INTERNET/MEDIA: SUCCESS LINKED TO CONTENT AND STRONG BRAND NAMES.

Three media sector leaders, America's Victor Ganzi (Hearst), France's Arnaud Lagardere (Lagardere) and Germany's Bernd Kundrun (Gruner +Jahr), emphasised the importance of brand names and content on May 27 in Paris. The three Directors were participating in a debate at the 34th World Magazine Congress, staged under the banner "Media Convergence: myth or reality?" and examining the place of the Internet, and the benefits of or threat posed by media synergies and convergence. "The key to success is content and strong brand names, as well as a capacity to focus on precise targets", said Axel Ganz, Chairman of Prisma Presse, who led the debate. He insisted that the central truth that "consumers make the market" must not be forgotten. Victor Ganzi, Chairman of the Hearst Corporation argues that "the most important thing is to produce good content". Hearst (Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping) was created 116 years ago. Mr Ganzi leads America's sixth most diversified company (magazines, newspapers, cable networks, television, radio). After alluding to the vicissitudes of the Internet, he quoted Winston Churchill who, questioned over the Second World War...