year, in June 2011, Bertelsmann disbanded the Direct Group as an independent division of Bertelsmann. In 2012, CEO Hartmut Ostrowski resigned and Thomas Rabe, Bertelsmann’s former chief financial officer, took over. Bertelsmann then changed its legal form from a stock corporation to Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien (KGaA; partnership limited by shares) with SE (Societas Europaea) as general partner (SE & Co. KGaA). Today, Bertelsmann’s businesses are organized into seven divisions: RTL Group, Penguin Random House, BMG, Arvato Group, Bertelsmann Marketing Services, Bertelsmann Education Group, and Bertelsmann Investments. Bertelsmann has set out to follow four strategic priorities: strengthening its core businesses, digital transformation, establishing and developing growth platforms, and investing in the growth regions of Brazil, India, and China.

The original version of this article was published by SAGE Publications in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Journalism.