Migros and Coop make gains

The two major distributors Migros and Coop have increased their reader market share by 0.3 points to 18.2% since last fall. Together with Tamedia and Ringier, they account for 50.9 percent of all contacts of the titles covered by the Media Trend Journal. As Ringier gained 0.1 point and Tamedia lost 0.1, this also corresponds to the growth of the three largest publishing groups in Switzerland. Fourth place goes to the NZZ Group with 5.2 percent. It has thus overtaken Axel Springer, which, like Konsumenteninfo, holds 4.9 percent each. This is followed by AZ Medien with 3.3 percent. The remaining 30.8 percent is distributed among a large number of titles from smaller publishers (see chart "Market shares Switzerland"). The main loser is Axel Springer Switzerland. Four of its seven titles listed in MACH Basic lost significant ground, losing a total of 184,000 contacts. Only the three business titles Bilanz, Handelszeitung and PME Magazine escaped unscathed. Tamedia's free share remained unchanged at around 52 percent, while Ringier's share fell by 0.7 points to 19.2 percent thanks to the new paid contacts of Landliebe. The NZZ Group recorded the sharpest decline, with its free share falling by 1.6 points to 28.6 percent thanks to the additional titles purchased from St. Galler Tagblatt and Neue Luzerner Zeitung and the non-significant loss of titles distributed free of charge.

Axel Springer loses

In German-speaking Switzerland, Tamedia, Ringier and the two major distributors increased their market share by 0.4 points to 48.8%. As the chart "Market share German-speaking Switzerland" shows, three of the four medium-sized publishers play a larger role here, as they are heavily or entirely active in this language area. As a result, the NZZ Group has outperformed Axel Springer even more clearly here than in Switzerland as a whole. While they were practically on a par in the fall, the NZZ Group is now 0.6 points ahead with a 6.5 percent share of the reader market. The two major distributors and Ringier have each gained 0.2 points. Coop and Migros together have 17.2 percent and Ringier 13.7 percent.

In French-speaking Switzerland, the major titles listed in MACH Basic generated 64.2% of all contacts, virtually unchanged from the previous year. At 30.9%, Tamedia is clearly in the lead despite a fall of 0.5 points. Konsumenteninfo increased from 6.3% to 7.4% and continues to be significantly stronger in French-speaking Switzerland than in German-speaking Switzerland.

Highly concentrated

If we focus on the daily and Sunday press market, the picture becomes much more extreme. Tamedia, Ringier and the NZZ Group continue to hold over 80 percent of the market throughout Switzerland and in German-speaking Switzerland. Tamedia dominates - especially in French-speaking Switzerland, where it holds more than three quarters of all contacts. Here, however, it lost 0.5 points - not least due to the significant loss of Le Matin. However, at 76.8%, it still generates more than three quarters of all contacts. In German-speaking Switzerland, on the other hand, it gained 0.5 points to 39.3 percent. And this is only because its daily and Sunday newspapers have lost fewer contacts than those of the other publishers. As announced here six months ago, the NZZ Group even increased its reader market share by 0.7 points to 18.8 percent. This was due to the aforementioned additional front pages of its regional newspapers. AZ Medien, on the other hand, lost ground due to its significant loss of Schweiz am Sonntag and now only holds 9.4 instead of 9.9 percent of the reader market. And this still includes the contacts of the Graubünden edition, which is published by Südostschweiz Medien.

Ueli Custer