Viva-Swizz moves closer to the kids
The music channel is stepping it up a notch with its upcoming fall lineup
The music station is shifting up a few gears with its upcoming fall lineupBy Daniel Schifferle More drive and more Swiss content in the program are intended to make Viva-Swizz Switzerland's leading youth brand. With this goal in mind, Giovanni Zamai, just 23 years old, will take over as program director of the music station in September.
With the fall program, which starts on September 2, the signature of Viva-Swizz's new management will be visible on screen for the first time. The station will be "edgier, more dynamic, bolder," announces Asta Baumöller, who took over management from Viva-Swizz co-founder Suzanne Speich at the beginning of July (WW 27/02).
For the era after Speich, the station is getting Giovanni Zamai, the youngest program director on the Swiss TV landscape. Born in 1979, the Swiss native grew up in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. After graduating from high school, he completed an internship at Ogilvy & Mather in Düsseldorf, but moved to Viva in Cologne as early as 1998, where things quickly took off for him. In November 2000, he was selected for the Viva Italy project team, which coordinated and supervised the development of the subsidiary station. Since July of this year, he has been assistant to the new management of Viva-Swizz in Zurich.
"The shows will be a little shorter across the board, but more intense. With more dynamism in the program, we will be more in line with the demands of today's kids," explains Zamai. But this also means a concentration of resources. Instead of 31 different formats, the fall program will have only 28. Live programs will also be scaled back slightly. Their share will still be around 12 percent, compared to 17 percent previously. The aim is to improve quality. "We can prepare the topics better and avoid the danger of boring sequences, because with live broadcasts you can't control the flow," explains Zamai.
More Swiss clips - if the record industry will join in
Despite a slight reduction in the number of formats, however, the program will be richer overall, he said. "More thematic areas, new sections and lots of additional graphics will enhance the content." In the future, for example, no fewer than 18 new graphics packages will be used to liven up all the programs.
Starting in the fall, the station plans to focus much more strongly than before on topics relevant to young people, such as sports, fashion, lifestyle and trends. "This is also interesting from a marketing point of view, because it means that Viva-Swizz will be able to offer itself more frequently as a partner at the relevant events," explains Baumöller.
It remains to be seen whether it will be possible to further expand the share of Swiss music clips. For this to be possible, the record industry must increase its clip production.
Viva-Swizz won't run out of ideas anytime soon. "You have to constantly reinvent yourself because trends are much more short-lived in the age group you're targeting," says Zamai. One major change is still to come. The "bulky logo" won't stay that way forever, he says. "We'll have to come up with something new here in the medium term," says Baumöller.
With the fall program, which starts on September 2, the signature of Viva-Swizz's new management will be visible on screen for the first time. The station will be "edgier, more dynamic, bolder," announces Asta Baumöller, who took over management from Viva-Swizz co-founder Suzanne Speich at the beginning of July (WW 27/02).
For the era after Speich, the station is getting Giovanni Zamai, the youngest program director on the Swiss TV landscape. Born in 1979, the Swiss native grew up in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. After graduating from high school, he completed an internship at Ogilvy & Mather in Düsseldorf, but moved to Viva in Cologne as early as 1998, where things quickly took off for him. In November 2000, he was selected for the Viva Italy project team, which coordinated and supervised the development of the subsidiary station. Since July of this year, he has been assistant to the new management of Viva-Swizz in Zurich.
"The shows will be a little shorter across the board, but more intense. With more dynamism in the program, we will be more in line with the demands of today's kids," explains Zamai. But this also means a concentration of resources. Instead of 31 different formats, the fall program will have only 28. Live programs will also be scaled back slightly. Their share will still be around 12 percent, compared to 17 percent previously. The aim is to improve quality. "We can prepare the topics better and avoid the danger of boring sequences, because with live broadcasts you can't control the flow," explains Zamai.
More Swiss clips - if the record industry will join in
Despite a slight reduction in the number of formats, however, the program will be richer overall, he said. "More thematic areas, new sections and lots of additional graphics will enhance the content." In the future, for example, no fewer than 18 new graphics packages will be used to liven up all the programs.
Starting in the fall, the station plans to focus much more strongly than before on topics relevant to young people, such as sports, fashion, lifestyle and trends. "This is also interesting from a marketing point of view, because it means that Viva-Swizz will be able to offer itself more frequently as a partner at the relevant events," explains Baumöller.
It remains to be seen whether it will be possible to further expand the share of Swiss music clips. For this to be possible, the record industry must increase its clip production.
Viva-Swizz won't run out of ideas anytime soon. "You have to constantly reinvent yourself because trends are much more short-lived in the age group you're targeting," says Zamai. One major change is still to come. The "bulky logo" won't stay that way forever, he says. "We'll have to come up with something new here in the medium term," says Baumöller.
