Ringier Hungary is further expanding its online activities. On Wednesday, June 24, 2009, the new interactive women's website Pink.hu will be added to Ringier Hungary's portfolio. Pink.hu online covers relevant women's topics from entertainment to background reports and special online services, according to a Ringier press release. Topics include news, fashion, health, psychology, relationships, gastronomy, sex, love and esotericism. The website is aimed at a target group of middle-educated to well-educated, open-minded urban women aged between 25 and 45 with traditional values.
Behind Pink.hu is an editorial team that is affiliated with Ringier Hungary's women's magazine department and cooperates with the print magazines Blikk N?k, Tina, Blikk N?k Konyha and other products.

The association of media professionals in Switzerland Imprint today called for the preservation of editorial jobs following the announced cutback of around 70 full-time positions at AZ Medien. This is because the AZ Medien Group has a major journalistic and social responsibility.
In a communiqué, the association appealed to the media company's journalistic responsibility and called on it to use reserves and refrain as far as possible from cutting journalistic jobs. Socially acceptable solutions are demanded for those who have been made redundant and those who have taken early retirement. AZ Medien controls various media in the Mittelland and northwestern Switzerland. In some regions, it has a virtual monopoly on information and thus a major journalistic and social responsibility.
In particular, savings are to be made through the use of synergies. Using synergies means that media within a group exchange their information, articles and contributions. The diversity of information is decreasing, and the diversity of opinion, which is vital for democracy, is being put at risk. One doubts the economic predicament and that the dissolution of reserves will not save editorial jobs and thus the quality of journalistic products through the current crisis.
Imprint asks the company to accept the offer of the social partners to find, through their support, an optimal distribution of the funds that AZ Medien provides for social cushioning for those affected.

Vaduz-based Medienhaus has a new Chairman of the Board of Directors. The General Meeting elected management consultant Donat P. Marxer from Schaan to the presidency for the next three years. Marxer replaces former Liechtenstein head of government Mario Frick, who made the office available after two terms of office, as the Vaduz media house announced on Wednesday. In addition, the board of directors was increased from five to six members. The new member is communications expert Maria Pinardi from Bischofszell TG.
Vaduzer Medienhaus publishes the daily newspaper Liechtensteiner Vaterland, the Sunday newspaper Liewo, the business weekly Wirtschaft regional and the monthly cultural magazine KuL, as well as various
Magazines.

Walker was the only Swiss agency to win two Media Lions in Cannes. The "eBay Attack" campaign for Amnesty International was awarded two precious metals by the jury: Walker received a bronze Lion for the campaign in the "Charities" category and a silver Lion in the "Best use of Internet" category.

SRG has announced a wage and investment freeze as a short-term measure against its rising debt. However, a further CHF 40 million per year is needed to balance the finances in the medium term. In its communiqué, SRG mentioned in particular the possibility of increasing commercial income - for example by softening the regulations on interruption advertising and lifting the ban on online advertising. In view of SRG's high fee income, the media freedom campaign is against an expansion of SRG's commercial activities.
In the current economic situation, all media companies are forced to drastically increase efficiency, according to the media freedom campaign in its press release. In this environment and in view of SRG's current high level of financing through fees, it would be a further distortion of the market to allow it further commercial sources of income such as online advertising or additional interruption advertising. This would further strengthen its monopoly position at the expense of private providers. The SRG must bring about its own financial recovery through a massive increase in efficiency, just like the other media companies, the communiqué continues. Concentration on its concession mandate, the public service, and convergence, the merging of television and radio, play an important role in this.

Comedia criticized the staff cuts at the Swissprinters Group on Wednesday. In a communiqué, it strongly condemned the fact that every entrepreneur or group of entrepreneurs does not want to look beyond their own horizons.
They are aware that there is overcapacity and great price pressure in the printing industry throughout Switzerland and Europe. However, it condemned the attitude of employers to send more and more employees into unemployment without helping them to find new prospects. Comedia demanded that, together with the employers' association Viscom, a broad-based retraining and further training program for the printing industry, co-financed by the state, should finally be set up at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.
Economy (Seco) had to be worked out.

According to the Goldbach Index GEMI, advertising pressure continues to fall. However, the differences are significant. For example, advertising pressure on the internet and radio fell slightly by one index point each, while the market as a whole lost 4 index points.
The Goldbach Index shows a drop across all published media in May 2009. However, the Internet fell by just one index point to 451 and radio also remained fairly stable with one index point less at 254. The overall TV market fell by 4 index points to 437 and teletext by 6 index points to 157.
The advertising pressure for digital advertising space, which has been surveyed since 2007, is published by Media Focus for the first time for the month of May. Digital advertising space also suffered a loss of 2 index points to 262 (264).
The total of all media lost 4 index points in the May reporting month to 184, while e-media fell by 3 index points to 430

The printing company Swissprinters is cutting 70 jobs across all four sites in Switzerland with immediate effect. Ongoing price pressure, shrinking volumes and a decline in orders as a result of the difficult economic situation are forcing the Group to take immediate action. Almost half of the job cuts will take the form of ordinary and early retirements, as the printing company writes in a press release. The redundancies will be carried out in compliance with the legal requirements. A social plan will be made available to the employees affected.
Due to weaker demand, Swiss Printers is expecting a significant drop in sales in the current financial year compared to the previous year. The printing industry has been suffering from overcapacity and falling prices for some time now, with order volumes down by around 15 percent, according to the press release. In addition to short-time working, structural adjustments in the personnel area are now unavoidable, according to Rudolf Lisibach, Managing Director of Swiss Printers.
Swiss Printers is the largest group in the graphic arts industry in Switzerland. It is a subsidiary of the media companies Ringier, NZZ and Edipresse and unites four printing plants: Ringier Print Zofingen, Zollikofer St. Gallen, NZZ Fretz Schlieren and Imprimeries Réunies Lausanne.

Community platforms have long since found their way from private life into the workplace. Companies such as Swiss Post and SBB have already started to block access to individual platforms. They feared abuse and viruses. The feared viruses could now also spread to the boardroom. Swiss bosses are spending more and more time surfing on community platforms. Managers spend eight hours more per month than last year on the Internet to write blogs and tweets and to exchange information on Xing or Facebook. Companies are beginning to block access to platforms such as Facebook, while Swiss managers are spending more time surfing the net. A global study by Meettheboss.com surveyed 2,000 Swiss and 25,000 managers worldwide to come to this conclusion. Sites such as Xing, Linked-In, Facebook, Ryze, MeettheBoss and Twitter were used the most. Although the professional benefits were emphasized, a majority saw personal advantages. Networking was the most important aspect. According to the study, the most active bosses in networking are found in North America and the Middle East. Here, more than 10 hours more were spent surfing the net compared to the previous year.

With the worsening economic situation, many advertising clients also seem to have developed a desire to invite pitches for anything and everything. The number of agencies invited is unreasonably high in many cases, says Frank Bodin, president of the association of leading advertising and communications agencies in Switzerland, BSW leading swiss agencies. In addition, more and more budgets are being split up and put out to tender individually for pitches, or pitches are being invited for very small projects.
Since the situation is becoming increasingly difficult for agencies, the BSW board now recommends that its members no longer offer creative presentations for small pitches for budgets under CHF 300,000, but limit themselves to a strategic discussion with the clients. Instead of creative pitches for very small projects, there are more suitable and more efficient ways of evaluating agencies, both for the client and for the agencies, according to the agency association. If one considers that agencies, even with larger budgets, can only realize a profit in the second year of cooperation with a client, it becomes clear that such mini-pitches are also not economically justifiable.
On the association's website, the "Guide to choosing an advertising agency" lists the important points according to which clients can evaluate and check potential agencies. In a strategy workshop or by means of an individual assignment, the client can find out whether the agency is the right partner for him.

AZ Medien is cutting a total of 65 jobs by the end of the year. Editorial offices, administration and printing will be affected. The reason for the cutbacks is the unsatisfactory business performance, the media company announced on Wednesday. There will be 45 redundancies.
A redundancy plan will be drawn up for the employees affected. 12 jobs will be cut at the editorial offices of Mittelland Zeitung. This reduction affects the editorial offices of the Aargauer Zeitung, the Solothurner Zeitung, the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung and the Limmattaler Zeitung.
The new savings program is linked to a synergy program that was launched following the takeover of Vogt-Schild-Holding, the publisher of the Solothurner Zeitung, in the spring. Efficiency could be increased at various locations by merging the infrastructure. The reduction of 65 jobs by the end of the year corresponds to around 7.5 percent of the total of 860 jobs at AZ Medien.
Most of the redundancies will take the form of layoffs. It is expected that 45 employees will have to be made redundant. Further reductions will be achieved through early retirement, a reduction in workloads and vacancies that will no longer be filled.
AZ Medien suffered a slump in profits for the second year in a row in 2008. Profit plummeted by 89 percent to 1.2 million Swiss francs. The media company decided not to pay a dividend.