Fare dodgers on the train of time
Op-Ed: Those who fail to recognize and implement innovations in a timely manner will pay dearly for it later. Take Tamedia and 20 Minuten, for example—though the free newspaper could soon turn out to be a Trojan horse within the Tamedia stable.
Guest commentary Those who fail to recognize and implement innovations in time will have to pay dearly for them later. Like Tamedia for 20 Minuten - whereby the free paper could soon turn out to be a Trojan horse in Tamedia's stable. The closure of the Express before its publication will go down in media history as a brutal version of cut-throat competition. What Tamedia and 20 Minuten signed on Friday, while the Express team unsuspectingly toasted their new newspaper, looks like a radical but sensible solution. After all, nobody has made money with free newspapers in Zurich since 1995 (apart from the old Tagblatt and ZürichExpress until 2000), and the stock market-driven newcomers Metro and Schibsted have pushed the previously comparatively idyllic competition into new dimensions: The daily cadence and the new form of distribution along commuter routes required huge investments. So far, all those involved have only lost: Metropol, which was the first to drop out, the old and formerly profitable Tagblatt, because it was upgraded to ZürichExpress, but stopped halfway and failed to manage the balancing act between official gazette and commuter newspaper. But the entrepreneurial breakthrough has not yet been achieved at 20 Minuten either and its future is uncertain. Although the project was a success on the readership market, it never reached the repeatedly announced break-even point - presumably due to high editorial and distribution costs. In total, 100 to 120 million francs have probably been invested in the Zurich free newspaper market over the last five years - or lost, as the case may be.
Tamedia's flagship paper has suffered the most, losing a quarter of its readers since 1996. Of course, this is not only "thanks" to 20 Minuten. Under new management, the Tagi Group changed its strategy last year. After bloody market adjustments in private radio and television and in the online sector, it has now finally started to protect its core business. Publisher Eugen Russ from the comparatively poor Vorarlberg demonstrated how to do this at the last Dreikönigstagung. The clever top dog is securing his debut by - if nothing else - making competition for himself. In this way, the commuter newspaper, which was supposed to open up a new strategic field, becomes the "underbody protection" for the endangered subscription newspaper.
Tamedia could have had all this three years ago and at a lower price. But those responsible at the time were afraid for the Tages-Anzeiger and rejected existing plans for an offensive counter-strategy. The purchase price for 20 Minuten, which is still being kept secret but is certainly high, is, so to speak, the fine for riding the train of time. If you don't invent innovations in time and bring them to market, you have to buy them. Roger Schawinski grins in the background. He too was able to hand over his basically failed company to Werdstrasse just in time.
With 20 Minuten, Tamedia and its minority partner, the fiercely competitive Espace Media Groupe, have taken on a major challenge. With the traditional daily newspapers, which have also earned the money for this acquisition, they have reached saturation point - or are already well into the yellow zone as far as Tagi is concerned. They will have to brutally reduce the costs of 20 Minuten; the generously promised continued employment of forty Express staff without a page will not exactly help. At the same time, however, the market position of the expensive new acquisition on the reader market must be strengthened. This means being forced to aggressively promote "free reading", which has already failed in the online sector and is cannibalizing the core business with the 300-franc subscriptions. The prize, of course, is air supremacy in the regional advertising markets. In future, advertisers will have to pay close attention to ensure that they are not the ones who end up paying the heaviest fine for the general black market that is becoming fashionable.
> Karl Lüönd is a journalist, author and head of the Media Institute of the Swiss Press Association. He voluntarily left the free newspaper business in 1998 with his Züri Woche.
Tamedia's flagship paper has suffered the most, losing a quarter of its readers since 1996. Of course, this is not only "thanks" to 20 Minuten. Under new management, the Tagi Group changed its strategy last year. After bloody market adjustments in private radio and television and in the online sector, it has now finally started to protect its core business. Publisher Eugen Russ from the comparatively poor Vorarlberg demonstrated how to do this at the last Dreikönigstagung. The clever top dog is securing his debut by - if nothing else - making competition for himself. In this way, the commuter newspaper, which was supposed to open up a new strategic field, becomes the "underbody protection" for the endangered subscription newspaper.
Tamedia could have had all this three years ago and at a lower price. But those responsible at the time were afraid for the Tages-Anzeiger and rejected existing plans for an offensive counter-strategy. The purchase price for 20 Minuten, which is still being kept secret but is certainly high, is, so to speak, the fine for riding the train of time. If you don't invent innovations in time and bring them to market, you have to buy them. Roger Schawinski grins in the background. He too was able to hand over his basically failed company to Werdstrasse just in time.
With 20 Minuten, Tamedia and its minority partner, the fiercely competitive Espace Media Groupe, have taken on a major challenge. With the traditional daily newspapers, which have also earned the money for this acquisition, they have reached saturation point - or are already well into the yellow zone as far as Tagi is concerned. They will have to brutally reduce the costs of 20 Minuten; the generously promised continued employment of forty Express staff without a page will not exactly help. At the same time, however, the market position of the expensive new acquisition on the reader market must be strengthened. This means being forced to aggressively promote "free reading", which has already failed in the online sector and is cannibalizing the core business with the 300-franc subscriptions. The prize, of course, is air supremacy in the regional advertising markets. In future, advertisers will have to pay close attention to ensure that they are not the ones who end up paying the heaviest fine for the general black market that is becoming fashionable.
> Karl Lüönd is a journalist, author and head of the Media Institute of the Swiss Press Association. He voluntarily left the free newspaper business in 1998 with his Züri Woche.
