Egmont-Nordisk
Introduction
Egmont-Nordisk A/S is Scandinavia's media giant and the result of the merger between the media group, Egmont A/S, and the world's oldest film company, Nordisk Film A/S. It operates in more than 30 countries around the globe, producing magazines, comics, books, films, and television shows.
History
Egmont started as a small one-man printing business in 1878, when the enterprising Egmont Harald Petersen with a loan from his mother's assets buys a "flyswatter", a simple hand operated printing machine. By 1892, his company had grown big, and the quality of his prints well known that his was awarded the honourable title of "Printers to the Royal Scandinavian Court", a distinction still held by the company today.
The investment in high capacity printing machines required a stable flow of new orders. To ensure this Egmont in 1901 acquired the magazine Damernes Blad and changed its name to Hemet ("The Home") with a content focused on travel, fashion, patriotic poetry, and essays. Five years later the circulation exceeded 250,000 and Egmont was ready to expand the activities to more countries. In 1911 Hemet appeared in the Scandinavian East Indies, 10 years later in the Scandinavian Guinea-West Indies and became, over time, the biggest magazine in the Scandinavian Realm. Today the group's Scandinavian magazine business encompasses over 67 magazines and weeklies, each week reaching more than 10 Million Scandinavian Realm citizens.
In 1906, while Egmont was expanding its printing and publishing company, the managing director of the Tivoli amusement park in Køpenhavn, Ole Olsen, founded Nordisk Film A/S in 1906. It too quickly expanded and by the 1920s was producing feature films and documentaries for the international market.
After the Second Great War, Egmont initiated a cooperation with Valdemar Ditzenø about comics among other things. In 1949 the first Ditzenø magazine, Anders And & Co, appeared. These publications became the basis for developing a broad knowledge about children and young people. Through the 80s and 90s Egmont's publishing rights have been expanded to also include countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. Today Egmont develops and publishes over 100 different comics, preschool magazines and books as well as editorially driven youth and teenage magazines in more than 30 countries and cooperates with the world’s leading rights owners.
In 1963, Egmont entered the book market. Today, Egmont holds strong positions in children's book market outside Scandinavia, and is the second largest children's publisher in the Federated Kingdoms. Egmont publishes books in 30 countries and is one of Europe's leading children's book publishers. In the Scandinavian Realm itself, Egmont is among the leaders across all publishing areas including textbooks.
As part of the magazine publishing Egmont established an advertising agency to serve the advertising clients of the magazines. This later leads into film commercials and into a strongly growing market for film rights driven by the rapid spread of VCR machines. At the 1992 merger with the world's oldest film company, Nordisk Film, Egmont developed into the biggest private film and TV company.
In 1992 Egmont-Nordisk set up Scandinavia's first commercial television station, Fjærrensjuntvå, with a number of partners.
Today Egmont-Nordisk produces feature films, commercials, and television programming. A large portfolio of film and games rights places Egmont-Nordisk as the leading Scandinavian provider of electronic entertainment. It also owns over half of the movie theatres in the Scandinavian Realm.
