The German Axel Ganz, former magazine press boss who launched the Prisma group and numerous successful titles in France, such as Geo, Femme Actuelle and Capital, died at the age of 88, his family announced on Wednesday July 22. “France is losing one of the great figures of the press, a man whose vision and passion have left a lasting mark on the world of media,” said the family of Axel Ganz in a press release about the man who was nicknamed “the glossy paper tiger”.
“We are losing a husband, a father and a grandfather of immense generosity, whose presence and warmth we will miss every day,” add his wife, his son and his granddaughter. Born in Germany, where he had been a journalist, Axel Ganz was entrusted at the end of the 1970s by the German publisher Gruner + Jahr with the mission of adapting one of its titles, Geo, to the French market.
“The adventure in France began with Geo because we thought it was the easiest to transpose to another country, another culture, because it was essentially an image magazine,” explained Axel Ganz, in “The Tiger of the Magazine Press,” a portrait dedicated to him by Arte in 2006.
A career impacted by digital upheavals
With Geo, it was the beginning of Prisma Presse, which has become one of the leaders in the magazine press in France. At its head, Axel Ganz, launches titles like Ici, Gala, Femme Actuelle, Capital. He also buys titles like VSD. “Marketing, of course, intervenes, but any journalistic product is above all based on intuition,” he explained in an interview with Les Échos in 2004, a year before handing over to Prisma.
The press boss had experienced the upheavals of digital technology and the weight that the arrival of the Internet had on the press model. “The big question is whether we will be able to charge again for the consumption of digital media after having accustomed readers to free access,” he explained in an interview with Le Figaro in 2013, predicting “a purge of the market.”
In 2020, the Prisma group was sold by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of the German giant Bertelsmann, to Vivendi, controlled by Vincent Bolloré. Since then, the group, taken over by relatives of the conservative billionaire, has announced several social plans, including a final massive 260 positions, or 40% of the workforce, is currently being negotiated with the unions.
