From the middle of next year, Medienhaus Aachen will no longer print the daily newspaper “Aachener Zeitung” and the advertising paper “Aachener Zeitung am Sonntag” at its site in Aachen, but will relocate production to other printing sites in the region. Euregio Druck GmbH (printing plant), which belongs to Medienhaus Aachen, and Aachener Presseversand GmbH (mailroom) are expected to cease operations in June. According to the companies, a total of around 50 employees and other temporary workers will be affected.
“The decline in print runs for many years and the rising production and distribution costs for print products, which have also been increasing for many years, no longer allow us to operate our facilities economically,” explained Andreas Müller, Managing Director of Medienhaus Aachen GmbH, to the employees of the companies affected.
The Aachen-based print shop had tried until the very end to secure its operations for the future through external printing orders for daily newspapers, advertising journals and advertising supplements. Andreas Müller: “Ultimately, however, we were unable to prevail against the competition despite having good technical equipment and highly qualified employees.” The existing print volume of the company’s own daily newspapers means that the machines are only utilised for a good three hours a day. With such low capacity utilisation, it is no longer economically viable to continue printing operations in Aachen.
In future, the “Aachener Zeitung” will be produced at Coldset Printing Partners’ printing centre in Paal-Beringen, Limburg (Belgium), a good 60-minute drive from Aachen. Like the “Aachener Zeitung”, Coldset Printing Partners is part of the European Mediahuis Group. The advertising newspaper “Aachener Zeitung am Sonntag” will in future be printed by Weiss-Druck in Monschau. In the past, half of the circulation of the free weekly newspapers from the Aachen media house was already produced there.
According to the management of the media company, they will endeavour to find follow-up employment for at least some of the affected employees at affiliated and friendly companies.
The relocation of the printing sites will not affect subscriptions to the “Aachener Zeitung” or the delivery of the “Aachener Zeitung am Sonntag”. The newspapers will be delivered within the usual time window.
