About Trostberger Tagblatt

Trostberger Tagblatt

The Trostberger Tagblatt is a daily regional newspaper published in Trostberg, in the Traunstein district of Upper Bavaria, serving the northern Chiemgau and adjacent areas. First published in 1868, it is one of Bavaria's oldest local newspapers and one of the smallest Bavarian dailies to maintain a full newsroom — producing its own politics and business pages rather than taking them from another paper. Published Monday through Saturday with a sold circulation of around 7,600 copies, it has been owned by the Verlagsgruppe Passau (Mediengruppe Bayern) since July 2012, when the Passau media house acquired it from the A. Erdl GmbH. In Traunreut and surroundings, the paper has appeared since 1960 under the title Traunreuter Anzeiger, with identical content. Its digital home is pnp.de, with regional content on the heimatzeitung.de portal launched jointly with sister papers in 2013.

Overview

The Trostberger Tagblatt covers the northern Traunstein district: the town of Trostberg on the Alz river — historically a paper-manufacturing town — and the surrounding Chiemgau communities. Its circulation area overlaps in some municipalities with the Oberbayerisches Volksblatt, the Passauer Neue Presse, and the Traunsteiner Tagblatt, creating a competitive local press market unusual for rural Upper Bavaria.

The paper appears Monday through Saturday and is distinguished by its Vollredaktion (full newsroom): unlike most small Bavarian dailies, which take their national politics and business pages from a larger partner, the Trostberger Tagblatt produces these sections itself. This makes it one of the smallest German newspapers with a complete editorial operation — a point of pride and a journalistic distinction.

The editorial leadership includes Herbert Reichgruber as Redaktionsleiter (editorial director) and Thomas Thois as deputy, according to published sources. The newsroom is located at Am Waltershamer Feld 20 b in Trostberg.

History

The Trostberger Tagblatt first appeared in 1868, serving the northern Chiemgau through the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and the post-war Federal Republic. Until 2012, it was published by the A. Erdl GmbH in Trostberg as a family-owned local newspaper — one of the last of its kind in the region.

In July 2012, the Verlagsgruppe Passau (Mediengruppe Bayern) acquired the paper, bringing it under the roof of the Passau media house alongside the content-identical Traunreuter Anzeiger and the weekly Altbayerische Heimatpost. The group also completed its takeover of the Südostbayerische Rundschau. The acquisition was part of the PNP's expansion in southeastern Bavaria, which continued with the 2014 takeover of the Reichenhaller Tagblatt and Freilassinger Anzeiger and the 2017 acquisition of the Donaukurier.

On 14 May 2013, the Trostberger Tagblatt joined the Südostbayerische Rundschau and the Alt-Neuöttinger Anzeiger in launching heimatzeitung.de, the joint news portal for southeastern Bavaria. The paper has maintained its full-newsroom structure under PNP ownership, continuing to produce its own supraregional pages — a rarity among papers of its size.

Coverage and Content

The local section covers Trostberg's town politics, the northern Traunstein district, and community news from the Alz valley and the Chiemgau foothills. The town's industrial heritage — paper manufacturing on the Alz — and its modern employers shape the economic reporting, alongside agriculture, crafts, and the retail sector.

What sets the paper apart is its self-produced politics and business coverage: the Trostberg newsroom writes its own national politics and economics pages rather than importing them, giving the paper an editorial independence unusual for a 7,600-circulation daily. Readers thus get a complete newspaper produced largely in Trostberg, supplemented by the PNP group's resources.

Regional coverage extends to the Chiemgau's tourism economy, the district administration in Traunstein, and cross-border themes with nearby Austria. Special interest pages, the Wednesday rtv television supplement, and seasonal editions round out the offering.

Organization and Ownership

The Trostberger Tagblatt is published by the Verlagsgruppe Passau (Mediengruppe Bayern), the Passau-based media group founded by Hans Kapfinger in 1946, which also publishes the Passauer Neue Presse, the Donaukurier, and — through the Mittelbayerische Zeitung holding — other Bavarian titles. The group sold its Czech subsidiary Vltava-Labe-Press to Penta Investments in 2015.

Within the group, the Trostberger Tagblatt operates with unusual editorial autonomy for a small paper, maintaining its full newsroom in Trostberg. The Traunreuter Anzeiger — identical in content — extends the paper's reach to the district's largest town, with its own office at Rathausplatz 7 in Traunreut. Central functions such as printing at the Druckzentrum Passau and digital platforms are provided at the group level.

The Vollredaktion Distinction

The Trostberger Tagblatt's full newsroom is its defining feature — and worth understanding in detail. Most German local dailies with circulations under 10,000 long ago gave up producing their own national politics, business, and international pages, instead buying these "Mantel" sections from a larger partner paper. The economics are unforgiving: a handful of local reporters cannot cover Berlin, Brussels, and the world economy while also attending every town council meeting. The Trostberger Tagblatt defies this logic, maintaining editors who write the paper's own take on federal politics and the economy.

This independence has journalistic value: the paper's politics pages reflect a Chiemgau perspective rather than a Munich or Passau one, and its business coverage can foreground the concerns of the region's Mittelstand. It also has costs — the newsroom is larger than the circulation would normally support — which is why so few papers attempt it. Under PNP ownership, the Vollredaktion has survived, suggesting the group sees it as a brand asset worth preserving. For media observers, the Trostberger Tagblatt is a test case: proof that a very small daily can still aspire to journalistic completeness, or an endangered model that consolidation will eventually extinguish.

Trostberg on the Alz

With 7,591 sold copies (IVW 2/2026), the Trostberger Tagblatt has lost 34.8 percent of its circulation since 2015 — a decline reflecting the pressures on small Bavarian dailies. Yet its full-newsroom model and deep local roots give it a distinctive market position: in parts of its circulation area, it competes directly with the Oberbayerisches Volksblatt and the Traunsteiner Tagblatt, offering readers a locally produced alternative.

The paper's readership consists of Trostberg's established households, local businesses, and the northern Chiemgau communities. Its advertising base spans local retail, crafts, and regional employers. The Vollredaktion is both a cost burden and a competitive asset — the paper's claim to journalistic completeness in a market of imported national pages.

Trostberg's identity is tied to the Alz river and to paper itself: the town grew around paper mills harnessing the river's power, and the paper-manufacturing tradition shaped its working-class character. The Trostberger Tagblatt — a newspaper in a paper town — has documented this industrial heritage from its 1868 founding, through the mills' twentieth-century heyday, to the structural changes of recent decades. The Alz valley's landscape, the Chiemgau foothills, and the town's historic center with its castle ruins complete the setting the paper serves. For a paper of 7,600 copies to maintain a full newsroom in this environment is a statement of intent — and the Trostberger Tagblatt's readers, who have sustained it since 1868, clearly value what that independence buys them.

Digital Presence

The paper's digital home is pnp.de, with the heimatzeitung.de portal — launched in 2013 with the Südostbayerische Rundschau and Alt-Neuöttinger Anzeiger — serving as the dedicated platform for southeastern Bavaria's districts. The PNP group operates digital subscriptions with e-paper editions, newsletters, apps, and social media channels. The Trostberg newsroom's stories appear on both portals, and the paper maintains a social media presence. The digital offering extends the small paper's reach while its full newsroom continues to produce the journalism that distinguishes it.