BaZ closes café
Television After around ten years, the Basler Zeitung Medien is ending its satirical program "Café Bâle" on SF 2, but is expanding its football talk show in view of Euro 08.
Television After around ten years, Basler Zeitung Medien is ending the satirical show "Café Bâle" on SF 2, but is expanding its football talk program in view of Euro 08. "Café Bâle" celebrated its premiere on Sunday, October 1, 1995. Since then, the satirical program from Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM) has been broadcast every 14 days on SF 2 as part of the publisher's television program Presse-TV (PTV). But the Basel humor on the SRG channel will soon be over. "We are discontinuing Café Bâle from the summer break," says BZM CEO Beat Meyer. The reason: ratings have fallen continuously since 2003, with the program's market share dropping from 8 to 4.7 percent (see WW 10/07) - despite a relaunch last year. As recently as November, the Allschwil-based production company Allcomm Productions was still spouting optimism. "The renovation of the comedy show Café Bâle is beginning to take effect, the show is now reaching younger viewers as well as the regular audience and the ratings are higher than before," said co-owner Klaus Vieli in a press release at the time. Now he has to announce the definitive end to the actors. However, their contracts were due to expire in the summer anyway.
Allcomm itself gets off lightly. This is because BZM is expanding its football talk show, which has been produced almost monthly by Vieli's team since 2004. In future, the discussion program with footballers, coaches, sponsors, club officials and sports journalists will be broadcast every two weeks, replacing "Café Bâle" and alternating with Ringier's "Motorshow tcs". "PTV is thus creating a sports channel on Sunday evenings," says PTV Managing Director Hansjürg Deutsch. At the same time, it is hoped that this will attract more viewers to the football talk show, as this program also recorded a third fewer viewers in 2006 than in the previous year.
There will be further changes to PTV's Standpunkte program: The PTV Board of Directors decided to standardize the Saturday and Sunday evening program in terms of decor and appearance, but at the same time to make it more diverse. In addition to SonntagsBlick and NZZ, Basler Zeitung and Axel Springer Schweiz will also be involved in the editorial work from late summer. In addition, NZZ editor-in-chief Markus Spillmann and another journalist will replace the current hosts Hugo Bütler and Erich Gysling on the NZZ's Standpunkte.
But these are only the superficial PTV changes. The publishers' contract with SRG expires at the end of 2008 - and with it the license. That is why PTV is thinking about the future. "We are convinced that we want to continue with PTV. We still see cooperation with SRG as the only way for us publishers to be able to make TV on a national level," says PTV Chairman of the Board of Directors Wolfgang Frei. However, no official negotiations have yet taken place.
Frei also makes it clear that PTV will not be a supplicant. "SF 2 was conceived as a cooperation model from the outset, we are not a contractor here," he says. For this reason, the further procedure will soon be discussed with the Federal Office of Communications and then negotiated with SRG, not primarily with SF Director Ingrid Deltenre. The latter has recently made it clear on several occasions that she considers PTV to be a drag on SF 2.
30 percent GermanAt their Annual General Meeting on March 19, PTV shareholders elected Ralph Büchi, CEO of Axel Springer Switzerland, to the PTV Board of Directors - in place of the previous Jean Frey CEO Filippo Leutenegger. Following the takeover of Jean Frey AG by Axel Springer, the Swiss branch of the German publishing house now holds 10 percent of PTV shares. As the German publishing group DTCP holds a further 20 percent of PTV, almost a third of the publishing television company is now in German hands. Ringier and NZZ each own 30 percent, Basler Zeitung Medien 10 percent.
Markus Knöpfli
Allcomm itself gets off lightly. This is because BZM is expanding its football talk show, which has been produced almost monthly by Vieli's team since 2004. In future, the discussion program with footballers, coaches, sponsors, club officials and sports journalists will be broadcast every two weeks, replacing "Café Bâle" and alternating with Ringier's "Motorshow tcs". "PTV is thus creating a sports channel on Sunday evenings," says PTV Managing Director Hansjürg Deutsch. At the same time, it is hoped that this will attract more viewers to the football talk show, as this program also recorded a third fewer viewers in 2006 than in the previous year.
There will be further changes to PTV's Standpunkte program: The PTV Board of Directors decided to standardize the Saturday and Sunday evening program in terms of decor and appearance, but at the same time to make it more diverse. In addition to SonntagsBlick and NZZ, Basler Zeitung and Axel Springer Schweiz will also be involved in the editorial work from late summer. In addition, NZZ editor-in-chief Markus Spillmann and another journalist will replace the current hosts Hugo Bütler and Erich Gysling on the NZZ's Standpunkte.
But these are only the superficial PTV changes. The publishers' contract with SRG expires at the end of 2008 - and with it the license. That is why PTV is thinking about the future. "We are convinced that we want to continue with PTV. We still see cooperation with SRG as the only way for us publishers to be able to make TV on a national level," says PTV Chairman of the Board of Directors Wolfgang Frei. However, no official negotiations have yet taken place.
Frei also makes it clear that PTV will not be a supplicant. "SF 2 was conceived as a cooperation model from the outset, we are not a contractor here," he says. For this reason, the further procedure will soon be discussed with the Federal Office of Communications and then negotiated with SRG, not primarily with SF Director Ingrid Deltenre. The latter has recently made it clear on several occasions that she considers PTV to be a drag on SF 2.
30 percent GermanAt their Annual General Meeting on March 19, PTV shareholders elected Ralph Büchi, CEO of Axel Springer Switzerland, to the PTV Board of Directors - in place of the previous Jean Frey CEO Filippo Leutenegger. Following the takeover of Jean Frey AG by Axel Springer, the Swiss branch of the German publishing house now holds 10 percent of PTV shares. As the German publishing group DTCP holds a further 20 percent of PTV, almost a third of the publishing television company is now in German hands. Ringier and NZZ each own 30 percent, Basler Zeitung Medien 10 percent.
Markus Knöpfli
