The German media group Bertelsmann recorded a loss in the first quarter of 2009. Consolidated net income fell from plus 35 million euros in the previous year to minus 78 million euros. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) fell from 255 to 98 million euros; the operating result slumped from 253 to 115 million euros. The company's turnover fell by 246 million euros to 3.527 billion euros.
Bertelsmann points to the global economic crisis and the consequences of the decline in advertising and consumption as the reason for the slump in profits. In addition, the previous year's quarter was very strong because it included the advertising-intensive Easter holidays.

Fred Luchsinger, former editor-in-chief of the NZZ, is dead. He died last Saturday at the age of 87 after a long illness, his family announced on Tuesday. The historian served as editor-in-chief for 17 years from 1968 to 1984. Before that, he worked as Germany correspondent in Bonn between 1955 and 1963 and then as head of the foreign editorial office for five years. The deceased had shaped the journalistic face of the NZZ for many decades, the NZZ management states in the obituary.
Luchsinger was born on July 9 in St. Gallen. There he attended the literature high school of the cantonal school. He then studied history and philosophy in Zurich and Basel. He joined the NZZ in 1949 as a trainee in the foreign editorial department. In 1984, Luchsinger received the Peace Prize of the Max Schmidheiny Foundation.

Tele Top, the local television station that emerged victorious from the licensing procedure, presented its program and new presenters in Winterthur on Monday. It also announced its relocation from Frauenfeld to Winterthur. According to program director Stefan Nägeli, the newly licensed Tele Top will be a rural television station that can also be seen in the city. The gradual expansion of the program is to be completed by 1 November for the time being. Tele Top Managing Director Günter Heuberger also provided information on the status of the pending appeal in the licensing decision for the Eastern Switzerland coverage area, where Tele Säntis, which also belongs to Tele Top AG, was left empty-handed.

New to the moderation team: Hönegger, Stotz and Fritschi

Kathrin Hönegger, Bernhard Stotz and Nicole Fritschi will join the existing team of presenters until August 1. Hönegger, who is currently still a presenter at Radio Energy, and Stotz, who is best known from Wohntraum TV, have many years of experience in presenting radio and television programs. Fritschi previously worked as an editor and producer at U1 TV. Stotz will primarily present the daily talk, Hönegger will be seen in talk and news and Fritschi will initially concentrate on presenting news. As far as content is concerned, program director Nägeli said that the main focus will be on news from politics, business and culture, with tabloid content only on the fringes. The regional public service will be at the center of reporting. Vis-à-vis Tele Züri, the aim is to offer supplementary rather than competing programs. In addition to news and talk, further programs are being planned.

Regional and local advertising windows

From November 1, the program structure, which will continue over the next few months, will be completed for the time being. This includes a 7-day program, a talk show broadcast four times a week instead of twice, a Sunday talk show (Top am Sonntag) and the program windows tailored to the three cantons of Zurich, Schaffhausen and Thurgau, which are part of the broadcasting area. The news program will begin at 6 p.m. with a quarter of an hour of national news, rounded off by a short national advertising block. This will be followed by a further quarter of an hour of local news (program window) produced and broadcast in the three areas, rounded off by a local advertising block.

Three studios, 20 new jobs

Tele Top, which previously broadcast from Frauenfeld, will move to Winterthur, although the studio in Frauenfeld will continue to produce the program window for the canton of Thurgau. The Schaffhausen program window will either be produced in collaboration with Schaffhauser Fernsehen or a new studio will be set up. By November, a further 20 positions will be added to the existing 20, a total of nine for the studios in Frauenfeld and Schaffhausen alone. Tele Top receives CHF 1.48 million per year from the Swiss Confederation on the basis of the ten-year concession granted on October 31, 2008.

"A political, not a legal decision"

Tele Top AG had also applied with Tele Säntis for the broadcasting area of Eastern Switzerland, but the license was awarded to Tele Ostschweiz from the St. Galler Tagblatt. Tele Top AG lodged an appeal against this. At the media conference, Tele Top Managing Director Günter Heuberger was clear about this: DETEC's decision was politically, not legally motivated - as it should have been. In addition, the DETEC's evaluation catalog, which he had seen in the course of the complaints procedure, did not correspond to the criteria catalog of the tender. "I am shocked, this is an abuse of discretion by the authority," said Heuberger. Heuberger did not want to say anything binding about how long the procedure will take. It would depend on the will of the Federal Administrative Court. The court's decision is final. (elk)
www.toponline.ch

Around 150 German daily and regional newspapers from 34 publishing houses have formed a mega alliance to market their online presence. In future, advertisers will be able to achieve nationwide coverage by booking under the umbrella of the marketing association Online Marketing Service (OMS). According to Pressetext.ch, the trend towards regional offers on the Internet is by no means broken. Rather, the offer is aimed at established and large brands that are to be brought into the local area.
According to the OMS, the alliance of individual newspapers is expected to reach around 9.2 million users per month. This makes the alliance the largest marketer of editorial websites.

The fact that Blick showed a picture of a paedophile church administrator from Murg SG in 2008 and called him by name does not constitute a breach of the journalistic code. This was announced by the Swiss Press Council on Tuesday, justifying its decision with the fact that the paedophile had commented on the controversy surrounding his person and his exercise of a church office in the SF programme "Schweiz Aktuell" the day before without any anonymization. The Swiss Press Council rejected his complaint from September 2008, in which he had argued that he was a pedophile, but had never outed himself as a pedophile with his name and address. As a church administrator, he was also not a public figure, the complainant argued.
The report of August 7, 2008 entitled "Confessing pedophile now holds a church office" printed the correct first name and the initial of the correct surname and a picture of the man in which his eyes were covered with black bars. Two days later, the newspaper doubled down and showed the man with his face uncovered and gave his full name.

The Valais regional television station Canal 9 will be broadcasting a German-language program in Upper Valais for the first time from 29 June 2009. It has already been present in the French part of the canton for 25 years. The program will initially last 20 minutes and include a news programme of around 12 minutes, weather forecasts and pictures without commentary. An editorial team of six people will be responsible for the program. Over the next two years, the broadcasting time will be extended to one hour and will eventually last the same amount of time as the French program, as Roger Brunner, head of the Upper Valais editorial team and deputy editor-in-chief, explained. The editorial team will be doubled during this time.
Valais regional television sees itself as a bridge between the language regions, said director Aline Nicol at the media conference in Brig. Each editorial team will deal with a topic from the other language region on a daily basis. Both programs will be broadcast in Rediffusion throughout the entire region.

The Campaign for Media Freedom opposes the decision of the National Council's Political Institutions Committee (SPK) to allow parties and committees to advertise their slogans on radio and television free of charge before federal votes. It is against any form of state media and party funding and considers any state influence on media providers to be wrong. However, it should be examined whether regular paid political advertising should be permitted on radio and television, according to a press release issued on Tuesday. National Councillor Natalie Rickli will launch a motion to this effect when the media agreement is discussed.

Following a 78 percent drop in profits in the first quarter of the year, the internet company Yahoo is once again redimensioning its plans for French-speaking Switzerland. A European headquarters in Rolle will be abandoned and the planned data center in Avenches will be downsized, as reported by 24 Heures. Yahoo already has an A-One business center in the small Vaud town. Both the head and the CFO of the European organization have their offices there. The creation of one hundred jobs over five years is still being maintained. More details will not be announced until July, according to Netzwoche.ch.

Matter & Gretener has a new client in its portfolio. The Wallisell-based company Koelliker, which operates in the field of paper management, is now relying on the ideas of the Zurich agency. The first works will soon be on display, the advertisers wrote in a press release on Tuesday.

Business journalist Hansueli Schöchli is moving from the Bern daily newspaper Der Bund to the business desk of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on September 1, 2009. The 46-year-old has worked for Der Bund since 1993 and is considered one of the most prominent voices in Swiss business journalism. Schöchli will cover a broad spectrum of economic policy and macroeconomic topics at NZZ, mainly from Bern, and will also deal with the Swiss banking center. In return, Eva Matter (Mt.), who previously reported from Bern, will return to the business editorial team in Zurich.
After completing a commercial apprenticeship, Schöchli worked at a bank for several years. He then studied economics and international relations in Zurich (University of Applied Sciences) and at Columbia University in New York, where he graduated with a Master's degree. In between, he spent a good two years studying languages in Japan. Schöchli is married and lives in Bern.

The entrepreneur portal, which has been in existence for four years Spotlightkmu.chhas been completely revised. In addition to content from the Blickpunkt print magazine, the site also includes exclusive specialist articles and interviews from the fields of marketing, PR and communication, among others. The aim is to become the first port of call for SME decision-makers as part of their web research, according to a press release issued on Tuesday. The portal's advertising potential for entrepreneurial knowledge lies primarily in B2B online advertising.

Former Aegis Media boss Aleksander Ruzicka received the long-awaited verdict at Wiesbaden District Court on Tuesday. According to the verdict, the 48-year-old must serve eleven years in prison. The co-defendant and former Aegis Media manager David Linn received a two-year conditional sentence.
Ruzicka has been found guilty by the court of having embezzled around 37 million euros from the company Aegis Media. Apparently, he had advertisers pay him for the airtime that had been granted to Aegis Media by TV marketers as discounts in kind. However, he claimed until the last day of the trial that he had done all this for the benefit of Aegis Media. Linn's verdict was aiding and abetting by omission; however, the court did not consider him to have contributed to the crime himself or to have intended to do so.
The verdict brings one of the biggest scandals in the German advertising industry to an end for the time being. It was preceded by almost one and a half years of proceedings with 64 trial days. Ruzicka has been in custody since the end of October 2006 and was not released early due to the high sentence expected. It is not yet known whether he will appeal the verdict.
The German industry portals Horizont.net, Wundv.de and Kress.de reported extensively on the trial. Werben & Verkaufen (Wundv.de) even had a journalist report in real time tweet from the courtroom.
(Photo: Ruzicka in the courtroom on 12.5.2009 / Horizont.net)