The Affichage Holding subsidiary APG is launching the new product APG-Profitline. According to a press release issued on Thursday, it is now offering its customers a large amount of poster space for a small budget. A total of around 50,000 poster spaces in the F12 and F200 formats can be booked at favorable conditions. The offers are limited: APG is only offering five of these budget posters per week. APG-Profitline differs from the standard offer in various ways. For example, no services are integrated, only glued surfaces are available and bookings can be made at the earliest ten weeks before the start of posting.
> More information about APG-Profitline

Nina Scheu is the new Head of Communications at the media union Comedia. At the same time, she will take over as editor-in-chief of the members' magazine "M".
On May 1, 2009, the 50-year-old journalist and trade unionist will succeed Beat Jost, who is leaving Comedia to become head of the Biel-Seeland/Canton of Solothurn region of the trade union Unia.
Nina Scheu has worked as a freelance journalist for various newspapers and magazines for almost 30 years. She has also been a member of the Comedia Central Board for several years as a representative of the "Freelance" committee.
At the same time, she takes over as editor-in-chief of the Comedia magazine "M", which is published in three languages.

Last weekend, the Sonntagszeitung reported that DRS was considering a reduction in the regional journals. Iso Rechsteiner, DRS deputy director and head of regional journals, told the radio magazine that he firmly denied this. He emphasized that neither the programming nor the management had ever discussed such a scenario. Consequently, nothing would be closed or canceled. It is also incorrect that DRS is under pressure to save money due to last year's deficit of CHF 5.3 million. "Our financial plan envisages a balanced budget in 2011," he is quoted as saying in the radio program guide. The path to this goal has already been paved with earlier cost-cutting measures.
But how does the deputy of DRS Director Walter Rüegg, who is on vacation, explain the rumors? "It is true that Rüegg spoke at a staff event in Bern about the potential for savings at Regis," confirms Rechsteiner. Such considerations are normal; as head of the regional journals, he too is constantly thinking about their structure. One could, for example, question the division of areas. This is legitimate, regardless of cost-cutting targets.

The Pleon C-Matrix Group, the Swiss organization of the European communications consultancy Pleon, is a new member of the Association of Public Relations Agencies in Switzerland (BPRA) and has a new CEO in Alexander Fink.
At its meeting on Wednesday, the BPRA's general meeting decided to admit Pleon C-Matrix to its association with immediate effect. After the agency left the association at the time of its name change to C-Matrix Group, Pleon C-Matrix Group reapplied for membership at the end of last year.
In addition to joining the BPRA, the agency is also reorganizing its management. Alexander Fink will take over the role of CEO with effect from the second quarter. Fink has worked for Pleon in various management positions since 2001. He joined Pleon C-Matrix in Zurich as a partner in January 2007.

More and more Swiss people are networking via the social business network Xing. Compared to the previous year, Hamburg-based Xing AG has recorded a 46 percent increase in members in Switzerland. According to the press release, over 200,000 specialists and managers in German-speaking Switzerland are already using the platform. It is particularly popular in the major cities. In Bern and Basel, Xing has recorded up to 30 percent more members within a year. With almost 70,000 users, professionals in Zurich make up the largest Xing member base in Switzerland.
However, more and more members are no longer just networking online, but also offline. For example, the moderators of the official "Xing Treffen Zürich" group regularly invite their members to local events. With around 11,000 members, this is the largest official regional group outside of Germany.

Complementing rather than competing with each other - in summary, this is the result of a two-year research project at the Institute of Communication Science at the University of Münster on the relationship between journalism and the internet. Online offerings from the traditional mass media still tend to dominate in the core area. Weblogs and user platforms accounted for only five percent of journalistic internet offerings. Professional journalism is not in danger of being replaced by the new providers on the Internet. However, advertising customers and readers are increasingly migrating to the Internet.
According to the findings, traditional journalism is facing a dilemma as a result of this new development. On the one hand, it has to get involved on the Internet, but on the other hand it lacks a business model. Although journalistic websites achieve a high reach, the audience has so far shown no willingness to pay. The advantages of the Internet are the increased participation of users and the automation of news selection by search engines.
As part of the study, around 180 Internet editorial offices from Germany were surveyed and around 1200 Internet offerings were evaluated.

According to their own statements, people who download music files illegally are ten times more likely to buy music legally than people who never obtain music from illegal sources. This is the result of a study by the BI Norwegian School of Management.
The authors of the survey asked 1,900 people aged 15 and over about their music consumption. According to the results, the group of 15 to 20-year-olds prefers downloads to CDs. What's more, pirates and file-sharers are 10 times more likely to buy music files than their honest contemporaries. The authors of the study by the BI Norwegian School of Management therefore come to the conclusion that the supposed pests are the music industry's better legal customers.

The Media Law Conference of the Media Institute will take place this year on Wednesday, May 6 and will once again address current issues. Walter Stoffel, President of the Competition Commission, will comment on the assessment framework for media concentration, according to a press release. In addition, the question will be raised as to when quotation ends with moving images and where piracy begins. The Nef case is also a topic: media history has also written army history - how did the editorial team avoid the mines and stay on legally safe ground? Other current media law issues will be discussed at the conference by editorial and legal experts.
The conference will take place on May 6, 9 a.m. to approx. 4.30 p.m. at the Hotel Krone, Unterstrass Zurich.
> More information

The Geneva-based set-top box manufacturer Advanced Digital Broadcast ADB has confirmed its forecasts for the 2009 financial year. Visibility has improved, the company announced on Thursday, according to SDA. ADB continues to expect sales growth for the year as a whole, a gross margin in line with its long-term target of 35 to 36 percent and an "acceptable level of profitability" at least on a par with 2008. The company did not provide a more precise outlook.
The order books for the first half of the year are full, it added. The results for the first quarter of 2009 were also positive. Sales, gross margin, EBIT and cash generation were in line with expectations.

On May 23, the European association for design, promotion and marketing of audiovisual media, Eyes & Ears of Europe, honored outstanding audiovisual media productions for the first time at an international trailer festival. Swiss Television received six awards.
SF was honored for the following works:
Communication and marketing, in the genre of promotional spots:
- in the News and Information category with "Arena - smoking weed with impunity?"
- in the category Show with "Musicstar"
- in the Movie and Film category with "Delicacies".
Design, in the opening credits genre
- in the Feature and Reportge category with the "Dok" signet
- in the News and Information category with the "Eco" signet
- in the Show category with the "Stunthero" signet.
The Eyes & Ears Trailerfestival is a best-of show that presents the best international, European and national productions in the genres of opening credits, promotional spots, promotional campaigns, online promotion, interactive promotion and cross-media. With a total of 386 submissions, the 1st Eyes & Ears Trailer Festival met with a great response. 186 companies took part in the submissions. In addition to Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Finland, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic and the USA were also represented. The winners received their awards on April 23 in Cologne.

The Swiss furniture store Teo Jakob is continuing the "Hall of Fame" campaign launched in 2007 in 2009 after 2008. For this new round of the campaign, which was realized by the agency JWT+H+F, Swiss people of international renown have once again been recruited, according to a press release. Alfredo Häberli, Mario Botta and Aurel Aebi have been joined by Rino Brodbeck, Trix & Robert Haussmann, Kurt Thut and Hannes Wettstein.
The photos were taken in 2008. The campaign is currently being used in various print titles throughout Switzerland.
Responsible at Teo Jakob Group: Franziska Martin (Head of Communications). Responsible at JWT+H+F: Remy Fabrikant (overall responsibility), Enrico Bachmann, Grischa Rubinick (CD), Reto Baumann, Jennifer Rimann (consulting), Marco Grob, Marc Wetli (photography).

As the Federal Council announced on Thursday, it is rejecting the renewed review of Swiss radio frequencies. It does not expect any new findings from this.
With its decision, the Federal Council is responding to a postulate from Claude Janiak, a member of the Basel SP Council of States, who wants the Communications Commission to review the current frequency capacities in collaboration with the Federal Office of Communications. There are indications that frequencies have remained unused.
As the Federal Council recalls, OFCOM had already set up a group of experts in 2001 to review the use of frequencies. This group came to the conclusion that rescheduling the FM frequencies would result in a network restructuring with costs of CHF 50 to 120 million for private broadcasters.
There was also consensus in the expert group that even if the status quo were optimized, the number of FM frequencies could hardly be increased significantly. For this reason, the experts recommended digitizing the frequency spectrum, especially as this would enable high reception quality and the broadcasting of a large number of new stations.