The Swiss picture agencies Keystone and EQ Media will cooperate closely in the future. As was reported in a press release on Friday, Keystone will acquire a stake in EQ Media. No details were given regarding the size of the stake or the price.
The aim of the collaboration is to join forces to offer optimal products for the Swiss market in a difficult economic environment, according to the two companies.
Initially, the business areas and product portfolios of the two companies are to be aligned. However, the form in which production and product range will be merged or supplemented has not yet been determined. Keystone currently employs 72 people and generated sales of around CHF 16 million last year, while EQ currently has 15 employees.
Keystone has been owned by the Austrian national news agency APA and the Swiss SDA since last year.

The In Flagranti agency is expanding its team. Barbara Müller is now working as a graphic designer at the agency in Lyss. After training as a typeface and advertising designer, she completed an apprenticeship as a graphic designer at McCann Erickson and then worked at Maxomedia.

The Bavarian Commclubs are inviting entries for the 26th Das Plakat competition this year. The competition is now open and the closing date for entries is June 8, 2009. Works can be submitted that were put up in Germany, Austria or Switzerland in 2008 or up to May 31, 2009.
Once again this year, the best posters will receive advertising pillars in gold, silver and bronze. The shortlisted posters will be awarded certificates.
The award ceremony will take place in Munich at the end of October.

The day after the announcement of the drastic measures at Bund and Tagi, further details have emerged. Berner Zeitung, which also belongs to Tamedia, will also have to cut three jobs. Two relate to the Bernerzeitung.ch online editorial team, the third to the publishing house. Furthermore, the Bund will no longer take over the sports section from the Berner Zeitung. A separate Bund sports editorial team is to be set up, as the Berner Zeitung writes on Friday.
In general, the decisions are viewed positively in the Friday edition of both newspapers.
Following Tamedia's decision, the Berner Tageszeitung was pleased to announce on several pages that readers in Bern will still be able to choose between the newspapers in future. In an interview with the Berner Zeitung, Martin Kall said that Tamedia would ensure that the Bund, reinforced by the Tages-Anzeiger, would remain a Bernese newspaper.
Various voices are quoted in the Bund. The daily newspaper will also make the best of this situation, said former Bund editor-in-chief Peter Ziegler. However, the solution would amount to the abolition of Bern as a journalistically and politically independent media location.

The shortlist for the German-language moving image competition Klappe has been announced. The jury of the competition, which was organized by the Communications Association for the 29th time in 2009, nominated 81 films. A total of 298 films in 12 categories were submitted from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The films nominated for the 2009 Klappe shortlist can be found at www.dieklappe.de. The awards ceremony will take place on Friday, May 15, at the Kehrwieden Theater in Hamburg, where a total of 39 awards will be presented.

According to information from Kress, there are concrete plans at the top of the Burda publishing house to replace Playboy editor-in-chief Stefan Schmortte. The editor-in-chief is on vacation, as Playboy spokesman Uwe Barfknecht and managing director Jürgen Feldmann unanimously emphasize. However, according to speculation by Kress.de, there is little chance that everything will remain the same. The publisher is said to be increasingly dissatisfied with the presentation and cover design. The men's magazine is also struggling with falling sales figures.
In the first quarter of this year, Playboy recorded a loss of 13.7 million dollars in the USA. According to Pressetext, the company is now considering cutting its circulation and reducing the frequency of publication. The magazine also recorded a 10 percent drop in circulation in Germany compared to the fourth quarter of 2008.

On June 1, 2009, Oliver Kuhn will take over the position of Editor-in-Chief at Central Swiss Television Tele 1, which will go on air at the beginning of 2010. Kuhn will lead the journalistic development of Tele 1.
Oliver Kuhn has many years of journalistic experience. The 39-year-old has been working in print, radio and television since 1990. His professional career has included stints at Tele 24 and Schweizer Fernsehen. Since 2007, he has worked as editorial director at Ringier TV. Kuhn studied environmental sciences at ETH Zurich and mathematics and physics at the University of Fribourg. In 1999, he completed the diploma course in journalism at the Swiss School of Journalism MAZ in Lucerne.

In June, Luigi G. Baretella becomes the new Managing Director of the M&M Media agency. He succeeds Rolf Suter, who is moving to Mediabrands Switzerland. Nina Rolle becomes deputy agency manager.
Luigi Baretella gained his first industry experience at the Publicitas Group in Zurich and Geneva, where he later worked as a media manager at Reinhardt Publicité and McCann Erickson. He then worked for several years in a management position on the publishing side at Gruner + Jahr Switzerland and as Head of Advertising Market Magazines at Ringier. As Head of the Competence Center for Total Media at the Seiler DDB Group, he was responsible for media strategy and managing the key accounts of the partner agencies Seiler DDB and TBWA GGK. Most recently, Baretella worked at Exportwerbung Zürich as a marketer in a managerial role.

The cooperation between the Tages-Anzeiger and the daily newspaper Der Bund has been well received in Bern. However, the resulting job cuts in both editorial offices have caused displeasure at Comedia and Impressum.
Initial reactions from Bern to the cooperation between the Tages-Anzeiger and the Bund have been positive. Werner Luginbühl, member of the Bernese Council of States and Co-President of the "Save the Bund" committee, describes the retention of the title as gratifying. The decisive factor is that a press monopoly has been averted in Bern. However, the committee will not be dissolved. If Tamedia were to dismantle the Bund editorial office piece by piece in future, this would bring the committee back onto the scene.
The fact that 19 jobs will be cut at the editorial office of Der Bund is bitter, according to Councillor Christoph Stalder, also Co-President of the committee. In a statement from the City of Bern, the Mayor of Bern, Alexander Tschäppät, described it as regrettable that jobs will be lost and that Der Bund will not remain fully independent. Nevertheless, Tamedia's decision is a positive one.
The editor-in-chief of the newspaper Der Bund is convinced of the cooperation that the Tages-Anzeiger and the Bund have agreed for the fall. According to Artur K. Vogel, there is no valid alternative to this model. Vogel cannot yet say which editors will be affected by the announced job cuts. First there will be a consultation phase. The regional editorial team will certainly be less affected than other departments, but according to the editor-in-chief of the Bund, it will also be reduced slightly.
Comedia and Impressum reacted less positively to Tamedia's decisions. The plans would mean a reduction of practically a quarter of the workforce at the Tages-Anzeiger and more than a third at the Bund, Comedia said in a press release. The de facto merging of two editorial offices at two locations would mean what critics have been warning about for some time: the newspapers would appear under different titles, but with virtually the same content. Comedia is dismayed by the enormous cutbacks and condemns this further clear-cutting in the editorial offices. In the consultative process, staff have the opportunity to propose measures to avoid or reduce the redundancies or, where redundancies are unavoidable, to cushion their consequences. This requires a social plan that is in line with Tamedia's financial situation.
In a press release, Impressum expresses its dismay at the announced reduction of 19 full-time positions at the Bund editorial office. In favor of economic interests, journalistic independence is thus severely restricted. The preservation of an independent Bund would be financially viable for Tamedia, which is why Impressum is calling on Tamedia to give the Bund a real chance.

A dark day for Swiss print journalism: Following the Tagi and Bund, the St. Galler Tagblatt also announced the elimination of several editorial positions on Thursday.
Editor-in-chief Philipp Landmark confirmed a corresponding report from Radio DRS on Thursday evening. Compared to the job cuts at Tages-Anzeiger, however, this is only a slight reduction. Nevertheless, there will be individual redundancies, Landmark said. As a result, the editorial scope will shrink. The editor-in-chief cited the decline in advertising due to the economic crisis as the reason for the cost-cutting measures.