About Hohenloher Zeitung

Hohenloher Zeitung

The Hohenloher Zeitung (HZ) is a German local daily newspaper for the Hohenlohe district in Baden-Württemberg. It has appeared since 18 January 1947 as a local edition of the Heilbronner Stimme, the regional daily of Heilbronn published by the Heilbronner Stimme GmbH & Co. KG, and is the paper's edition for the entire Hohenlohe district with Künzelsau and Öhringen. The paper appears Monday through Saturday with local editorial offices in Öhringen, on Bahnhofstraße, and in Künzelsau. Its predecessors reach back before 1800 to the Privilegierte Oehringer Wochenblatt. The editor is Ralf Reichert, with Yvonne Tscherwitschke as deputy. The paper's digital home is the Stimme media group's news portal at stimme.de.

Overview

The Hohenloher Zeitung is published six days a week as a subscription daily in the Heilbronner Stimme's edition system. Since 1 October 2017 the Heilbronner Stimme has appeared in six main and local editions that differ only on a few pages of the local section: the Heilbronn city edition, the district editions for the northern, western and eastern districts, the Kraichgau Stimme for the Kraichgau region, and the Hohenloher Zeitung for the entire Hohenlohe district with Künzelsau and Öhringen, plus Steinkirchen.

The paper's distribution area is the Hohenlohe district: Öhringen, the district town on the Ohrn known for its Renaissance castle and its Roman past on the Limes, Künzelsau, the district's administrative centre and home of the Würth group, and the surrounding communities of the Hohenlohe plain between the Kocher, Jagst and the Swabian-Franconian forest. The region's identity as the home of world-market-leading Mittelstand companies, from Würth in Künzelsau to the agricultural cooperatives of the plain, shapes the paper's economic coverage.

The audience of the Hohenloher Zeitung is the population of the Hohenlohe district: households that value a daily paper combining the Heilbronner Stimme's regional journalism with close reporting from Öhringen, Künzelsau and the district's villages. The Heilbronner Stimme, founded in 1946, is in its 80th year and counts among the successful regional publishers of Germany. The Stimme Mediengruppe's position as an independent family company with a strong journalistic ambition distinguishes it in a press landscape increasingly shaped by large media groups.

History

The Hohenloher Zeitung's predecessors reach back before 1800 to the Privilegierte Oehringer Wochenblatt. From 1805 it became the Fürstlich Hohenlohisch Gemeinschaftlich-privilegierte Intelligenz-Blatt, serving as the official gazette for all lines of the princely house of Hohenlohe. In 1841 the Intelligenz-Blatt became the Hohenloher Bote, appearing three times a week and daily in the 20th century; its last edition appeared on 31 October 1934 in its 151st year. As a competitor to the Hohenloher Bote, the Hohenloher Tageszeitung with the Kopfblatt Neuenstädter Tageszeitung appeared from 1924 to 1933, displaced from 1932 by the NS paper Hohenloher Rundschau, which was printed in Öhringen on commission from 1933 to 1945.

After the war the Heilbronner Stimme appeared from 1946 with a news section for the Öhringen district, and since 18 January 1947 the Hohenloher Zeitung has appeared as a local edition of the Heilbronner Stimme. The Heilbronner Stimme developed from a classic newspaper publisher into the diversified Stimme Mediengruppe, with the Heilbronner Stimme GmbH & Co. KG as the group's largest company. The group publishes the three newspaper titles Heilbronner Stimme, Hohenloher Zeitung and Kraichgau Stimme with six local editions, positioning itself as the most important platform for journalistic and advertising content in the Heilbronn-Franconia economic region.

Until mid-2018 the Hohenloher Zeitung also published the public announcements of the town of Öhringen; since then a free municipal gazette has appeared fortnightly. The paper has accompanied the Hohenlohe district's transformation into one of Germany's most economically successful rural regions.

Coverage and Content

The local section of the Hohenloher Zeitung covers the Hohenlohe district. Regular topics include the town councils of Öhringen and Künzelsau and the district administration, urban development, the regional economy with the Würth group, the ebm-papst and other world-market leaders of the Hohenlohe plain, the agricultural cooperatives, schools and education, health care, the police blotter, club and association life, church news, culture and events with the Öhringen castle concerts and the district's festivals, and local sport. The Hohenlohe landscape with its castles, the Limes and the Kocher and Jagst valleys gives the paper's community reporting a distinctive local colour.

The Heilbronner Stimme's regional and national pages cover the Heilbronn-Franconia region, Baden-Württemberg state politics, German federal politics, international news, the economy, culture and sport. The Stimme group maintains editorial offices in Stuttgart, Berlin and Brussels and correspondents in Washington, New York, London, Paris, Warsaw, Ankara and Madrid. Weekend editions carry expanded magazine content. The division between the centrally produced sections and the locally produced pages gives readers a complete daily newspaper: the breadth of a large regional newsroom combined with the proximity of journalists who work in Öhringen and Künzelsau.

Advertising in the Hohenloher Zeitung reaches households across the Hohenlohe district precisely, making the paper an important medium for local retailers, craftsmen, service providers, the real-estate market and job advertisements. The free papers echo am Wochenende and KreisKurier complement the group's advertising offering.

Organization and Ownership

The Hohenloher Zeitung is published as a local edition of the Heilbronner Stimme by the Heilbronner Stimme GmbH & Co. KG in Heilbronn, an independent family company. The managing directors are Marc Becker and Tilmann Distelbarth. The editor-in-chief of the Heilbronner Stimme is Uwe Ralf Heer, with Markus Merz and Tanja Ochs as deputies; the editor of the Hohenloher Zeitung is Ralf Reichert, with Yvonne Tscherwitschke as deputy.

The local editorial offices in Öhringen and Künzelsau produce the local pages, while the central editorial departments in Heilbronn supply the regional and national sections. The paper is printed in the group's production facilities and distributed to subscribers each morning from Monday to Saturday across the Hohenlohe district. The subscription model dominates sales. The edition operates within the Stimme Mediengruppe's shared services for printing, distribution, digital publishing and advertising sales, while the Öhringen and Künzelsau newsrooms retain editorial responsibility for the local pages that define the Hohenloher Zeitung's identity.

Digital Presence

The digital home of the Hohenloher Zeitung is the Stimme media group's news portal at stimme.de, where Hohenlohe news appears as a local section. Readers can follow reporting on the website, in the group's news app and through the e-paper edition, which reproduces the printed paper page for page for reading on tablets, smartphones and computers. The group's job portal jobstimme.de and the career magazine Mein Sprungbrett extend the digital offering.

The portal operates on the paid-content model: full article texts are generally reserved for subscribers, while headlines and teasers are visible to all visitors. On social media, the Stimme group's channels distribute headlines from the Heilbronn-Franconia region, including Hohenlohe stories, and provide a point of contact between the newsroom and its readers. For the Hohenloher Zeitung, digital channels serve readers within the distribution area who prefer to read on their phones as well as former residents who have moved away from the Hohenlohe district but want to stay informed about their home region. The printed paper remains the core product and the economic backbone of the local edition, with the Öhringen and Künzelsau newsrooms continuing a local journalism tradition that reaches back to the Intelligenz-Blatt of 1805.