Basel's TagesWoche ceases operations

The operator of the DailyWeekneue Medien Basel AG, will be liquidated, the Foundation for Media Diversity announced on Monday. The measure affects 30 people, as Andreas Miescher from the Foundation for Media Diversity told the Keystone-SDA agency. A social plan will cushion the hardship cases.

This means that the media project will come to an end in mid-November after seven years. The decision was made together with Neue Medien Basel AG and the management of DailyWeek fallen.

Foreshadowing: Nick Lüthi, editor-in-chief of Medienwoche, tweeted on Sunday while cleaning up:

While tidying up the paper, the first issue of the @tageswoche found. Will I soon be able to add the last one to my collection? pic.twitter.com/FZIGLKlQLF

- Nick Lüthi ✎ (@nick_luethi) November 4, 2018

Turbulent times

Since its launch, the DailyWeek has gone through various turbulent phases, including changes at management level and among employees, the press release continues. In 2016, there was transitional financing that gave the medium three years to find new sources of income. In the same year, there were job cuts and an adjusted business plan. In 2017, the team was reorganized and focused on profitability. However, the increase in income necessary to maintain the company was not possible in the difficult journalistic environment. There is still a deficit that far exceeds the amount of one million francs promised by the foundation with an additional two million francs per year, said Miescher.

The DailyWeek was launched in 2011 as a journalistic experiment and played a pioneering role in online matters, as the New Media Basel Board of Directors reports on the website of the DailyWeek writes. The medium is published every two weeks as a print edition.

The project started with a weekly edition. The Foundation for Media Diversity would like to support a new initiative - within the limits of its financial resources, according to the press release. The aim is to launch a new media product for the Basel region, ideally as early as next year. Several options are currently being examined.

Difficult environment

The Basel media landscape is undergoing radical change: in October, the Basel Newspaper (BaZ) was integrated into the Tamedia Group. Since mid-August, the portal Prime News of the former local head of the BaZChristian Keller, online. Since 1998, Peter Knechtli's OnlineReports News and stories online free of charge, and according to its own figures it is in the black. All regional providers use multimedia, including newspapers and Telebasel, which is strongly promoting its internet channel. The online portal Barfi.ch by former Radio Basilisk co-founder Christian Heeb was the last to go online in 2015. Due to a lack of advertising revenue, Barfi.ch is now in debt-restructuring moratorium and is looking for partners. (SDA)

The expressions of grief for the @tageswoche are for the most part simply hypocritical. How many of those who are now bemoaning a loss of media diversity have #Daily week subscribed & paid, regularly read & quoted? How many have placed advertisements & made donations?

- Ronnie Grob (@ronniegrob) November 5, 2018