Now that the National Council and Council of States have failed to agree on whether or not alcohol advertising in the media should be generally banned, the Swiss Press Association has also taken a stand. In a statement, it announced that it was in favor of allowing all radio and television broadcasters to advertise light alcoholic beverages. This is in the interests of supporting the Swiss media industry and domestic beer producers as part of the Swiss economy, as well as freedom of advertising as part of freedom of communication. A partial ban only for Swiss radio and TV broadcasters would hardly serve the purpose of prevention. It would merely be discriminatory, as alcohol advertising is still permitted on foreign broadcasters that can be received in Switzerland and in other media.

MySign has given the postal group's Internet portal a new look. The agency was responsible for the structural concept and the design of the portal. In addition, the Postauto.ch service brand and the international entry point Swisspost.com, which brings together all of Swiss Post's services abroad, were redesigned. The new concept is intended to guarantee a uniform presence in Switzerland and abroad, as the cross-media agency writes in a press release on Tuesday.

Andreas Schaffner is to become a new member of Tamedia's Management Board. The 46-year-old will take over the management of the media company's Services division at the beginning of 2010 at the latest. In this function, he will be responsible for the two printing centers in Berne and Zurich, the areas of prepress services and publishing logistics as well as reader market services. Andreas Schaffner succeeds Urs Schweizer, who will be leaving the company at the end of 2009.
After an apprenticeship as a bookbinder, Andreas Schaffner gained professional and management experience in the graphic arts industry before studying engineering at the Ecole Suisse d'Ingénieur des Industries Graphiques in Lausanne. In 1995, he joined Ringier from France as a project manager. There he managed various service and printing areas and became Managing Director of Ringier Print Adligenswil in 2005. Andreas Schaffner, who completed a part-time Executive MBA, has been a member of the Executive Board of Ringier Switzerland since 2007. As Head of Services, he is responsible for publishing logistics, delivery, call centers and facility management, among other things.

The wine and spirits importer Haecky Drink & Wine has entrusted the BSSM advertising agency with the launch of the traditional Italian brand Amaro Montenegro in Switzerland. This will take place in the wholesale and retail trade and includes POS posters, advertisements and freecards.

Responsible at Haecky Drink & Wine, Reinach: Mike Boehler (overall responsibility). Responsible at BSSM Werbeagentur, Basel: Urs Schneider (CD), Daniel Bard (AD), Hannes Müller (text), Markus Binggeli (consulting). Photo: Eugen Leu and Partner.

Almost five years after the last redesign, Tele Bärn's information programs are once again undergoing a complete facelift. From July 1, the daily programs "News" and "Info" will appear with a revised design and décor as well as a new schedule. The new look is intended to bring a breath of fresh air to the information programs and support the station's regional roots. At the same time, Tele Bärn is switching its entire program offering to the 16:9 broadcast format as of 1 July. This will complete the format changeover, which has been carried out in various stages.

2008 was a disappointing year for Swiss films at the box office. Only 580,000 viewers saw a Swiss film at the cinema, 230,000 fewer than in 2007, according to the performance-based balance sheet published on Monday by the Federal Office of Culture (Bak). Compared to the record year of 2006, the result was even worse: Back then, Swiss productions had attracted around 1.5 million viewers to cinemas, mainly thanks to "Herbstzeitlosen" and "Achtung, fertig, Charlie". In 2008, however, there was a lack of major audience successes for individual films. On the other hand, cinema admissions last year were spread over a larger number of films and were not just concentrated in the cities.
The BAK noted that 2008 was a good year for documentaries and for Swiss films in French-speaking Switzerland. Today, Swiss documentary films achieved more admissions on average than ten years ago. In French-speaking Switzerland, around 180,000 admissions were sold for Swiss films in 2008. The market share of Swiss productions thus rose by 13 percentage points to 30 percent compared to 2007. The BAK's performance-based film promotion, which supports Swiss filmmaking through box office success, awarded CHF 5.1 million in funding to filmmakers, distributors and cinemas last spring.

The Swissinfo Public Council is concerned about the Savings plans. He puts big question marks behind the claim that the same quality and quantity can be achieved with a quarter less budget. The committee will work "vehemently" to ensure that the quality of the internet platform's offering is not diminished, he announced on Tuesday.

Internet service provider Unic has implemented the Finkid online store for Nordic Outdoor Wear, a company founded in February 2009 and based in Männedorf. Finkid produces Finnish outdoor fashion for children. The online store was implemented based on Magento Commerce.

The Zurich photo agency Sodapix and the press agency Remotephoto jointly sponsored this year's Swiss Photo Editors' Meeting, which was organized on 18 June 2009 in Zurich Binz. Sodapix also supported the Advertising Congress, an event for young talent in the communications industry in Germany, which took place in Berlin at the beginning of June. This year, over 250 creative minds from all over Germany came together to work on and present projects for Deutsche Post in collaboration with agencies. The agency provided visual material for this purpose. The communication prize was won by a team supervised by the Swiss agency Startbahnwest.

The translation service USG has produced a small travel guide together with its customers Railtour Suisse and the pharmaceutical company Mepha. The so-called "Guide linguistique de santé" is designed for French and French-speaking people. The free 60-page booklet contains important translations and phrases in English, German, Italian and Spanish that can help travelers when visiting a doctor or pharmacy.

Bühler Druck becomes a partner of the new printing center for sustainable media production of the Neidhart + Schön Group and Druckerei Feldegg. The company, which specializes in offset printing and print finishing, will open in Schwerzenbach (ZH) on 1 January 2010. Bühler Druck will give up its current location in Zurich-Enge and move to the joint production site at the beginning of 2010. The three cooperation partners are open to further printing companies, as they wrote in a press release on Tuesday.

The editorial team of the Tagesanzeiger will be meeting with readers of the newspaper this Wednesday, July 1, 2009, at 12 noon at Helvetiaplatz to demonstrate their support for their colleagues who have been made redundant. The editorial team wants to reaffirm to both readers and media representatives its determination to produce the best possible newspaper and explain to them why this is so difficult in view of the publisher's attitude, as Group 230 announced on Tuesday. The final round of negotiations between the staff committee and Tamedia will take place on Thursday.