Together with his final competitor, the Bernese had to commentate the Challenge League match between FC Aarau and FC Chiasso live on Swiss sports television SSF. He not only won over the judges, SSF program director Claudia Lässer and sports presenting legend Beni Thurnheer, but also the viewers: as the third member of the jury, they were able to vote by telephone after the first half. Markus Hubacher prevailed over 1,500 applicants who had applied since the casting call in October.

In connection with the cross-media partnership with Tele Züri, Claudia Lässer and the two finalists will be guests on "Talk Täglich" on Tuesday. SSF will broadcast the last episode of "Einer wie Beni Thurnheer" on Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 8 pm. All SSF programs are also available as live streams at Internettv.ch/sport to see. Broadcasts and background reports in the archive are available at Internettv.ch/sport/one-like-beni to find. The website can now also be accessed on mobile devices.

SSF: Bernard Thurnheer is looking for "someone like Beni"
 

In it, IBM recommends that companies that do not yet use its comprehensive in-house services make creative use of the downtime that is thus more likely to occur and practice IT yoga. The witty yoga exercises are advertised with web banners on IT-savvy business websites and are available on the microsite Itdowntimecreativeuse.ch with the corresponding humorous instructions.

Responsible at IBM Switzerland: Renato Bastianelli (Overall Responsibility), Valérie Blaser (Marketing Manager), Andreas Albicker (Market Segment Manager), Ronnie Schwegler (Product Manager). Responsible at Ogilvy & Mather: Thomas Bolliger (Creative Direction), Stephanie van Ophuisen (Art Direction), Fabian Küchler (Text), Regula Krebs (Graphics), Sam Hug (Consulting), Nina Beriger (Assistance). Photography: F.X. Brun.

The new Snowfriends.ch shows itself in a refreshed design, with simplified navigation and improved search for ski resorts. The focus is on the users and their contributions. They can post blogs, pictures and videos online and rate each other's postings. In addition, each season "Snowscouts" are elected, who receive a free season subscription and in return blog first-hand about their favorite ski resort. Each week, the most popular user posts are awarded a "Hero Badge" and then appear prominently. Users can also collect badges from ski resorts and publish them on their profile. This makes it possible to see at a glance where they have been.

Swisscom uses the community as an element of corporate communications. With Snwofriends.ch, the company wants to express its solidarity with Switzerland and show its pleasure in snow sports, it says in a statement. Swisscom has also supported Swiss-Ski as a main sponsor since 2002.

Network of slopes for snow lovers

Media relations for the "Prix Courage", which is being awarded for the fourteenth time this year, has been reassigned by the Beobachter this year. The mandate will now be managed by Communicators in Zurich, under the leadership of Roland Cecchetto. "We are looking forward to this collaboration and are convinced that the new impetus from Communicators will help the award ceremony to attract even greater attention," said Roland Wahrenberger, Managing Director of the Beobachter publishing house and responsible for the organization of the Prix Courage, in a press release.

The Basel native has been running a restaurant in Zermatt for nine years and is also at the stove with celebrity chefs in the Muba cooking arena, for example. After "Megaherz" and "Bsuech", Margot is making his comeback in Monday evening primetime with "Ab in die Küche". Under the motto "Anyone and everyone can learn to cook", the show accompanies six candidates for five episodes on their journey from cooking beginners to experienced amateur chefs. Françoise Wicki, head chef of the Helvetia restaurant in Zurich, and Torsten Götz, executive chef of the Hotel Viktoria-Jungfrau, will be their teachers. The best student wins a prize at the end.

The first season of the new cooking documentary starts on Monday, April 11, 2011, at 8:05 p.m. on SF 1. Ringier Entertainment Fernsehen is producing "Ab in die Küche" in collaboration with Betty Bossi on behalf of Swiss Radio and Television.

(Image: SF)
 

Despite jet lag, openings and photo shoots, Guido Gidor did not miss the opportunity to record two new radio spots during the preparations for his international hairstyle show, as the agency writes in a communiqué. Motivated to the tips, the Swiss star hairdresser gave Gidor's assets an attractive cut and then blow-dried them smooth with the sound engineer. The fashionable creations are now strutting across the airwaves.

To the spot Navigation device.
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Responsible at Gidor: Louis Giger jun. (CEO), Maria Jimenez (Advertising Manager). Responsible at Advico Young & Rubicam: Markus Gut (CCO), Thomas Schöb (CD), Andy Lusti, Thomas Schöb (text), production: Selmi Tonstudio, Christof Grunder (sound engineering), Erich Vock (speaker).

The book presents the gold, silver and other award-winning work from the awards of the various member countries. It offers an archive of European creativity of 2010 on 533 pages. The ADCE Annual is distributed by Lürzer's Archive and is available online: Adceurope.org or Luerzersarchive.net/adce.asp.
 

Urs Hofmann joined SPR+ as Head of IT in 2006, took over the management in 2008 and is now leaving the company at his own request. Felix H. Mende, who originally set up Swiss Outdoor Advertising Research, will take over the management of the company again from April 1, 2011 and resign from the Board of Directors. He is moving from Affichage Holding back to SPR+. Prior to this, he worked as a management consultant at Input Consulting in Zurich and at the Hapag-Lloyd shipping company in Hong Kong. Felix H. Mende studied business administration at the University of Fribourg (lic. rer. pol.). He helped shape the global guidelines for out-of-home advertising research launched by Esomar (European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research) in 2009 as a member of the steering committee and the technical committee as a representative of the Federation for Outdoor Advertising Fepe. The media professional has the necessary expertise to further develop Swiss out-of-home advertising research in line with the medium and the market, taking international developments into account, the institute said in a press release.

China correspondent Barbara Lüthi is trying to get to Akita, a city in north-western Japan. From there, she wants to leave Japan by plane, said Tristan Brenn, deputy editor-in-chief and head of news, when asked by the news agency SDA on Tuesday. Harry Stitzel, producer and editor at "Schweiz aktuell", flew to Japan on Saturday with a Swiss rescue team and traveled to Tome. When the German rescue team, which was also in Tome, decided to travel out of the country, Stitzel joined them. The editor is currently on his way to Misawa in the north-east of Japan to take a plane away from Japan.

However, Christoph Wanner and Thomas Stalder will remain in the country for the time being. The latter is an editor at "Tagesschau" and is on vacation in Japan. According to Brenn, he is 250 kilometers away from Tokyo in Nagoya. Wanner works as a freelance journalist for SF and is on his way to Osaka. Tages-Anzeiger correspondent Christoph Neidhardt also wants to reach this place. The second correspondent of the Tages-Anzeiger, who like Neidhardt also reports from Japan for the Süddeutsche, will soon be leaving for China, said Christoph Zimmer, media spokesman at Tamedia.

NZZ uses internal contacts

Le Temps correspondent Miguel Quintana has already left Tokyo for Osaka. Urs Morf, Asia correspondent for Swiss Radio DRS, is also trying to get there. He is currently in the Japanese capital Tokyo and wants to enter Japan, said Manuela Kaech, media spokeswoman for Swiss Radio and Television (SRF). "We consider the situation to be sufficiently safe".

An employee of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Asia correspondent Bernhard Bartsch, is still in Tokyo. He is usually stationed in Beijing and plans to return there on Wednesday, said Luzi Bernet, head of news at the NZZ. The NZZ may send its Southeast Asia correspondent Marco Kauffmann to Japan. Where he is traveling to is currently open, said Bernet. The newspaper is trying to obtain information via freelance journalists. There are also people working on the editorial team in Zurich who have good contacts in Japan. They are also trying to obtain information from them. (SDA)

Media developments are challenging all players. The SRG is seen by some private media companies (not all) as part of the problem - rarely as part of the solution, writes de Weck. The SRG shares responsibility for the future of the Swiss media. In a globalized world, it is part of the public service mandate to secure an independent media marketplace. Google, Facebook and Apple are increasingly dominating the game, with national or regional characteristics and needs hardly playing a role.

While Google and Facebook are growing in the online advertising market, the discussion here is restrictive as to whether advertising should be placed on SRG websites and to what extent SRG should be present on the internet. SRG does not see itself as an opponent, but rather as a potential partner for private media companies in order to jointly reinvest a share of domestic value creation in Switzerland. The undesirable development known from television, where a lot of advertising money flows abroad, will be reinforced on the Internet - unless the private Swiss media companies and SRG find partnerships to jointly market advertising space for targeted, user-specific advertising (targeted marketing) on the Internet.

Together against Google, Facebook & Co.

"Together, the private media and SRG can achieve a certain critical mass against Google, Facebook & Co," continued de Weck. They could mutually strengthen each other on the internet advertising market and reduce costs thanks to shared IT infrastructures. SRG is prepared to contribute much of its know-how and video material to partnerships with smaller media companies. Audiovisual will be the decisive factor on the net.

Furthermore, the longer the Internet and television remain separate, the less they can be separated, writes de Weck. It is therefore crucial for the future of SRG to be allowed to develop freely in hybrid TV. This is a prerequisite if it is to continue to hold its own against the major broadcasters in neighboring countries, including in conventional television.

To the complete article on Nzz.ch. 

(Image: Keystone) 

No noise also means no extras. And the cute yellow car can't make up for this shortcoming. So the driver has to step in himself. Incidentally, the new Citroën C3 is being advertised. A car with many special functions, as the manufacturer promises.

ROG has declared ten states to be "enemies of the Internet". As in the two previous years, the list includes Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. According to the ROG report, these states censor the Internet through massive filtering and blocking of websites, systematically persecute critical Internet users and instrumentalize the Net for propaganda purposes. Tunisia and Egypt are no longer among the "enemies of the Internet" following the revolutionary upheavals, but they remain "under observation. 

In addition to Tunisia and Egypt, ROG has placed 14 other countries "under observation". These are countries that have taken "disturbing censorship measures that could easily be abused." Newly "Under Observation" are France, Libya and Venezuela. France is on the list because of the new online law package "Loppsi 2" ("Loi d'orientation et de programmation pour la performance de la sécurité intérieure") passed in February 2011. Among other things, this allows the Ministry of the Interior to instruct providers to filter their customers' websites for pedophile content without a court order. The keywords for this are selected by a government authority without control by a court. In Libya, the regime under Muammar al-Gaddafi pushed Internet censorship in the wake of protests in Tunisia and Egypt. In Venezuela, too, a new Internet law passed in late 2010 could lead to tighter online censorship, the organization said. In recent months, a number of blogs have already been blocked and some Internet users arrested. 

On the "World Day against Internet Censorship," however, ROG also draws attention to positive developments. Online platforms, micro-blogging services and social networking sites have established themselves as instruments of protest, political campaigns and the dissemination of independent information, the organization says. The events in Tunisia and Egypt in particular proved this, it said. Traditional media and online media are increasingly in a complementary relationship and support each other, it said. At the same time, cross-border solidarity among Internet activists is growing. 

Click here for the ROG report.