Wort & Bild plans to halve the Apotheken Umschau editorial team over two years

The cut and the reaction

Wort & Bild, the publishing group based in Baierbrunn in Upper Bavaria that produces the Apotheken Umschau, plans to halve the magazine's editorial staff within the next two years. The company announced the plan on Monday, 9 November 2026, and said the reduction would come through natural staff turnover, the expiry of fixed-term contracts and mutual agreements to end employment. It did not state how many jobs that covers. A spokeswoman told dpa that the editorial team currently employs around 120 people, while Süddeutsche Zeitung put the planned reduction at about 60 of those 120 posts. The works council has been informed about the plans and is involved in them.

Chief editor Dennis Ballwieser acknowledged the impact on staff:

“We are aware that this step means a profound cut for our employees. We will do everything we can to shape the changes as responsibly and fairly as possible.”

Freelancers and a wider health-information business

The publisher wants its editors to work more closely with a network of freelance authors and external specialists. Wort & Bild frames the change as a reorganisation, pointing to a digital portfolio expanded over recent years and new business areas, including digital product development and investments in startups. Andreas Arntzen, who chairs the management of the Wort & Bild publishing group, said:

“The world is changing and we are changing with it, in the products and services we offer and in the way we work.”

The group describes the change as part of its transformation into a broader house for health information. It also stresses that every piece of content, wherever it originates, will still be checked and approved editorially and scientifically, and that editorial responsibility stays fully in-house.

Print pressure and a shrinking pharmacy network

The magazine appears every 14 days and is free of charge. Wort & Bild says about one in four adults in Germany reads it monthly, a readership of around 15 million. The publisher put circulation in the second quarter of 2026 at 4.59 million copies. Five years earlier, the Informationsgemeinschaft zur Feststellung der Verbreitung von Werbeträgern (IVW) had recorded more than 7.6 million. The number of pharmacies in Germany has been falling for years, and the Bundesvereinigung Deutscher Apothekerverbände counts around 16,600 today, against more than 20,000 a decade ago. That decline, together with weaker print advertising, puts the publisher's business model under pressure.