On 23 March 2018, the Luxembourg daily “Luxemburger Wort” celebrated the 170th anniversary of the publication of its very first issue, in 1848. It is by far, the oldest newspaper in the country and it also remains the most read, even if its readership has declined sharply in recent years.
Property of the bishopric, the “Luxemburger Wort” is the main publication of the Saint-Paul group, also publisher of the weekly magazine “Telecran” and the monthly “Automoto”.
The other major Luxembourg press group is Editpress, indirectly held by the OGBL trade union. It publishes the other secular newspaper, the “Tageblatt” (created in 1913) and the French-language weekly “Le Jeudi” or, in co-edition, the daily newspapers “Le Quotidien” and “L’essentiel” (free) or the weekly “Revue”.
Coincidently, at the same time as the Wort celebrated its 170th anniversary, its former editor-in-chief (between 2013 and 2017) became the managing director of… Editpress!
A third major independent media company is also very active: Maison Moderne, publishing house, which includes the monthly magazines “Paperjam” and “Delano” and the periodical “Archiduc”, as well as their daily news websites.
The landscape is complemented by several other publications attesting to the great diversity and pluralism of the media in Luxembourg: the daily newspapers “Lëtzebuerger Journal” or “Zeitung vum Lëtzebuerger Vollek”, or the weekly newspapers “Woxx” and “Lëtzebuerger Land”.
This diversity is ensured in particular by a state system of direct aid, paid each year to a dozen titles (for an overall amount of 7.5 million euros in 2016), supplemented, since 2017, by another specific subvention for online media.