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LearningTranscript
00:12hello everybody here is michael from new left and today we will be talking about media in
00:18european union and cooperative media in european union and i'm lucky that i found someone who can
00:24explain the situation in europe and dedicated germany uh konrad can you please introduce
00:31yourself who you are what you do you know who you are yeah my name is konrad jean and i
00:39work for the
00:40cooperative of the tats genossenschaft which is a media cooperative um i work for
00:48the cooperative since 14 years and we are based here in berlin um and have our headquarter here
00:57cool so first question because i wasn't sure on i'm not sure but uh that's the question so far i
01:05know
01:05is that the biggest media cooperative in europe am i right or am i mistaken yes we are not really
01:15sure
01:15if we know every media um cooperative in europe but uh the big ones the big ones yeah yeah we
01:23claim
01:23to be uh the first and the big most biggest in europe uh what i have read is that you
01:30have roughly 25 000
01:32members is that true yeah we are looking for the 26 000 at the moment okay okay okay so we
01:39we are about
01:39to uh have like a thousand new members per year that is our goal and all of these members are
01:47from
01:48germany or they are you know around europe wherever or no what are the restrictions if someone thanks to
01:55this video wants to become member of that is it actually possible or unless you have the german passport
02:03no um it is not necessarily uh necessary to um be in germany you just have to be interested in
02:12media in the tuts in our newspaper or in our cooperative uh then you can join from all over
02:18the world it doesn't matter where you okay so even all of the world you you don't have to be
02:23eu
02:23citizen yeah okay yes we we have like some members like maybe just one or two but in japan or
02:30we have
02:31a few members in united states doesn't matter but we have to say it's mostly german speaking people
02:38because our newspapers in german and it's about uh german news so it's mostly german speaking people
02:46okay so let's discuss a little bit how it came to be so i know about that that you exist
02:52roughly
02:5350 years something like that no i might be mistaken and so yeah there's like a difference uh since
03:00when the tuts as a newspaper exist and since when the cooperative uh exists because that was uh
03:06founded later but i can maybe give you no that's that's exactly the discussion we are having so
03:11the cooperative came later but the tuts was private newspaper back then or or how it came to be that
03:18you know that it's not really private we had like in 78 there was uh like a movement in germany
03:25from
03:26people who were studying at university so young people um they were not like happy with uh what kind
03:33of media existed and they had like a huge like a congress where they meet like it was like a
03:40left-wing
03:41uh congress it was in berlin or because no back then berlin was divided so that's why i'm asking
03:47it was in in in west berlin okay western of berlin so um and they decided to have like a
03:56like a huge
03:57congress with um left organizations politics and um people so they flew into west berlin from west
04:05germany to to be part of that congress or what was it just local the local chapters of uh in
04:13west berlin
04:14yeah um my colleague is joining she um uh was uh the leader of the cooperative
04:21even better okay yeah for 35 years okay hello i'll uh try to um maybe summarize it a bit um
04:31um when it was founded in 78 it was mostly a con a congress a big congress yes left-wing
04:38uh activists
04:39who decided they would were not happy with uh media existing and sorry to jump in only germans only
04:47germans or what is pan-european back then also people from europe from spain from france from other
04:55countries because it was a left movement uh from anti-nuclear international for nicaragua movement
05:04something okay okay so the congress was uh i think quite international but the goal to have a german
05:12newspaper was maybe more a german thing because then the newspaper should be about german news and uh it was
05:20founded there it was like i don't know what it's called a v it's a fine at first it was
05:26just people
05:27coming together and uh say civic association i would say in english no i guess something like this
05:32yeah civil association and they founded the tuts then uh they had to um acquire some readers
05:41and then the first year they just lived from the people who paid in advance uh the the newspaper but
05:49um
05:50yeah it wasn't like so successful over the years so it started to became um difficult to have enough
05:58money to keep it going and in 1992 there was one of these breaking points where people needed to decide
06:06um we we need we again need some money to um um yeah keep the newspaper and then there were
06:16like two options
06:17to sell the newspaper to some investor or to someone uh who's uh willing to buy it as a newspaper
06:24and
06:24maybe reform and uh put money in in it and make it more professional or the other idea was to
06:30found a cooperative in 1992 which wasn't like um a very yeah popular or common thing back then it was
06:39like a bit i was like an old school model or something but um there was like a young um
06:45advocate uh or an
06:47uh who who just um who just um consulted the tuts uh to found a cooperative and this is like
06:56the um
06:57uh former chancellor olaf schultz from germany he was like a a very young um
07:04uh so schultz schultz schultz was with that back then 20 30 years ago okay well that's that's our
07:11evolution yeah yeah he was like a young motivated a more left-wing lawyer advocate and he um just
07:21just recommended to the tuts to found the cooperative and it was like a bit of a um
07:28discussion inside the tuts too because not everybody wanted to found the cooperative some
07:33people said okay let's maybe sell it and then get more professional and even get get paid better
07:41but um in the end to be uh not influenced to stay
07:47um yeah if someone joins with money they can also like put things in a way you are maybe don't
07:54want
07:54to so um the unabhängigkeit is independence of the tuts um to stay independent was uh more important
08:04than to sell it and like few questions uh was it back then the first cooperative newspaper in europe
08:10or or you were kind of like remodeling or reshaping yourself after someone else
08:16because we were the first medal as a cooperative in germany and also in europe okay and the very
08:26special thing is that we are two um two parts of cooperative members the persons from outside and the
08:35person they are working here so we always say we are a cooperative it's uh for consume for the people
08:42from outside but also for production to make something so every employee is also like a member of the
08:51cooperative and we have like because i i don't know whether you've looked into the history i was
08:56interviewing mondragon i don't know two years ago or whatever and you know the biggest cooperative in
09:02the world basically and so that's why i'm asking you know what what's the structure what was the history
09:08because i know that mondragon had there are some newspapers in spain cooperative newspapers i mean
09:14there are some in italy so that's why i'm asking you know like who came first with the idea to
09:20to
09:20to can found our cooperative newspaper because as far as i know i'm from slovakia czechoslovakia back then
09:26we used to have uh cooperative newspapers between the world wars so in the 1930s 1920s actually
09:34czechoslovakia back then was one among the most strong supporters of cooperative movements in
09:40europe back then we were number three by the size of the membership base so that's i'm curious you know
09:47how it came to be that you came back to the roots of some other cooperative in germany because it
09:52was
09:52established 19th century something or you kind of started from scratch because there are two ways how
10:00to tackle this now start totally from scratch just you know gonna join with someone who's already there
10:06there were cooperatives before like in agriculture and we had in um uh you i have to see that the
10:15the
10:15the structure of cooperatives was something in relationship with communist party or something like
10:24this in germany like no not necessarily no because cooperatives started before communist idea actually
10:30emerged you know before before i know but in the 20s last century but in uh in the in the
10:39um in the
10:41consciousness of the people in germany it is very uh in relationship with communist socialistic
10:48party because same for us so that's i understand you very well and so when we started with the
10:55cooperative the people inside it was also a time when we started with the touch cooperative all newspapers
11:04and media were in a big move to earn money to be great and strong in the 1990 when the
11:14war was fallen in
11:15germany and we came with the structure of cooperative and the people inside said you are furious why you
11:23are making something like this and the people outside said it's an old-fashioned way to make a media and
11:31it was not
11:32attractive but 10 years later after the first big media crisis the people get a feeling that it is very
11:40good to have a cooperative because we are independent from people with big money and from the very first
11:48beginning with the tax function like a fundraising structure because we had people they gave money for
11:57newspaper that did not exist yet in 1978 so this uh structure is very modern and so it was a
12:07development
12:07over over over the last 30 years yes more like a historical vibe shift it's also like it can change
12:14over time how you
12:15see things and at first it was maybe seen as old-fashioned or maybe not modern or um
12:23yeah in end of 90s everybody was like um growing and get bigger it was time of capitalism and stuff
12:32like that
12:32that it wasn't so attractive to go to a cooperative but 10 years later after evolving of the internet and
12:38news online and um yeah the media crisis it changed yeah so we are like more question what happened after
12:471992 because you were saying that you founded it in western uh west west not germany but west berlin yeah
12:55and
12:55in 1992 berlin and all of germany was united so it kind of spreads to the east as well as
13:01to the west i
13:02imagine yeah so that's why you are saying that the idea of cooperative wasn't very popular again
13:08also shaft yeah because uh well people are kind of remember that uh before the berlin fall wall fall uh
13:15it this used to be a communist idea so you kind of are struggling with the east germans am i
13:21right yes
13:22am i understand you correctly so the westerners were not as anti-cooperative model as the east germans
13:29were that's what you're saying the east germans people want to uh make a break with all the
13:36structures they didn't like it they want business they want capitalism they didn't like the structure of
13:44the tats and the western people say and now all is coming to an end we don't need something like
13:51this
13:51uh so we were in a very bad situation so you were attacked from both parts yeah from west germany
13:58as
13:58well as okay okay from both sides and uh it changes eight years later 2000 when the when we make
14:08the
14:08last um campaign for new subscriptions it changed a little bit because the tats became very modern we make
14:18um and journalism which was very attractive uh for all uh people in germany and then it changed a little
14:27bit but for us it was very good that in the first step we get three thousand readers they say
14:34we became
14:35cooperative members in 1992 and they were loyal to us they stay to us and step by step we make
14:46fundraising
14:46concepts and campaigns to get more members and to become bigger and more attractive and that was
14:55our key to the future now and you succeeded because you are one of the most red newspapers in germany
15:02as
15:02far as i know we are in top 10 i guess now where exactly is it like seventh sixth place
15:08something like
15:09that what i've read yeah so out of how many newspapers nowadays in germany roughly i guess dozens and dozens
15:16and
15:17dozens no no i don't think i don't know the exactly fact but we have um uh four other big
15:27newspapers there
15:29are in the whole germany frankfurter rundschau die welt frankfurter allgemeine and the süddeutsche then
15:36there are much magazines like spiegel side and so on you have much um publishers online so it's we have
15:46a
15:46very um very um very uh very good situation with newspapers and all this uh and journalistic uh projects in
16:00germany
16:00uh lucky you because we don't in central europe uh yes uh question uh how is uh how is it
16:11structured so you have
16:12this 25 000 members what is the membership fee when you want to join that you have to do what
16:18exactly
16:20so um uh we have like um one of the shares as 500 euros and then you are owner of
16:28the company too since
16:30and you can buy more than one yes you have only one yeah yeah it doesn't matter how many shares
16:37you buy you you'll always have just one vote okay okay you can i think by until 100 000 euros
16:45you can
16:46buy shares for the tuts cooperative but you will just have one vote uh at the um annual meeting we
16:56have
16:56an annual meeting like every cooperative everybody uh from the members is invited but everybody just has
17:02one vote uh besides how much money they have that is very special and very important so you have nobody
17:10to become the most uh biggest investor because every person if you have 500 euros or 100 000 euros
17:20you have only one vote and also it is a guarantee when 10 people come with 100 000
17:30euro and they want to go we can't don't come under pressure so we have the possibility to give the
17:37money back
17:39okay okay uh i will just kind of sprinkle in when i was talking with mondragon the buy in there
17:45is 16 000 euros
17:46but yes they are working there this is just kind of like a membership kind of you know not vote
17:54but
17:54membership rights or whatever so it's a bit different uh dynamics there and uh from the kind of daily
18:02experience what exactly is it so you you are becoming a member of tuts you pay this 500 euros you
18:08know
18:08kind of guide me through the process what happens people want to join what happens they write you an email
18:15i
18:15guess yeah yeah so there uh has been some change in the past too because like before it was like
18:23in very old law which says you need to like sign something and we go with a with a post
18:30we send it with
18:30the post um but since 2025 we are allowed to do it online so there was like in digital um
18:39law edition which
18:41allows us to um that members can join online and since then you can just go to our website fill
18:49in
18:50your information your data how many shares you want to have then pick we have like some goodie uh from
18:57our
18:57cooperative maybe we have a shop we have a shop and have some goodies which you can pick like wine
19:02or
19:03or a bag for your bike uh and afterwards you uh you get like welcomed with like an um or
19:10just like a
19:11work under like a certificate with like a member of the tuts and then you get like um member magazines
19:20which we publish uh three times a year so every member sorry to jump in that's members only that's not
19:27the normal newspaper that's something only for the members yes that's besides the newspaper because
19:34we also have members who don't uh have the newspaper or don't read it or don't read it anymore there
19:40are
19:40many reasons why people maybe don't have a subscription from the newspaper anymore but they can also still
19:48be uh cooperative members and by the way to be a member of that doesn't mean that you have the
19:53subscription that's another okay okay you don't have to be um you don't have to have a subscription
20:00from the newspaper no i thought like every member gets the subscription automatically or something like
20:06that that doesn't function like this okay okay because um the subscription uh from the newspaper this is
20:14what like financed our daily business and the money you give into the cooperative is since a few years
20:22mostly just like uh capital we hold as a like a base we can just use it for uh innovation
20:29for
20:30futures investments or us like we built this house we get like credits from the bank because we have
20:37the stock of money but we don't like want to burn the shares of the people in in the in
20:45our costs
20:46on our daily costs so this is just like more to be safe and be uh be able to um
20:54have progress and
20:55future um projects to keep us safe and stable but not to pay for our daily business the daily business
21:03is having a share of that is kind of like an investment as well because the the wealth that you
21:09are generating kind of stays in touch and if you if you are managing in well it's growing
21:17we have to look back since the founding years there the shares were like less worth than you paid
21:23before you paid like 500 euros and by the second you paid it it was like worth about 200 300
21:29euros so
21:30it was a loss it was uh only ideal uh ideologic um support support for the tuts but over the
21:39years we
21:39managed to um yeah come close back to the 500 viewers and in the last uh three years we managed
21:47to be at
21:48full 100 percent of the um payment made in uh before so 500 euros um now are worth 500 euros
21:57when you
21:58exit the cooperative another question because of the inflation and everything how did the cost
22:03structure kind of evolve because back then in 92 you had deutschmark so you couldn't have yeah so so
22:10what was it back then that is something we haven't reached yet and just like from our um so what
22:17was
22:17the buying back then 500 deutschmark you know 30 years ago yes thousand mark also a thousand mark thousand
22:25mark but uh when it changed in 2000 2001 it went to half of it to 500 euro so somebody
22:32who um put a
22:34thousand mark now has 500 euros but unfortunately we cannot um raise it to inflation this is not possible
22:44at the moment and even we don't pay um like rendita dividends like uh some big cooperatives who have
22:54like uh you put money in you gain money from just be having your money in but that's not possible
22:59at our
23:00cooperative it's uh it's the reason is because we just came to the point where uh the money is worth
23:08it
23:08again and um from the losses from the last uh 20 30 years we are not able to build such
23:17um
23:18such uh hopefully in the future no no i mean just if you if you continue on this trajectory
23:25then you will be fine at the moment uh we are happy that we can pay out the full share
23:31but
23:32maybe in the future if it's if it works out very well we could maybe think about what happens with
23:39uh money generated from the shares and who um should they um be made accessible should it go to the
23:49people who gave us the money or should it maybe go to the cooperative should we use it uh for
23:55the
23:56company or is it uh for the shareholders that will be a question in the next 10 years
24:02i think other question i have what about the old printed version compared to the new internet
24:09version as far as i know you already gave up the printed version completely or or you are in the
24:14process of giving it up or you know what's the evolution there we were in the process of thinking
24:21about switching like for many years i think 10 years we 10 years ago we started there will be
24:28there will come a time where printing and distributing the newspapers will be more
24:34cost more than um we gain from the subscriptions okay so you are still in green because i thought that
24:41you are losing money on the printing because of all the distribution costs and everything
24:45no we never lost money we just were having the point in view where it could happen we said when
24:53this
24:53point comes we need to um change something because you can do it maybe for a year or two but
25:00not on the
25:01long run no no no i mean my opinion in the long run the printing of newspapers will just die
25:06out
25:06you know that's yes so evolution nation how it is right now we we have still have a print product
25:14but we have like from monday to friday our daily daily newspaper this is switched to digital only but we
25:22have
25:22uh a mold a print version a bigger a bit bigger like so weekend version is a big one the
25:29printed one
25:29and during the week you run newspapers like a digital ones okay and since since when are you running
25:35we are very happy we are very happy because this process was 10 years since 2015 and we go in
25:44um discussion with our readers with our cooperative members and we also fear that many people go
25:52because we have older readers they are in a big relationship with the touch but they say i don't
25:59read on an uh on an ipad or on an iphone but uh on the switch from a print to
26:07digital version version we
26:10have 89 percent they go with us and that is very very good we make also studies in germany because
26:20some
26:20local print version have changed in digital they have 50 or 60 percent so we are very good in this
26:30transformation from print to online version and we are very happy about it we put it a lot of work
26:37in
26:37it we had like seven six eight years of actively communicating with our readers and cooperative
26:42members like we had um ringing people to help them with uh the switch and changing to the digital we
26:50had like the possibility to get a very cheap ipad in combination with the subscription so you stay for
26:59it so uh the whole company so you made it as easy as possible so that they do this switch
27:05and stay with
27:06you basically as easy as possible and also like um um becoming all the concerns we we listened to
27:14everybody and uh tried to um take them on our way and uh the numbers of 89 who are who
27:23does we have done
27:25the switch were just very good i think our case was worst case was like 40 best case was 70
27:31and we
27:33you unperformed your optimism okay that's that's cool uh question about the daily democracy in touch so
27:4125 000 people are members of that's what does it entail on a daily basis monthly basis yearly basis how
27:49does the month of a tax member look like you you said you the the members get this three times
27:56a year
27:57special edition plus once a year there is this uh big general assembly is there something else that is
28:03going on from the members apart from those two things yeah we have like uh different activities
28:10we promote to them so if we are like somewhere on a um on a congress and we were like
28:17in bochum last
28:18then we just invite these members uh there or so social gatherings and stuff like that for members so that
28:24we
28:24okay yes and um just um even not they they get the magazine like uh three times a year but
28:32i would
28:32say they get like an email quite every week so every email what information with like um it can be
28:41anything from the tuts it can be someone here from another resort wants us to let them know they're
28:48looking for something then we put it to our members because we can use their knowledge too to
28:54have it distributed here inside of the tuts or we just ask them to
29:01have more shares so we sometimes ask hey we have like a new a goodie you can choose if you
29:07like now
29:07raise your share from 500 to 1000 euros or something so we get to our numbers also because we have
29:14these
29:14goals of thousand new members um and um the second goal is to have one million euro of new capital
29:22every year and then we ask uh them every month to raise their share and we have like some other
29:30project because we recognized that um our uh the um the structure how old the people are went very high
29:40because our readers are about 50 or something the cooperative members were around 60 and then the last
29:46time we did an um um um yeah no we asked them about how old yeah and we had like
29:56something about 69
29:58and then we said okay it's quite normal to have a bit more old structure in corporate just because of
30:05the
30:05money it's like not a student thing to pay like 500 euro for a cooperative but then we said okay
30:11we
30:11have to lower these uh numbers we have to to to be ready for the future you also need younger
30:18members
30:18and so we started to have a generational project and we asked our old members if they are ready to
30:25or willing to pay a share for a young member and this is what we started like last year and
30:31we could
30:32uh welcome uh 450 young people under 25 to the cooperative uh which also has like dropped uh the
30:41the um you are pretty creative with you know how to tackle your members and how to grow it i
30:47mean who
30:48who's the brain of the yes of the whole institution this is like a community of that's uh people who
30:54are
30:54kind of brainstorming what to do to grow or do you have some genius in marketing somewhere or how is
31:00it done
31:00yes we have two sides of this generation project because we have the old people and we want to get
31:07young people and the old people are very interested that the story of touch goes in the future and so
31:16they are willing to give money for young people and also they give when they die they give money or
31:24um apartments or something like this to the tax that are the old older members that is the second
31:31yeah we also asked we had a like a campaign which says if you don't want to have your shares
31:37back after
31:38your death then you can like have a formula uh something filled on and um signed which says
31:46uh in case the person dies the shares should stay at hours so we can uh so so they donate
31:55them back
31:56basically yeah yeah yeah they donate them after their death it which just goes to the ears because the
32:03ears are just getting like uh notices from us uh and they realize are they are a member of touch
32:11cooperative
32:12and then we can show them the the note that the money in the cooperative should stay at hours so
32:19and
32:19this all because you ask like who is uh um who is making these campaigns we have a team of
32:27nine people
32:28who are only for uh the development of the genossenschaft of the cooperative and mostly we do it together
32:35but strategic with the leader for example connie gainbeck was a leader for a long time
32:42for 35 years or 36 years and after her we had like two other leaders and these people having like
32:50maybe the vision or the strategy but um to um yeah establish everything of it we need our uh the
33:01whole
33:01team so everybody works a bit on it and often okay and it's the teamwork because the big headline is
33:09the investment of the cooperative members is uh idealistic it's not for money and the key for
33:18our big effort of the cooperative is communication with all the people that they can write us every day
33:25on monday we have 100 um emails from our members they say i have a new address i don't like
33:33the article
33:34on saturday please send it to uh the journalists who write it i have an idea for the tux that
33:43is very
33:44important for the people that they get an answer in the meanwhile of 24 hours that they can make a
33:52call
33:53per telephone and that we are in presence on different events in the whole germany we are the face of
34:03the
34:04cooperative and we go in contact with our people now a question to the structure to the kitchen so to
34:12speak yeah of that so you already said that you have like nine people who are responsible for the growth
34:17of the cooperative so how does the whole cooperative from the inside look like we were speaking about
34:23this 25 000 members but you know what is the brain and the heart of cooperative so who are those
34:29people
34:29i mean i don't need the names but like the structure like obviously you have some journalists
34:33you have someone in marketing i imagine are you all based in berlin or do you have some subsidiary
34:40somewhere in germany i don't know hamburg or munich or whatever so that you know you get local news
34:45from the local journalists so how is that done so as a touch of the newspaper we have some people
34:53in
34:53hamburg and but mainly our people are here in berlin we have like built a huge house where i think
34:59we are
35:00280 to 300 employees um are mostly in berlin we have like around 10 to 20 people in hamburg but
35:09the
35:09cooperative is only here in berlin we have our rooms here in berlin the nine people working uh for the
35:17growth of the cooperative meet here and uh we have people with like special skills we have um somebody
35:24who do does social media and um um design design and funge and fans like event event event management
35:35then we have uh people who um make back office back office yeah for but for you very important is
35:43perhaps we also have journalists in munich in cologne in uh halle in the east in dresden we have
35:53correspondents in germany and also in other countries in india in united states in russia now yet so we have
36:03a big network all over the world and by the um structure of the tatsk uh hunter foundation we found
36:12it in
36:122008 we have many many journalists they are working all over the world and are in contact with the tatsk
36:20so you have uh 300 employees roughly and then yes thousands or even hundreds of freelancers
36:27journalists that support you with stories or more thousands thousands okay no not thousands but i think
36:35we have um it's uh like a structure like a zwiebel onion so you have uh the people they are
36:46working here
36:47they are the real members here in the tatsk then you have the people they uh are right from egypt
36:56they have this region egypt and um middle east they are responsible for this direction they
37:05write for the tatsk but also for other newspapers in austria or in switzerland and then you have people
37:16they wrote perhaps one time every year they have then they have an idea or a good theme then they
37:25give
37:25it to the tatsk this are thousands of people okay okay another question i had about the membership fee
37:32because when i was discussing with mondragon okay it's a different story because there it was 16 000
37:37euros and not 500 but still uh not everyone even in germany has 500 euros that is bought in in
37:44port
37:44monet so the question is do you offer a possibility to kind of pay it in some tranches like monthly
37:51or
37:51whatever or everyone has to have this 500 euros to become a member no even before we started to um
37:59uh gain these young people where we thought of how can we make it accessible to young people we also
38:05offered a a share of 25 euros per month for 20 months i think this is some law thing because
38:12you need
38:13um to pay uh to pay uh the share inside of 20 months it must must be paid in this
38:2120 months so uh we
38:23made like a a share about 25 euros every month so people with low income and the person becomes
38:31member of that immediately after he pays this first 25 or only after 20 months it was important to us
38:38that they they can join immediately after after the first payment or even after they gave us uh the
38:48what about other media like that's radio or that's podcast or that's television or stuff like that you
38:56never went into that area or you tried and you and it wasn't as successful as you thought or
39:02we have not the possibility to finance all these things as we are um very um important on social media
39:15on instagram and um on tiktok only a small but we have much podcast because the people like it and
39:23to make
39:24radio and um television it's too big for us and uh i think um this in the in the last
39:3520 years the
39:36business of journalists much changed because you have to write in different um uh time lines you have
39:48to make a good article for the weekend but you also have to produce an article today in one hour
39:56with
39:56the same theme so the the work of the individual journalist becomes very very uh in a big change more
40:08complex because maybe you have to think about how do you put this theme into social media how into print
40:14text how maybe into a website article and you have to think all the distribution ways from uh one article
40:22and we are very happy that we uh have the possibility to say so much subscriptions and we also have
40:32the readers they pay for our online version for free they give us five euro every month so
40:41we have um just for an explanation if you uh if you go to touch.de to our website there's
40:48also a second
40:49number which is not the members of the cooperatives but there's a number around 50 000 these are people
40:55who decided to give money to keep the website without uh um uh yeah without the paid version so people
41:06who
41:07decide they contribute a bit of money so other people who cannot can still read so the website is
41:13approachable for everyone because okay so so so what is the subscription for then when when the website
41:20it's solidarity with people who cannot pay and it was like also everybody said who is going to pay for
41:28something that is free but nearly 50 000 people do no well free is relative someone has to do it
41:35no yeah
41:35yeah and we need every year we need 33 35 million euros for paying subscriptions or this uh for the
41:48online
41:48version we have also the um german license for lamont diplomatique and so we pay for this so we need
41:59this money
41:59and the people pay in the consciousness that it is very important to have an independent media and so for
42:09that they give us money
42:11uh let's talk a bit about the future because we are nearing the hour that we spoke about it uh
42:18it should be
42:18roughly an hour so what about the future what about artificial intelligence or llms whatever you want to call it
42:25you know nowadays the writing of an article isn't such a hard thing as it used to be five years
42:31ago because
42:32you can kind of do it you know relatively quickly and artificial intelligence or avatars for newspapers
42:40because of the possibility to use like artificial humans and stuff like that i think we have a good future
42:48because our uh business model is that we stay for independence and um um um was weissglaubwürdigkeit um
43:01sustainability and so this um that with bots or with ki to work in the future it would be very
43:11good to say
43:12we are real journalists and we are real journalists and we are people who make the content and i think
43:18that will be a good move
43:21and we also look how we can use um um er for other for our business for for for our
43:31work but not for our journalistic
43:34um yeah so i think it's more about at the moment it's um we we try to see um the
43:42artificial intelligence
43:43as tools so we can use them as tools like for correcting some text or and we are not journalists
43:48so
43:49we can do other things with it like uh inspiring a campaign or something or yeah in the future it
43:55can be
43:56like what can be automated that will be um things we we are interested to but um at the moment
44:04the touch
44:05tries to stay at the humans who do the work and uh the um artificial intelligence as and what are
44:13your
44:13plans for the next couple of years so now we have 2026 so let's say till 2030 like what is
44:19the vision
44:20obviously you will not be green you already achieved that so you will not be greener uh what else
44:27our vision is to be strong and to become stronger and to pay more salary for the people they are
44:37working
44:37here because the money they earn here is not so much like in other business so that is very important
44:45for
44:45us it's very important that the digital way to make it stronger and to get a new generation to be
44:57in
44:57relationship with the touch that will be the big headline for the next years how to get young readers
45:04how to get young supporters how to get young cooperative members and we have to look how we organize it
45:13by the face of campaigns by the changing of our journalistic product although that will be very
45:25important i think even if it's not like the print magazine on the weekend which will catch the young
45:30people we are have to think about what can we do to have young people yes we also make having
45:36a lot of
45:37podcasts and stuff like that but we need to think about going to tick tock and invest more time and
45:41money to tick tock and maybe instagram yeah instagram is um quite well quite well but maybe other formats
45:51maybe not just like pictures with some headlines or maybe we try to intensify the video video format
45:59information in short videos so like authors or journalists have their theme speaking into a camera which is
46:07better for younger people in social media context and these are things we need to fund more in the future
46:14so in few words you are more optimistic than pessimistic about the future of that yes yes
46:22yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:22yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:23yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:23yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:24yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:24yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:24yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:24yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:24yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:24yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:24yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
46:24yes
46:24that's
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