Liquid

The Basler Zeitung is cooperating with Tamedia. It diligently prints the impressive circulation of 42,000 copies of the commuter paper News. It distributes it in its catchment area, or rather has it distributed by the post office following the sale of its own Prevag. It diligently acquires advertisements. It also cooperates with Tamedia on the Internet and is part of Newsnetz, a merger of Tagi, BZ and BaZ. It provides regional articles for the Newsnetz. It holds a 25 percent stake in News Print AG and is allowed to operate largely autonomously. BaZ is spending a lot of money. This is manageable, says publisher Matthias Hagemann. Nevertheless, BaZ remains in a quandary. Tamedia's free destroyer 20 Minuten continues to distribute 70,000 copies daily on the Rhine knee. Publisher Hagemann is nevertheless hoping for a significant increase in revenue from news next year. It doesn't look that bad. He denies internal rumors that BaZ has already run into liquidity problems twice due to the production and distribution of News. The only liquidity bottleneck he is aware of is that he has just run out of Rivella on a mountain hike. Hiking calms the nerves. But when News flops, it hits the people of Basel first. Today, BaZ still sees News as a means of competing with 20 Minuten and tomorrow it could become Tamedia's bridgehead to the Rhine.