Don't!
René Worni on the widespread hesitation in the Mittelland and the question of whether the publisher can manage to launch Switzerland’s sixth free newspaper on his own.
René Worni on the great hesitation in the Mittelland.
After threatening gestures, nothing more concrete has been heard from Peter Wanner since late last fall. But you can literally feel how much the publisher of the Aargauer Zeitung is squirming under Tamedia's free offensive and struggling to make a decision. Rumor has it that he has already thought about selling his company. Although this is unlikely, it fits the image of a publisher who circles the floor in his study with his eyes downcast, calculating his options over and over again. Wanner is not alone in the trap. If he wants to react appropriately, he also has to convince his fellow publishers at Mittelland Zeitung that a new free title is the answer to Zurich's conquest of the Mittelland. But is it really? the latest news from AZ - investments in new online offerings (14 new jobs) and expansion of the forwarding facility in Aarau - now suggest that the boxed-in publisher has been able to bring himself to make certain decisions and is starting to get serious about launching his own free paper.
But can the publisher manage to support Switzerland's sixth free newspaper on its own? The signals from Baden that they are open to cooperation with other media companies speak volumes. Let's assume that talks (let's say with the NZZ) have not yet yielded any concrete results. So Wanner must first put the product on the table before he can invite others to join in. He is already doing this with his Sonntag title, which he is cleverly offering to the Neue Luzerner Zeitung, in which the NZZ holds a majority stake. Where Sonntag wants to establish itself nationally as the fourth Sunday newspaper, a new free title can only rely on AZ's local roots - above all out of consideration for its limited resources. The answer to News (and also to 20 Minuten, .ch and Blick am Abend) must therefore be strictly local. So why not convert the AZ's tabloid regional supplements into a free newspaper? But in view of the flood of free titles, which are particularly pleasing to media managers, one would like to call out to the publisher: Just don't
René Worni, Editor
