"Binere Buess nöd dä Hirsch usähänkä, man" was the message of the radio spot, which was realized just before Christmas. The aim was to draw attention to a sales promotion at Snowboard Garage. The store had credited customers with the cost of a parking fine for every purchase of 200 francs or more. The aim was not to produce a commercial about Carl Hirschmann, as Christian Baertschi from the BMB advertising agency told Werbewoche. Instead, the focus was on the pre-Christmas parking buses. "We chose the commercial that best suited the Snowboard Garage target group in terms of tonality," says Baertschi. However, the production had a difficult time with the radio stations: Radio Energy didn't want to broadcast the daring commercial at all. It ran on Radio 24 for a few days, but was then stopped.

> To the spot

Responsible at Snowboard Garage: Christian Schuler (CEO Tower Sports AG). Responsible at BMB: Flavio Meroni and Markus Tränkle (creation), Marion Schwager and Christian Baertschi (consulting), sound design: Selmi Tonstudio, Chris Grunder.

Tino Kunz has been with Switzerland Tourism (ST) since 2005. The 37-year-old was initially responsible for family promotion within Product Management at the head office in Zurich. He then worked as District Manager North Rhine-Westphalia, based in Düsseldorf. Other positions include Imholz Special Tours, Jet Aviation and Switzerland Travel Center. Kunz acquired his marketing and management knowledge through his further education at the Lucerne School of Business and during his previous part-time training at the Lucerne College of Tourism. The exact start date will be coordinated with the succession plan in Germany.
The new organization is intended to ensure the targeted and systematic use of marketing instruments for the Swiss market. Particular emphasis will be placed on the acquisition of potential sales, communication and media partners and the distribution of special vacation offers, according to a press release.

The exact number of redundancies is still unclear, as the newspaper reported on Thursday. Around 170 people are employed in the editorial offices of the sports and local sections. At the beginning of December, the management had already informed the staff that around 40 percent of employees would have to leave. According to its own information, the conservative paper has been making losses since it was founded 27 years ago. Recently, the problems have become increasingly urgent: just last year, the Saturday edition was discontinued.
The US newspaper crisis is worsening: US newspaper circulation fell by 10.6 percent between April and September 2009 compared to the same period last year. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is one of the few newspapers that managed to grow. Other major newspapers suffered severe setbacks: The New York Times lost 7.3 percent through September 2009 compared to the previous year. The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post also lost readers.

His offense: The daredevil presenter had interrupted the broadcast of Queen Elizabeth II's traditional Christmas speech and criticized it as "boring". The punishment: he was fired by his broadcaster. The complete broadcast of the Christmas speech was a director's mistake and he was looking for a way to get out of the situation, the man justified himself. "I wanted to get rid of it, so I made a joke. I said: 'Two words: long and boring'," he explained. He then went on to make a joke about how many British people thought the royal family was an important tourism factor, even though the French had beheaded their kings and were still getting lots of visitors... You could have imagined more trouble, couldn't you?

In an interview with the NZZ am Sonntag, Ueli Haldimann, interim director of Swiss television for the past three months, said that 52-year-old Stefan Gubser is the planned Swiss "Tatort" detective. The production companies Tellfilm and Turnus Film have been commissioned to jointly produce a first crime series. A pilot program about important Swiss personalities is also planned. If the pilot is a success, it will become a series. Six to eight one-hour episodes are planned. The programs with documentary and fictional parts will be broadcast under the name "The Swiss". SF is basing this on the ZDF series "Die Deutschen", which was broadcast in the fall of 2008. There are also plans to include a half-hour talk show with a guest in the program on Sunday evenings. Ingrid Deltenre already had plans for such a format. However, a good broadcasting slot is currently lacking, Haldimann continues. A new magazine about foreign topics is also under discussion. However, the plans for this are not yet fully developed.

Is he applying for the post of Super Director?
"I have to think about it seriously," said Ueli Haldimann when asked whether he would apply for the position of Director of Radio and Television. "I sense that many people - not only in television - expect me to run." However, Haldimann refused to be pinned down. He had not yet made up his mind, the TV boss emphasized again at the end of the interview.

Six finalists have been nominated in each category. They include Alena Gerber, Nik Hartmann and Katja Stauber. In addition to the "Most Moving TV Moment", the "Most Surprising WebTV Moment" is also being sought for the first time. Viewers can watch online videos to see what moved them on the Internet and on TV in 2009. Frank Baumann has already been honored. The editors named him the "Best Swiss abroad".

>To the vote

The court in Washington considered it proven that Microsoft integrated patented applications from the Canadian company i4i into certain versions of its Word writing program. According to W&V, it thus confirmed the ruling of a Texas court on August 12, which Microsoft had challenged. Microsoft was also prohibited from selling the Word programs in question after January 11.
I4i boss Louden Owen welcomed the court's decision. However, the Microsoft Group announced that it would launch a word processing program for the corresponding Word versions without i4i applications by 11 January. At the same time, the company kept the option open to appeal again.

Due to the new regulatory framework, Swisscom has decided to discontinue the Connect 1811 switching service as of December 28, 2009. This was announced by the company on Wednesday. This service made it possible to transfer calls to a Swisscom cell phone. The Telecommunications Services Ordinance, which comes into force on January 1, 2010, obliges Swisscom to pass on customer data to third-party providers if the service is continued. This would affect the cell phone data of customers who are not listed in the public telephone directory and who have not consented to their data being passed on. "However, Swisscom will continue to protect the privacy of its customers and is therefore discontinuing the Connect 1811 exchange service," the company writes in the press release. Since the launch of Connect 1811 in January 2009, Swisscom has been committed to a common industry solution that protects customer privacy and at the same time enables all providers to offer a comparable switching service. "Instead of an industry solution, an ordinance is now coming into force that takes insufficient account of these proposals. With Connect 1811, it was possible to call Swisscom private customers' cell phone numbers, even if the number is not listed in the public telephone directory. The number was not disclosed and privacy was protected at all times."

But anyone who thinks that the un-boom is a phenomenon of today's social networking society is mistaken: back in 1967, the lemonade 7-Up advertised itself as "Un-Cola", with the slogan "put some un- in your life" - the following May, young people heeded the call and climbed onto the barricades. Even today, the new popularity of the old prefix is more than just a linguistic curiosity: with the undo command, for example, which is well known to all computer users, information technology has taught us that our actions can always be undone, according to the GDI Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute's Trend Radar 2.09, which is entirely dedicated to the current success of the prefix. Un-fashion has another meaning, however: as a negation, the prefix stands for rejection. As a sign of discomfort, un- is the abbreviation of the desire for change, a kind of blank space for what is to come, but which we cannot yet properly understand and name.
There are countless examples of what can be un-branded: Branding, Store, Convenience, Comsuption, Packaging, Pricing, Restaurant, Model, Conference, Teaching, Possessing or Economy. You can find out what unbranding, unrestaurant, unmodel and co. mean here. here (Source: Trendradar 2.09 of the GDI).
But don't let the many us make you feel insecure: enjoy the wonderful Christmas season, spend lots of time with family and friends and have a good start to 2010!

The ABC and CBS networks are apparently among the broadcasters showing serious interest in cooperating with Apple. There are still no official statements on negotiations, and according to insider information, the people involved in the talks are not authorized to speak publicly about them. It is also said that the negotiations are still at an early stage.
ABC belongs to the Disney Group, which could also make the two cable channels ABC Family and Disney Channel available for Apple TV. CBS owns half of the TV network CW, which could also be brought on board. However, there have been no official statements from either of these parties to date.
"Apple is an innovative company that produces both software and hardware and optimally coordinates both sides. I can imagine that the convergence of the web, TV and cell phones in particular will make such a service a success," Manfred Bobrowsky, Professor at the Vienna Institute for Journalism and Communication Studies, told Pressetext. Subscription television, adapted to individual user needs, is very much in demand today. Due to the oversupply of media content, pre-selection is becoming increasingly important for users.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and Turner Broadcasting, the owner of CNN, are apparently less euphoric about Apple's subscription TV plans. The companies are worried about their main business of paid cable programs. With broadband Internet subscriptions, there is a risk that consumers will migrate and no longer pay for traditional TV bundles.

An increase in prices would contradict the principles approved by parliament in 2007 when the press subsidy system was revised, writes the Uvek in a statement on Wednesday, according to SDA. According to this, the price increase must be limited to compensating for inflation. Swiss Post therefore has a margin of 2 percent, which corresponds to an average of 0.5 centimes per copy. This assessment is also shared by the price watchdog, according to the Uvek.
Swiss Post had asked the Department to be allowed to increase the price for the delivery of regional and local newspapers by one centime per copy and the price for the delivery of membership press titles by two centimes per copy.
Council of States wants to maintain indirect press funding
The issue of the tariff system will be debated again in the current revision of the Postal Act. In the winter session, the Council of States dealt with the delivery of newspapers. It would like to retain the current model of indirect press subsidies. Under this system, the federal government covers part of the costs incurred by Swiss Post through the discounted delivery of subscribed newspapers. In 2007, Parliament decided that the Confederation should contribute a total of 30 million a year. 20 million is earmarked for regional and local newspapers with a circulation of up to 40,000 copies and 10 million for member newspapers of non-profit organizations. The National Council had originally proposed a solution that would have also benefited large publishers.
Swiss Press Association satisfied
In a communiqué, the Swiss Press Association expresses its satisfaction with the decision of the Uvek. With its decision of December 23, 2009, the Uvek has sent a clear signal. By maintaining the prices for the discounted daily delivery of subscribed newspapers and magazines, the federal government has created the basis for ensuring that publishers and subscribers will not incur any additional costs - with the exception of inflation - in these difficult economic times. The press needs such framework conditions in order to be able to provide as broad and diverse an orientation as possible in our democracy.
Swiss Post has the task of ensuring the basic service. "In addition to letters, this also includes newspapers and magazines for daily delivery. While the volume of letters fluctuates and is constantly decreasing, subscribed newspapers and magazines form a calculable workload for the postal business," writes the association. "The publishers cannot accept that the decline and the newly created competition for letters should be compensated for by increasing distribution prices for newspapers."

The work took two years, Google announced on Wednesday at the end of the project. The project involved scanning copyright-free works written before 1870. These can now be read by internet users all over the world. The Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne is the first French-speaking library and the fifth in Europe to take this path, the press release continues. The digitized books are currently only accessible via "Google Book Search". However, links will soon be added to the catalog of the library network of French-speaking Switzerland (RERO).