BRAVO, Europe’s biggest magazine for young people, celebrates its 50th anniversary. The gala birthday bash commemorating this German superlative is broadcast on television on 21 October, featuring prominent personalities from media, music and entertainment performing in front of some 10,000 audience guests in Hamburg’s Color Line Arena. Generations of teens have trusted the top-selling BRAVO brand for guidance.

A new printing plant is built in the town of Wykroty (near Boleslawiec in south-western Poland). After a construction phase lasting one and a half years, in June 2006 a state-of-the-art gravure print shop starts producing magazines, brochures and catalogues for markets in Northern and Central and Eastern Europe.

In Poland Bauer Verlagsgruppe takes over the private radio station group BROKER FM with nationwide station RMF FM, the number-one radio station in Poland, supra-regional premium station RMF Classic and the youth-oriented station RMF MAXXX. Grupa RMF currently has a 40 per cent share of the radio market in Poland.

With this investment, the media group acquires a participating share in Poland’s third-largest internet portal INTERIA.PL. In 2008 the Group takes over INTERIA.PL completely.

Yeah! – the fresh and happy celebrity magazine for young girls, becomes the newest member of the BRAVO stable.

Bauer Digital KG is founded in September. The new company bundles the online activities of Bauer Verlagsgruppe. Existing websites are operated as part of the new limited partnership (KG), plus new, print-independent online brands are developed and participating interests managed in the online sector.

Bauer further expands its activities in the UK media market with the acquisition at the start of the year of media company Emap plc’s consumer magazine and radio business. Now with two locations in London, the publisher becomes the biggest provider of popular magazines and second-biggest radio provider in the UK.

In order to drive home the company’s international orientation, Bauer Verlagsgruppe changes its name to parent brand Bauer Media Group.

Life&Style hits newsstands in May, wowing the German market as the first celebrity and fashion weekly from the Bauer Media Group.

In 2009 the Bauer Media Group positions its logistics division under the new family brand Bauer Postal Network (BPN) as an alternative postal service provider to Deutsche Post World Net. Since then BPN has delivered more than 140 million mailings a year for prominent customers in publishing, mail-order sales, direct marketing, telecommunications, financial services and tourism. BPN offers punctual delivery to 82 per cent of all households in Germany.

The umbrella brand LECKER.de combines the food expertise of the magazines kochen & genießen, tina Koch&Back-Ideen, REZEPTE pur and LECKER. The portal goes live in March 2009.

In July 2009 the Bauer Media Group launches the women’s portal WUNDERWEIB.de, bundling the expertise of 30 of the media company’s popular women’s magazines including Maxi, InTouch, Wohnidee, tina, bella and Laura.

The youth magazine Twist is launched, complementing the Bauer Media Group’s teen media brand.

Yvonne Bauer joins the executive board.

In 2009 the Bauer Media Group achieves a turnover of EUR 2.107 billion, surpassing the two-billion-euro mark for the first time in company history.

Accounting for a substantial share of 57.6 per cent, foreign sales now exceed sales in Germany for the first time and the trend continues. The Bauer Media Group has around 8,000 employees in Germany and abroad.

With its TV Movie HD application, the Bauer Media Group boasts the first German-language TV magazine to offer an app for the new Apple reader to coincide with the launch of the iPad in the US.

In August 2010 the Bauer Media Group launches the very first mindstyle magazine aimed at women on the German market entitled Happinez, thus creating an innovative segment of sustainable new luxury magazines marked by timeless high quality and beauty.

Publisher Heinz Bauer transfers responsibility for the media company to his daughter, Yvonne. She is henceforth at the helm of the celebrated publishing firm.

At the end of the year, the Bauer Media Group closes its printing facilities in Cologne, which had belonged to the company since 1967.