Is Keystone-SDA threatened with the next cutback?

The reports the St. Galler Tagblatt on Friday and was already published by the Tageswoche last week. thematizes. Accordingly, Tamedia's research software Tadam now extracts sports results from Internet sources and prepares them for the editorial team so that they can create reports from them with little effort. Even quotes from players and coaches in the social media are to be incorporated semi-automatically. According to Tageswoche, Tamedia was faced with the choice of either continuing to rely on Keystone-SDA and laying off its own sports editors, or relying more on Tadam in the future. While some in the group management assume that the tool will soon be able to replace journalists, it is said at the editorial level that this is still "miles away". Tadam is merely a "practical aid.

This action by Tamedia has sensitive consequences for Keystone-SDA, as the media house has so far purchased around half of all sports reports from the news agency. Expressed in figures, this is expected to result in a loss of CHF 1.7 million in revenue, which corresponds to 5.1 percent of the previous year's result. According to the St. Galler Tagblatt, it is not yet clear what impact this loss of contract will have. The board of directors is to decide in September what the future holds for the currently 26-strong sports editorial team.

Currently, Keystone-SDA is still busy implementing the latest wave of layoffs, which will cut 36 of 150 jobs. A year ago, the news agency SDA wanted to negotiate new rates that also took online usage into account, instead of just the newspapers' declining circulations. As co-owners, the media houses agreed to this, but not as customers, since they themselves are under increased economic pressure. SDA had to offer a discount, merged with Keystone and announced the associated cost-cutting measures. This had a significant impact on text messages in particular - according to a random sample, almost 30 percent less was published in July. (hae)