About Terra Mater Magazin

Terra Mater Magazin

Terra Mater Magazin is a German-language nature and science magazine published by Red Bull Media House GmbH from Wals, near Salzburg, in the state of Salzburg. Devoted to natural science, animals, plants and photography, it has been published since 5 June 2012, initially as the print companion to the Terra Mater documentary strand on ServusTV and now independently of the series. The magazine appears twice a year in its current form, a frequency that corrects the bimonthly listing under which it sometimes appears in magazine directories. Its editor-in-chief is Robert Sperl and its publisher is Andreas Kornhofer. Recorded figures give it a sold circulation of 55,326 copies and a reach of 133,000 readers.

Terra Mater Magazin belongs to the family of Red Bull Media House print titles based in Wals-Siezenheim and Wals, alongside The Red Bulletin, Servus in Stadt & Land and Bergwelten. It is closely related to, but distinct from, Terra Mater Factual Studios, the Red Bull subsidiary founded on 1 January 2011 that produces natural history and science documentaries for television and cinema, itself built by the team that had created the ORF's celebrated Universum series. The magazine translates that documentary heritage into print: elaborately produced stories and outstanding photography intended to inspire readers to discover and understand the world.

Published Since 5 June 2012

Terra Mater Magazin has been published by Red Bull Media House since 5 June 2012. Its launch followed the start of the Terra Mater television strand on ServusTV, which premiered on 6 April 2011 under Walter Köhler, the former head of ORF's Universum, who had left the public broadcaster in autumn 2010 and founded Terra Mater Factual Studios with his team. At first, the magazine was issued in news trade in step with the television series, a classic companion-publication strategy in which a strong broadcast brand seeds a print title. In its mature form, the magazine is independent of the series, published on its own schedule and also available in various subscription variants.

The present frequency is twice a year. That rhythm places Terra Mater Magazin at the book-like end of magazine publishing: a substantial, lavishly illustrated issue produced as a collectable object rather than as a rapid periodical. The directory description of the magazine as bimonthly, repeated in its seed listing, does not match the publisher record documented in reference sources, and this profile corrects it. Twice-yearly publication also shapes its economics and its reading experience: each issue must justify itself as a lasting volume on nature and science, closer in spirit to a photographic annual than to a news magazine.

The Terra Mater Documentary Heritage

To understand the magazine, it helps to understand the name. Terra Mater, Latin for Mother Earth, is Red Bull's factual brand across media. On ServusTV, Terra Mater presents major nature and science documentaries every Wednesday evening, made with leading producers, camera operators and directors using the latest technologies, while Terra Mater Wissen explores science stories with host and scientist Gernot Groemer. Terra Mater Factual Studios, the production arm, was created as the new home of the internationally renowned crew that used to produce ORF's award-winning Universum strand, and its watchwords are discovering and comprehending the world.

The studio went on to international theatrical work, including the ivory-trade documentary The Ivory Game, produced with Netflix and partners and presented at Toronto, which its chief executive Walter Köhler described as marking Terra Mater's arrival on the international theatrical-feature stage. The magazine operates in the print dimension of the same brand world: the authority of blue-chip natural history film-making, built by Austrians over decades at ORF and then at Red Bull, expressed in still photography and long-form text. Its stories and images draw on the same global network of film-makers, photographers and scientists as the screen productions.

Content: Nature, Science, Animals and Photography

Terra Mater Magazin is a magazine of natural science, animals, plants and photography. Red Bull Media House describes it as a science and nature magazine inspiring readers to discover and understand the world, presenting a contemporary picture of the world beyond all stereotypes through elaborately produced stories from the most interesting regions of the Earth and photographs of outstanding quality. Its coverage includes articles about exotic regions, fascinating animals and interesting people, complemented by historical contributions about milestones in the history of mankind and reports about technologies that may determine the future.

That combination, wildlife and landscape, human history, and future technology, distinguishes Terra Mater Magazin from a purely zoological title. The magazine treats the planet as a single subject: how it works, how life developed on it, how humans have changed it and what ingenuity might protect it. Photography is not decoration but a primary medium; the brand descends from documentary film, and its print pages are built around image sequences of a quality that reference descriptions single out. For Austrian readers, the magazine also complements the country's strong tradition of televised natural history, offering the still, durable form of a subject they know from the screen.

Editor, Publisher and Publishing House

The editor-in-chief of Terra Mater Magazin is Robert Sperl, and its publisher, in the German sense of Herausgeber, is Andreas Kornhofer. The publishing house is Red Bull Media House GmbH, with the magazine's headquarters recorded at Wals bei Salzburg. Red Bull Media House lists Terra Mater among its publications alongside The Red Bulletin, Servus, Bergwelten, Speedweek, Die Bühne and Carpe Diem, and its subsidiary structure includes Terra Mater Factual Studios and ServusTV. The magazine's own web presence is terramatermagazin.com.

Salzburg, not Vienna, is again the location, part of the pattern by which Red Bull's media investments created a second centre of Austrian magazine publishing in the west of the country. A nature magazine is perhaps the title for which that location matters least commercially and most symbolically: it is produced a short distance from the Alpine landscapes that form a recurring subject and a daily visual reference for its editors, even as its features range across every continent.

Circulation and Reach

Recorded figures for Terra Mater Magazin give a sold circulation of 55,326 copies and a reach of 133,000 readers. Those figures derive from the magazine's earlier business documentation, preserved in archived publisher material, and should be treated as the documented benchmark for the title rather than as a current audited total; a twice-yearly magazine's sales naturally concentrate in its publication weeks. Even as a benchmark, a sale above 55,000 copies for a premium nature magazine in the German-speaking market is substantial, and the readership multiple reflects the retention and sharing typical of an illustrated, keepable issue.

The magazine is available through the news trade and in various subscription variants, as magazine subscription services document. Its commercial environment is the premium end of the market: nature and science advertisers, optics and outdoor brands, tourism and educational products, in a title whose readers are defined by interest and willingness to pay for production quality. Within Red Bull Media House's portfolio, Terra Mater Magazin is not the circulation leader, that is Servus, but it is the house's prestige science title, the print expression of its factual brand.

Terra Mater Magazine and Universum: Two Austrian Nature Traditions

Austrian readers had a national popular science and nature magazine before Terra Mater Magazin: Universum, published from 1998 to 2019 by LW Media with the ORF, drew directly on the ORF's Universum television strand. The later history connects the two in an unexpected way. The film-makers behind ORF Universum moved in 2011 to found Terra Mater Factual Studios for Red Bull, and the Terra Mater magazine followed in 2012, while Universum magazine itself continued at LW Media until its publisher's bankruptcy ended it in 2019. Austria thus had, for most of a decade, two print children of the same television tradition, one with the public broadcaster's partner and one with Red Bull.

The comparison clarifies Terra Mater Magazin's identity. It is not a general popular-science monthly in the Universum pattern, appearing ten times a year across all sciences. It is a twice-yearly, photography-led nature and knowledge volume from a documentary studio, slower, more visual and more closely tied to film-making. Both forms served the same Austrian appetite for serious, beautifully presented natural history; that appetite is itself a documented feature of Austrian media culture, sustained by decades of prime-time nature broadcasting.

Place in the Red Bull Media House Portfolio

Red Bull Media House's print portfolio is organised around worlds: Servus owns homeland and regional living, The Red Bulletin owns action sport and adventure culture, Bergwelten owns the mountains, and Terra Mater owns the natural world and knowledge. The magazine therefore has a defined strategic function beyond its own sales: it carries the Terra Mater factual brand into homes in durable form, reinforces the authority that the studios sell to broadcasters and streaming partners worldwide, and gives the Salzburg house a title in the educational and family market that its sports titles do not reach.

Brand publications of this type are judged by their owners on combined editorial and strategic value, and Terra Mater Magazin's continuation on a twice-yearly rhythm, with named editor and publisher and an active web presence, indicates an established place in that system. For the directory record, the essentials are: Terra Mater Magazin, a German-language nature and science magazine on natural science, animals, plants and photography, published by Red Bull Media House GmbH from Wals near Salzburg since 5 June 2012, currently twice a year, edited by Robert Sperl under publisher Andreas Kornhofer, with a documented sold circulation benchmark of 55,326 copies.

Limits of Available Information

Information about Terra Mater Magazin is reliable on its subject, publisher, launch date, present frequency, editor, publisher and benchmark circulation, largely through German reference documentation of the Red Bull portfolio. It is thinner on the magazine's issue-by-issue history, on changes in frequency over its life, and on current sales, none of which are published in the open sources used here, and none of which have been reconstructed by guesswork in this profile.

Readers should also take care to distinguish the magazine from the television strand and the film studio of the same name, which share the brand but are separate products with separate schedules; television listings and studio filmographies do not describe the magazine. What the magazine itself is, the record states clearly: Austria's Red Bull-published volume of nature and science, issued from Salzburg since 2012, bringing the country's celebrated documentary tradition to the printed page twice a year.