Steep pass for TeleTop

Fee splitting A sensitive position paper from publishers puts TeleTop in pole position On March 14, shortly before the
final parliamentary votes on the new RTVA, published
der Tages-Anzeiger Brisantes: The major publishers in German-speaking Switzerland
apparently have clear ideas about how the prospective
standing fee-splitting cake for
28 million francs - is to be distributed in the future.
The plan, which the Tagi has taken from a draft by the Swiss Press Association
is quite simple: All Swiss-German publishers with
own regional TV are to receive a concession with a performance mandate.
and thus also fee-splitting shares. For
independent TVs, on the other hand, the association document does not see any
Demand. Specifically: TeleTop, the largest broadcaster in the
Eastern Switzerland, comes away empty-handed and its territory would be under TeleZüri,
TeleOstschweiz and Schaffhauser TV.

Norbert Neininger, responsible for the department of
electronic media, confirms the existence of "such a paper",
did not want to take a stand and was met with a shake of the head. "That the
publishers take a position and exclude a non-publisher is
not very clever," comments Anton Schaller. His
media consulting firm built a new media center for the
St. Galler Tagblatt AG opened the TeleOstschweiz channel and attempted to
in vain with top boss Günter Heuberger to create a joint Eastern Switzerland
TV solution. Even today, Schaller still rates the
TeleTop's distribution area as "too heterogeneous and lacking a
clear center unsuitable for making television". Nevertheless, he is
convinced: "The publishers' position paper will ultimately benefit TeleTop."
This is because the top boss is the only one who is independent of the Group and only operates
electronic media and does not pose a dominant threat to the market.
"Against multimedia groups such as Tamedia and NZZ, Heuberger has now
battle for fee money with the licensing authorities," says
Schaller. (mk)