Andreas Schmidt
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Andreas Schmidt was born March 28, 1961 in the small university town of Göttingen[1], Germany. Before he became journalist by profession, Schmidt dropped out of high school in 1977 to join the German Federal Police. As a police officer he worked in various functions, including the Federal Ministry of the Interior (Germany) and taught about national and international terrorism at the GSG 9, the German special ops anti-terror unit.
1983 Schmidt quit the Government Service and became a Reporter at Bunte[2], part of Hubert Burda Media. 1985 he joined Axel Springer AG as a Reporter for Bild-Zeitung[3]Europe largest daily newspaper and Associate Editor Welt am Sonntag, the Sunday Edition of Die Welt[4], one of the leading German newspapers. 1990 Schmidt joined Heinrich Bauer Verlag [5] and founded as Editor in Chief a new style of magazine called TV Movie [6], a TV-Program Guide that became one of the best selling magazines in Germany with a circulation of over 2 million copies.
Three years later, Schmidt joined in 1993 Gruner + Jahr Europes largest Publishing Company. He founded as Managing Director and Publisher a new division called Verlagsgruppe Fleet [7], and launched several new magazines including TV TODAY [8]which reached a peak circulation of 1.5 million copies. Early on Schmidt realized the advent of a new media age with the increasing popularity of the Internet and founded the TV Today Network. Second only to the Der Spiegel, the leading German newsmagazine, the TV Today Network became in the mid90's one of the earliest success stories of the Internet in Germany.
Experimenting with the new medium, Schmidt and his team caused a media uproar [9] when they started in July 1996 to broadcast live programs of the leading 20 TV Stations like the German association of public broadcasters ARD (broadcaster), ZDF, RTL Group and others over the Internet. Believed to be the first ever live Internet television it faced quick legal trouble with the broadcasters because of claimed Copyright violations and was after several Injunctions switched of.
1996 Schmidt became in addition Managing Director of Gruner + Jahr's Electronic Media division[10], launching over 15 different magazine websites, a leading German search engine Fireball[11] and Joint Ventures like the Travel Channel[12].
Two years later in 1998, Schmidt attended for 4 months Harvard Business School and participated in the Advanced Management Program [13]. He is an Alumni (MBA and executive programs) [14]of HBS.
