WAZ interview
Austrian media website Medianet contains an interview with WAZ-manager Andreas Rudas. As a German publisher not very fond of free dailies and because of that, working together with other German publishers to keep free dailies from the German market.
WAZ (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, based in Essen) is however active in many Eastern European and Asian markets with different features. In the past WAZ published a free daily in Austria, together with market leader Kronen Zeitung. It ended in a dispute over the continuation of U-Express. The relation with Kronen Zeitung is still not very good: “No peace but we don’t wage war.”
In Croatia WAZ publishes “very successfully” a Metro franchise. WAZ is also participating in a free daily in Macedonia while it threatened to launch one in Bulgaria when an entrepreneur wanted to start a free daily.