Miss Europe saves on make-up
Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM) is cutting about 40 jobs company-wide, with the majority of them in the BaZ newsroom. The board of directors, on the other hand, will be expanded.
The Basler Zeitung is cutting 22.5 jobs, BZM announced last week. This means that a fifth of the editorial staff will be cut. According to Editor-in-Chief Matthias Geering, readers will therefore receive around 14 percent less content: the daily size of the jacket section will be reduced by four to five pages, and the eight-page weekend supplement will be discontinued from March. Production will also be reduced, even though BaZ has just been named "Europe's most beautiful newspaper". The paper Miss Europe is cutting back on make-up. Compromises have to be made, says Geering.
With around 83 new full-time positions and a budget of around 20 million francs, the BaZ editorial team has a similar budget to four years ago when the new concept was launched. The editorial upgrade to 105 full-time positions only took place in 2006, when the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung (bz) joined the Mittelland Zeitung (MZ). So has the decline in advertising, particularly in the job sector, put an end to the "newspaper war" in WG 31? "No," says publisher Matthias Hagemann, "because we are only marginally reducing staff in the regional section." And in future, the jacket section will also be better than that of MZ, which is also cutting jobs. The large circulation (90,000 copies), which has been distributed in the bz core area since the BaZ offensive, will also remain untouched. "We earn good money with it," says Hagemann. He also does not want the discontinuation of the weekend supplement to be interpreted as a retreat. It was indeed a response to the MZ's Sunday. "But because BaZ doesn't feel any disadvantages as a result, we can take this measure." Geering also emphasizes that the editorial cutbacks are primarily taking place where competition from free media is toughest. According to Geering, however, money can still be charged for good regional information in the future.
However, BZM is also cutting back elsewhere. In the last six months, it has already cut around twenty jobs - at Radio Basel 1 and BZM Online, for example. "We are making savings everywhere, but we are deliberately not making cuts in the editorial department first," says Hagemann.
On the other hand, an expansion of the BZM Board of Directors has been announced: Publi Group CFO Andreas Schmidt has resigned, while the previous six-member board has been increased to eight members. New members include Sam Keller, Director of the Fondation Beyeler, lawyer Niklaus R. Gadient and Ulrich H. Moser, member of the Board of Directors of Rivella and the media agency Mediaxis. It is worth noting that the direct personal ties with PubliGroupe, which holds 37% of BZM, are a thing of the past. Although Moser and Gadient were proposed by Lausanne, "as far as I know, they are not on the payroll there", says Hagemann. This is important, "because a Board of Directors must, for example, fully support our own management". In this respect, however, the previous P-representatives had found themselves in a conflict of interest that was consistently objected to by the majority shareholder. With the new composition, Hagemann hopes that the relationship with P can be normalized - at least at BoD level. At operational level, on the other hand, he is once again seeing "clear signals to the contrary" from P. These include, for example, the new value-added tool that Publicitas Basel has been offering since the beginning of the year (see WW 1/09): a credit of one percent on the advertising volume that local customers book in BZM titles but via P Basel. Hagemann classifies this P tool as an "unfair scheme" and as "exploitation of a dominant market position". It is a disguised account bonification. BZM will react "appropriately". Hagemann was also annoyed that Publicitas CEO Robert Schmidli accused BZM of price dumping at the Dreikönigstagung. In the past, P Basel had made several alleged tariff violations, which BZM had been able to refute. "Schmidli's accusations are nothing more than an excuse for his own misconduct," says Hagemann.
With around 83 new full-time positions and a budget of around 20 million francs, the BaZ editorial team has a similar budget to four years ago when the new concept was launched. The editorial upgrade to 105 full-time positions only took place in 2006, when the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung (bz) joined the Mittelland Zeitung (MZ). So has the decline in advertising, particularly in the job sector, put an end to the "newspaper war" in WG 31? "No," says publisher Matthias Hagemann, "because we are only marginally reducing staff in the regional section." And in future, the jacket section will also be better than that of MZ, which is also cutting jobs. The large circulation (90,000 copies), which has been distributed in the bz core area since the BaZ offensive, will also remain untouched. "We earn good money with it," says Hagemann. He also does not want the discontinuation of the weekend supplement to be interpreted as a retreat. It was indeed a response to the MZ's Sunday. "But because BaZ doesn't feel any disadvantages as a result, we can take this measure." Geering also emphasizes that the editorial cutbacks are primarily taking place where competition from free media is toughest. According to Geering, however, money can still be charged for good regional information in the future.
However, BZM is also cutting back elsewhere. In the last six months, it has already cut around twenty jobs - at Radio Basel 1 and BZM Online, for example. "We are making savings everywhere, but we are deliberately not making cuts in the editorial department first," says Hagemann.
On the other hand, an expansion of the BZM Board of Directors has been announced: Publi Group CFO Andreas Schmidt has resigned, while the previous six-member board has been increased to eight members. New members include Sam Keller, Director of the Fondation Beyeler, lawyer Niklaus R. Gadient and Ulrich H. Moser, member of the Board of Directors of Rivella and the media agency Mediaxis. It is worth noting that the direct personal ties with PubliGroupe, which holds 37% of BZM, are a thing of the past. Although Moser and Gadient were proposed by Lausanne, "as far as I know, they are not on the payroll there", says Hagemann. This is important, "because a Board of Directors must, for example, fully support our own management". In this respect, however, the previous P-representatives had found themselves in a conflict of interest that was consistently objected to by the majority shareholder. With the new composition, Hagemann hopes that the relationship with P can be normalized - at least at BoD level. At operational level, on the other hand, he is once again seeing "clear signals to the contrary" from P. These include, for example, the new value-added tool that Publicitas Basel has been offering since the beginning of the year (see WW 1/09): a credit of one percent on the advertising volume that local customers book in BZM titles but via P Basel. Hagemann classifies this P tool as an "unfair scheme" and as "exploitation of a dominant market position". It is a disguised account bonification. BZM will react "appropriately". Hagemann was also annoyed that Publicitas CEO Robert Schmidli accused BZM of price dumping at the Dreikönigstagung. In the past, P Basel had made several alleged tariff violations, which BZM had been able to refute. "Schmidli's accusations are nothing more than an excuse for his own misconduct," says Hagemann.
Markus Knöpfli
(Caption: Publisher Matthias Hagemann)
