Bertelsmann AG needs to take on America

BY SDH There are the known media giants and there the known unknown media giants. Germany's Bertelsmann AG (Bertie) that country's biggest falls into the known unknown bucket. For years the company has stuck to what it knows, books, tv, movies and music, but those areas are somewhat exhausted especially the music business and Bertie, whether they want to admit it or not, needs a jolt. No one outside of Bertie knows the company’s exact financial state because the company is privately held, reclusive and secretive much like that country……. Oh yeah North Korea. Bertie doesn’t seem interested in opening up and embracing the rest of the media world face to face outside of Europe. Just like Korea or any other reclusive country anyone who attempts to change that, is terminated. Thomas Middelhoff was canned for trying to bring Bertie into the current times. Now the company is under the hand picked leadership of new CEO Hartmut “we call him Hart” Ostrowski and even though the company is private, many await any changes the new man in charge may be planning. Bertie desperately needs to do more here in America. Sure they have book and marketing businesses here as well as their 50% in Sony BMG, but that’s not enough. Bertelsmann needs to make a big splash in America, and they can do so by buying their way in. By this we mean Ostrowski should sniff out possible acquisitions in traditional and/or digital media. Bertie compared to its U.S. counterparts has no significant digital media holdings if any, so this is perhaps were Ostrowski should focus. Bertie has some content, all they need is a foundation to build on. With some major U.S. media companies looking to shed some weight, this could be a great opportunity for Bertie to pick up what those media companies drop and make it their own. One cool idea would be for Bertie to transform the Bookspan brand into an online social network for book worms.