Northwest 5 wants to get bigger

Local TV Northwestern Switzerland may soon have a second TV station The Basel TV station Nordwest 5 (NW5), which broadcasts to 25 Basel municipalities via the Reinach and Muttenz/Münchenstein cable networks (130000 potential viewers), has submitted an application to the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) to extend its broadcasting area to cover the whole of northwestern Switzerland. This was confirmed by Beat Alder, Managing Director of the production and operating company Nordwest Medien AG in Allschwil BL. Bakom also confirms receipt of the application, but has requested improvements. No statement was yet available from TeleBasel. However, in June 2002, the company was already unhappy about the additional competition. At that time, Alder began to breathe new life into the virtually defunct NW5 with his own production company. Currently, a team of seven produces a ninety-minute program every week, which is repeated several times a day. Alder has no audience figures. But his company has recorded advertising income of CHF 640000 this year. "We're in the gray," he says.
(mk)