Sascha Ruefer is the future live commentator for the Swiss national football team, succeeding Bernhard Thurnheer. He has been commentating football on Swiss television since 1998. Ruefer's next international match will be on Wednesday, August 12, 2009, at 8 p.m. on SF zwei, for the Switzerland-Italy match at St. Jakob-Park in Basel.

Claudia Schlup joins the DRS 1 management team as Head of Daytime (TAV) on August 10, 2009, replacing Heidi Ungerer, who will take over as Head of Moderation and Music.
Claudia Schlup was born in Rüti b. Büren and lives in Zurich. She studied German and journalism at the University of Bern. Claudia Schlup knows the journalistic trade inside out. She has worked for various print media since 1998: as an editor at the Berner Zeitung and as head of the lifestyle and entertainment section as well as the weekly magazine at 20 Minuten. Most recently, the 34-year-old from Bern was in charge of the society section at Sonntagsblick, where she handed in her notice after just a short time.
According to a press release, the program management sees Claudia Schlup as an ideal addition to the TAV team, which already includes Ueli Ebneter (head), Dora Amhof and René Schell. In her new role, she will be responsible for the journalistic content of DRS 1's spoken word programs together with the heads of the specialist editorial teams.

Brüno for the second time (and, I promise, the last): The movie about Sacha Baron Cohen is not allowed to be shown or sold in Ukraine. The film could "offend the morals of the population", according to the country's deputy culture minister. This is due to the vulgar language, homosexual scenes and the depiction of sadism and antisocial behavior - all the reasons why we are so crazy about our Brüno.
In the UK, they don't want to let young people get messed up without a fight either, but the problem is being solved in a completely different way there: Universal Pictures is working on a light version of Brüno. This is to be released for teenagers aged 15 and over, and not just 18 like the hardcore version. The pubescent teenagers will be delighted - a record number of fake IDs will be the answer. Who wants a clothed Brüno when you can have him naked?

Sunrise will be charging its landline customers higher telephone bills from September 2009. According to SDA, the reason for this is the higher prices that Swisscom is charging Sunrise and its other competitors.
In spring, Swisscom increased its wholesale prices for fixed-line telephony by up to 14 percent. This is the price that competitors pay to use the former monopolist's network. For the home connection, the so-called last mile, it proposed an increase of around three percent. As a result, Sunrise will be forced to charge its landline customers 10 centimes per call (call setup) from September instead of the previous 3.5 centimes, the company wrote on Wednesday. The telephone bill for these customers will therefore increase by an average of three percent. The company regrets the price increase, which was enforced by Swisscom, writes Sunrise. Sunrise immediately contested Swisscom's increase with Comcom.

Google has expanded its social media toolkit Google Friend Connect has now also been launched in German. The service, which enables website operators to integrate various social networking functions on their platforms, is now available in a total of 48 different languages. Google Friend Connect is intended to help increase traffic on websites and enrich Internet offerings with various so-called gadgets. The mini-applications enable users to communicate interactively with each other on a personal level, writes Google in its official press release. The aim is to bring online communities even closer together.
Previously, Friend Connect was only available in English. From now on, you can choose from 48 languages, which can also be varied separately for each subpage. According to Google, this is to ensure that the websites can be used and understood even without foreign language skills. In addition to German, users can now also choose from languages such as Russian, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Hebrew and Swedish. Friend Connect should initially be of particular interest to smaller platforms and blog sites. "In general, however, Google has not geared the service specifically to any particular size. I think that Friend Connect could also be useful for larger publishing sites, for example, in order to offer additional services," Stefan Keuchel, spokesperson for Google Germany, told Pressetext.

SRG Director Armin Walpen is prepared to forego a fee increase. However, he is demanding adjustments from the Federal Council in order to balance SRG's finances. For example, recipients of AHV and IV supplementary benefits should also pay fees in future.
Furthermore, it is not normal for fee money to be used to pay for SRG's investments in TV5, Euronews or Swissinfo. These are not public services for the Swiss, explains Walpen in an interview that will appear in the French-language magazine L'Hébdo on Thursday, according to SDA. Walpen goes on to say that the millions saved would easily be enough to balance the SRG's finances. If the Federal Council rejects the SRG's savings proposals, it will have to rethink the SRG's public service, says Walpen, who will step down as Director at the end of 2010.
Last year, SRG posted a deficit of CHF 79 million. It threatened to cut services if it was unable to generate new revenue. For the time being, it has taken various cost-cutting measures - including a freeze on salaries.
Addendum: Armin Walpen does say in the interview that "the exemption from the license fee for recipients of AHV and IV benefits" is not a matter for SRG. However, he did not want to give the impression that recipients would have to pay license fees in future.
Rather, the aim is for the federal government to compensate for these shortfalls. This already happens to a large extent today, but the last adjustment was made in 2003. Although the number of exemptions from contributions has increased since then, the compensation paid to the SRG has remained unchanged.

Dieter Kohler will be the new head of the Basel-Stadt Baselland regional editorial office from November 1. He succeeds Jürg Stöckli, who is retiring.
Dieter Kohler is an accomplished journalist and expert on the Basel region. He worked as an editor in the Basel-Stadt Baselland regional editorial office from 1990 to 1996. He currently works as editor of the Federal Parliament for Swiss Radio DRS and hosts the political interview program "Samstagsrundschau".
Dieter Kohler is 48 years old, married and lives in Basel. He studied geography at the University of Basel and completed an ETH postgraduate course in spatial planning. Born in Basel, he has been working for Swiss Radio DRS for twenty years: he has worked in the Basel Baselland regional editorial office, the culture editorial office, the domestic editorial office, as a correspondent for French-speaking Switzerland and in the Federal Parliament editorial office. In the meantime, he has written as a Basel correspondent for various newspapers and three years ago he wrote a book on the music scene in French-speaking Switzerland ("La Welsch Music").

In order to sell a few more season tickets than in the 08/09 championship season, Hesskiss has developed a season ticket campaign for FC Zurich: At its center is a poster on which a Züri-Leu has already secured the best spot. He calmly observes the hustle and bustle below him and enjoys himself. The posters are currently hanging in and around Zurich - and according to initial feedback from FCZ marketing manager Christian Müller, they are working extremely well, as the agency writes in a press release.
Responsible at Hesskiss: Roland Hess (CD), Dieter Boller (text), Meo Giger (graphics), Nathalie Zeller (consulting). Responsible at FC Zurich: Ancillo Canepa and Christian Müller.

This year, 25 projects were nominated for the International Corporate Design Award 2009 from all the entries submitted. The Metadesign agency was awarded gold: The exhibition project "Babylon. Myth and Truth" exhibition project for the Berlin State Museums convinced the jury. The new brand identities of Medi, Younicos and the energy supplier Entega were also nominated.
Brand presences from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were evaluated.

Jung von Matt/Limmat has created a new commercial for Migros. The aim is to make it clear that you simply get more for your money at Migros, according to a statement from the agency. The film shows a second-rate street magician at his daily work. It is only with great difficulty that he manages to persuade a passer-by to stop. He conjures up a coin from behind her ear. The young woman is not impressed. Without much ado, she begins to perform her own magic and makes the magician look pretty old. From a shopping bag to a toilet brush, she coaxes a veritable cornucopia of products out of the astonished magician. Along the way, we see a cameo appearance by the Migros chicken Chocolate.
> To the spot
The film immediately advertises Migros' weekly changing prize draws as well as the scratch card and Cumulus promotion weeks.
Responsible at Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund: Oskar Sager (Head of Marketing), Stefan Erhart (Head of Advertising/Agencies), Sven Guggenheim (Advertising), Sibylle Widmer (Advertising), Ursula Künzle (Media). Responsible at Jung von Matt/Limmat: Alexander Jaggy, Michael Rottmann (CD), Samuel Christ, Livio Dainese (text), Patrick Beeli, Fernando Perez (AD), Rolf Helfenstein, Fabian Röthlisberger, Michèle Gutmann (consulting), Ilonka Galliard (agency producer), StyleWar (director), stink (film production), Alex Kirschner(sound design).¨

Great Garbo composes music for national and international campaigns. Last year, the young family business composed music for UBS, Victorinox and Swiss Post, among others, as well as for all of Orange's campaigns. This year, international agencies also became aware of the compositions and placed important orders with the Zurich-based music company, as Great Garbo writes in a press release. McCann-Erickson New York chose Great Garbo to compose the music for Weight Watchers. The new Mastercard TV commercial by director Christian Bevilacqua also features one of her melodies. The Dutch agency Cayenne commissioned her to compose the music for Canon's international online campaign. And the current Braun advertisement with Til Schweiger for German-speaking countries also bears the composers' signature.
Great Garbo is currently composing the music for the new Clear Shampoo campaign by Lowe-Mena Dubai for the Arab region for the Swiss director Luzian Schlatter, as well as for the Chinese Ponds (Unilever) campaign by Ogilvy Shanghai.
Great Garbo Music was founded in 2004 by the Swiss-Australian siblings Nora, Lionel Vincent and Diego Baldenweg. They have twice been awarded the Edi for best music for their work.

The Zurich design agency Büro 4 has received several international awards in recent weeks. On the occasion of the IF Award 2009, the agency was honored with three awards: for the annual report "Program Balance 2008", for the Christmas card of Swiss Television and for the customer magazine "360°" of Open Systems AG.
According to a press release from BCP 2009, Europe's largest corporate publishing competition in Berlin, "Programmbilanz 2008" received a silver award. Programmbilanz 07" already received a Red Dot "best of the best" last year. Now the German Design Council has recently nominated it for the Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany 2010.