Blocher planned merger of Baz with AZ Medien
Blocher favored a merger of Baz with AZ Medien. As the Tages-Anzeiger claims to have learned from reliable sources, the AZ publishers were to determine the commercial side, Markus Somm the journalistic.
There is still a lack of clarity about the actual ownership of Basler Zeitung. According to Tagesanzeiger.ch, however, the role of Christoph Blocher as an advisor is becoming a little more transparent. Blocher always emphasized that he was mainly responsible for solving the problems in the industrial printing area of the Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM) group. As the TA is said to have learned from a well-informed source, Blocher favored the variant of a merger with AZ Medien in the only management seminar held with the BZM group management. AZ Medien publishes the Mittelland Zeitung in the header format and reaches around 400,000 readers daily. Together with the readers of BaZ's large circulation, this would reach a total of 600,000 readers in a geographically homogeneous area and could become the third major player in the Swiss press landscape alongside Tamedia and the NZZ Group.
Blocher made it clear that he wanted to give his biographer Markus Somm, who has since been appointed editor-in-chief of BaZ, a wider sphere of influence, as Tagesanzeiger.ch continues: AZ media owner Peter Wanner and later his son and designated successor Michael were to be given leadership in commercial matters in the merged company, in return for which Wanners were to hand over journalistic management to the BaZ owners by shareholders' agreement. In this way, AZ publisher Peter Wanner could hand over the third-largest Swiss publishing house to his son Michael Wanner, and the BaZ owners "could then influence 600,000 readers politically," as one insider puts it.
> Moritz Suter paid just over one million francs for the BZM
(Image: Keystone)
