About mein/4

mein/4

mein/4 — pronounced "Mein Viertel" (My Neighborhood) — is a free printed city magazine from Berlin. Founded in 2017 in the Prenzlauer Berg district, it has developed from a local neighborhood magazine into a citywide culture and community publication, distributed free of charge at more than one thousand locations across the city. The editorial team understands the magazine as a journalistic homage to Berlin, betting on local reporting with a cultural, social, and societal focus. The publishers are the meinviertel UG (haftungsbeschränkt), based at Schönhauser Allee 52 in Berlin; the managing director is Markus Tobias Beeth. In the Berlin city-magazine landscape, where titles such as tip and Zitty once dominated and digital platforms now compete for local attention, mein/4 occupies the position of the free, high-quality print magazine for the neighborhoods: the Kiez as emotional home.

Overview

The magazine presents itself as the city magazine for all residents of Berlin. Distributed free for pickup across the entire city area at more than one thousand locations, it offers reading pleasure for young and old through on-site researched reportages and richly illustrated feature topics. DIY ideas, diverse offerings for families and children, singles, couples, students, recipe suggestions, and event notes find their place in the magazine alongside the core reportage.

The target group is deliberately broad: all residents of the city area — the engaged local resident, the long-established Kiezler, the cheerful student, families with or without children, the adventurous single, the retiree, the curious newcomer, the tradesperson from the sole proprietorship to the large company and its employees, startups, travelers, guests, visitors — in short, everyone interested in Berlin's city districts. The name "mein/4" refers to the founders' personal living environment and stands symbolically for one's own Berlin quarter — the neighborhood as emotional home.

The magazine is produced from the start in high-quality web offset printing with perfect binding, to ensure longevity and repeated reading pleasure. Special editions on different topics are published in parallel with the regular issues. The publisher's media data positions the title to advertisers with print and online advertising formats — from full-page spaces on the cover pages and in the interior to smaller ads in the information section, plus inserts of print products such as flyers, order cards, and brochures.

History

mein/4 was founded in 2017 by Markus and Beate Beeth in Prenzlauer Berg, originally with the goal of covering the greater Pankow area editorially. The name refers to the founders' personal living environment — their own Berlin quarter. From the beginning, the magazine was produced in high-quality web offset with perfect binding, a production standard unusual for a free city magazine and expressive of the founders' ambition: a neighborhood magazine that readers would keep rather than discard.

Shortly after the launch, distribution expanded beyond Pankow. Since 2018, mein/4 has also been distributed in Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, and Mitte — transforming the concept increasingly from a local Kiez magazine into a citywide city magazine. The publishing company behind the title, the meinviertel UG (haftungsbeschränkt), was established in 2018 (registered as HRB 196177 at the Charlottenburg district court in Berlin, emerging from the renamed Auramare 15 Verwaltungs UG); its business purpose is the publication, production, and distribution of print and online media, particularly the Mein Viertel (mein/4) city magazine.

In December 2025, Beate Beeth left the management of the company; Markus Tobias Beeth continues as the sole managing director. The magazine's development from a Pankow neighborhood project to a citywide free magazine with more than a thousand distribution points documents the growth of the brand over nearly a decade — a trajectory uncommon among Berlin's free print titles, many of which have disappeared in the digital era.

Coverage and Content

The editorial coverage of mein/4 follows the magazine's self-understanding as a journalistic homage to Berlin. Local reporting with a cultural, social, and societal focus forms the core: reportages researched on site in the neighborhoods, portraits of people and initiatives, and richly illustrated feature topics that explore the city's districts, their histories, and their transformations. The Kiez — the neighborhood as emotional home — is the consistent editorial lens.

Service and lifestyle content complements the reportage: DIY ideas, offerings for families and children, content for singles, couples, and students, recipe suggestions, and event notes guide readers through leisure life in the city. The magazine addresses readers across generations — reading pleasure for young and old is the publisher's stated claim — and across the city's social milieus, from the long-established Kiezler to the curious newcomer.

The special editions on different topics extend the regular program into focused issues, giving advertisers and readers themed environments. The website meinviertel.berlin carries the concept into digital: district reports, interviews, Kiez reports, product presentations, and ideas for strolling and going out, designed to serve as an information carrier for the city districts and to generate growing access numbers.

Organization and Ownership

mein/4 is published by the meinviertel UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Schönhauser Allee 52, 10437 Berlin, registered as HRB 196177 at the Charlottenburg district court. The company's business purpose is the publication, production, and distribution of print and online media, particularly the Mein Viertel (mein/4) city magazine. The managing director is Markus Tobias Beeth; co-founder Beate Beeth left the management in December 2025. The company is a micro-enterprise in the publishing industry classification.

The founders, Markus and Beate Beeth, established the magazine in 2017 in Prenzlauer Berg and built it into a citywide free magazine over the following years. The editorial team works from the Berlin publishing address, producing the print magazine in high-quality web offset with perfect binding and the digital content for the meinviertel.berlin portal.

The commercial model is the free-magazine model: distribution free of charge at more than one thousand locations across the city, financed by advertising. The publisher's media data offers print advertising from full-page cover spaces to small information-section ads, inserts of advertisers' print products, and online advertising on the portal — from content ads to wallpapers. The target group for advertisers is the broad Berlin resident audience that the free distribution reaches: the engaged local, the student, the family, the tradesperson, and the visitor.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital home is meinviertel.berlin, designed primarily as an information carrier for the city districts. The site carries district reports, reportages and interviews, Kiez reports, product presentations, and ideas for strolling and going out — content aimed at engaging readers and generating steadily growing access numbers. The portal extends the print magazine's neighborhood concept into the digital space, where the district-by-district information structure mirrors the print title's Kiez orientation.

Online advertising formats — from content ads to wallpapers — complement the print advertising business, giving local advertisers targeted reach in their business environment. The publisher's media data presents the website's content contributions as the vehicle for reaching people in the advertiser's immediate commercial surroundings. This integration of the free print magazine with the district portal reflects the publisher's cross-media strategy: the print title for the haptic, keepable neighborhood magazine, the website for the continuously updated district information service — both serving the same editorial idea of the Kiez as emotional home. The magazine's trajectory from a 2017 Pankow startup to a citywide free title demonstrates that a carefully produced print product can still find its audience in the digital age — provided it speaks to the readers' most immediate world: their own neighborhood.