About OXMOX

OXMOX

OXMOX is the Hamburg city magazine, published monthly since June 1977 by the Klaus Schulz Verlags GmbH. As "Nordeutschlands meistgelesenes StadtMagazin" — northern Germany's most-read city magazine — it has guided Hamburg's leisure life for nearly five decades: the daily event calendar with around 5,000 dates, the concert, theatre, cinema and CD tips, the classifieds with up to 500 small ads, and the critical reportages and interviews from art, culture and the environment. Beyond the listings, OXMOX has a political profile: the long-standing support for music initiatives against right-wing extremism such as Rock gegen Rechts and Laut gegen Nazis, the cooperation with FC St. Pauli, the 2013 campaign for the Lampedusa refugees' right to stay, and the environmental reporting — from the 1984 Boehringer dioxin groundwater scandal to the rejection of fracking.

Overview

OXMOX is a monthly German-language city magazine for Hamburg, published by the Klaus Schulz Verlags GmbH — publisher and editor-in-chief Klaus Schulz. The magazine's core is the service journalism of the leisure market: the daily event calendar with around 5,000 dates, the classifieds section with up to 500 small ads (for musicians, singles and more), the concert, theatre, cinema and CD tips, plus current news from art, culture and the environment, critical reportages and interviews. The 2024 media data describe the reader-magazine bond: OXMOX offers its readers a high degree of orientation help in the leisure market, the constantly growing classifieds section has created a very strong reader-magazine loyalty, and each issue reaches more than three co-readers — over 80 percent of respondents read OXMOX and its specials together with others. The specials extend the brand: UPDATE, the OXMOX Gastroführer (gastro guide), HAMBURG GEHT AUS! and UNI-EXTRA. The distribution area is the Nielsen 1 cultural greater Hamburg: sold through press distribution at kiosks, in the book and magazine trade, by the publisher's own distribution and by subscription, the network extending more than 100 kilometres beyond Hamburg — to Lübeck, Flensburg, Kiel, Buxtehude, Stade, Lüneburg, Fallingbostel, Bremen, Bremerhaven and parts of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The readers, as the media data put it, have largely subscribed for years and use the magazine several times a week.

History

OXMOX first appeared in June 1977 — one of the German Stattzeitungen of the 1970s alternative-press wave, alongside the Frankfurter Pflasterstrand (1976–1990), the Berliner zitty (1977–2020) and the Kölner StadtRevue (since 1976). Where many of the 1970s city papers folded or merged, OXMOX survived — and outlasted its Hamburg competitor Prinz, which existed until December 2012. The magazine's political history is part of Hamburg's: in 1984 OXMOX was among the media that repeatedly pointed to the dioxin groundwater contamination caused by Boehringer Ingelheim in Hamburg-Moorfleet; environmental reporting has remained part of the magazine, with the editorial team rejecting fracking over drinking-water dangers. The music-political engagement runs through the decades: the support for Rock gegen Rechts and Laut gegen Nazis, the cooperation with FC St. Pauli — expressed in a focus issue for the club's 100th anniversary and a special for the 2010/11 Bundesliga season opener. In 2013 the magazine campaigned through reports and campaign support for the Lampedusa refugees' right to stay, who had been living in Hamburg since March 2013. The specials grew the brand: the gastro guide, the going-out guide, the university extra. The 2024 media data — "seit rund vier Jahrzehnten von den Hamburgern gerne und viel gelesen" — document the magazine's establishment as the city's leisure institution, now approaching its fifth decade.

Coverage and Content

The magazine's programme is Hamburg's leisure life in full. The event calendar — around 5,000 dates — is the core: the music and entertainment events in the Hamburg area, the daily orientation that the readers use several times a week. The event reports, the film, concert, record and book reviews provide the critical voice. The classifieds — up to 500 small ads — are the scene's marketplace: musicians seeking bands, singles seeking partners, the miscellaneous that the media data credit with the strong reader-magazine bond. The news from art, culture and the environment and the critical reportages and interviews give the magazine its journalistic weight: the dioxin reporting of 1984, the fracking rejection, the Lampedusa campaign of 2013, the St. Pauli specials. The specials serve the niches: UPDATE, the OXMOX Gastroführer for the restaurant scene, HAMBURG GEHT AUS! for the nightlife, UNI-EXTRA for the students. The gastro guide serves the restaurant city's dining: the reviews and the listings that the Hamburg food scene reads. HAMBURG GEHT AUS! is the nightlife's bible: the clubs, the bars, the late-night Hamburg. UNI-EXTRA addresses the semester rhythm: the students' city, twice a year. The magazine's political positioning — against the right, for the refugees, for the environment — distinguishes it from the pure listings paper: the city magazine as the engaged Hamburg institution, the Stattzeitung heritage of 1977 alive in the monthly rhythm. The Hamburg band contest powered by OXMOX extends the magazine into event organisation: the magazine as the stage for the city's young bands.

Organization and Ownership

OXMOX is published by the Klaus Schulz Verlags GmbH in Hamburg — publisher and editor-in-chief Klaus Schulz, the one-man publishing house that has carried the magazine since 1977. The commercial model is the city magazine's: the kiosk and subscription sales in the Nielsen 1 distribution area, the advertisers reaching the leisure-interested audience — music, theatre, restaurants, film, ambitious concerts, fashion and other cultural events — and the classifieds as the reader-financed marketplace. The specials — UPDATE, the gastro guide, HAMBURG GEHT AUS!, UNI-EXTRA — are the brand extensions. The cooperation with FC St. Pauli — the focus issue for the centenary, the Bundesliga season special — shows the magazine's integration into the city's institutions. The website is oxmoxhh.de, with the 2024 media data documenting the distribution and readership. Detailed circulation figures are not publicly confirmed in the sources available. The magazine's longevity — the June 1977 first issue to the approaching 50th anniversary — is the German city-magazine landscape's exception: where the Berlin zitty folded in 2020 and the Hamburg Prinz in 2012, OXMOX continues, monthly, from the Klaus Schulz publishing house. The survival is the programme's: the 5,000-date calendar that no app has replaced, the 500-ad classifieds that no platform has absorbed, the engaged reporting that no algorithm writes — the city magazine as Hamburg's monthly habit, since 1977.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website is oxmoxhh.de (the row lists oxmox.de), carrying the magazine's digital presence with the 2024 media data available as PDF. The Hamburg band contest powered by OXMOX — the online event listings for the band competition — shows the magazine's event-organising digital extension. In the Hamburg media landscape OXMOX stands alongside Szene Hamburg (since 1973, the older city paper), the Hinz&Kunzt street paper, the HafenCityzeitung and the Alstermagazine: the engaged, listings-driven city magazine against the pure scene papers. The magazine's digital future is the extension of its print strengths: the 5,000-date event calendar as the database, the classifieds as the online marketplace, the reportages as the digital journalism. For Hamburg's leisure life — the concerts, the theatres, the cinemas, the clubs, the restaurants — OXMOX remains the monthly orientation: "Nordeutschlands meistgelesenes StadtMagazin," from June 1977 to today, in the kiosks from Flensburg to Bremen, in the book trade, by subscription, and online — the city magazine that Hamburg reads together, more than three co-readers per issue, for nearly five decades, and counting.