The members of the Association of Swiss Publishing Professionals met last week at the Media Institute to confirm the new president and vice president. In addition, the upcoming agenda items were quickly discussed and the motions dutifully approved - a purely formal affair.
It was a peaceful and manageable gathering, more reminiscent of a family reunion than an ordinary AGM. At UBS, with its AGM held on the same day, one could only have dreamed of this.
Däni Allemann, who will be in charge of the SAAM from now on, and Josefa Haas, who will support him as vice president, were very happy. It was even greater when there was something for the physical well-being afterwards. Although there was not much to choose from, the tiny canapés and olives were all the better for it. When hunger and thirst were satisfied, the members, who turned out to be loyal supporters of VSV member Urs Schnider and his band, made a pilgrimage to his concert. He did not give this concert in honor of the AGM, but this did not dampen the mood.
(Text and photos: Adriana Zilic)

Josefa Haas, VSV Vice President, with Däni Allemann, VSV President designate.

Markus Will, Head of Reader Market NZZ and former SAAM President, Pascal Krattinger, Head of Services Reader Market NZZ, and Bruno Vonwil, Managing Director LZ Fachverlag (from left).

Urs Schnider (l.), Editor-in-Chief Media Trend Journal, with Ueli Custer, IGEM.

Eddie Lorenz, Baslerstab, and Francine Bruni, Axel Springer TV Magazines.

Roger Müller, Ringier, and Andrea Schaffner, Le Menu.

Soon it will no longer be possible to smoke in restaurants and concert halls in Switzerland either. The pink lungs have prevailed. And somehow, in all sobriety, we can agree with this to a certain extent. We will see how the laws are interpreted. What has now happened in France, however, can hardly be surpassed in its absurdity: Because of a ban on advertising tobacco products, 2000 posters for an exhibition about the French comedian Jacques Tati had to be retouched. The "Mon oncle" poster showed Tati riding a bicycle with a pipe in his mouth. Director Constantin Costa-Gavras called the censorship "absurd and ridiculous". The Greek-French filmmaker is the director of the Cinématheque française, which is organizing the exhibition, which runs until 3 August. Tati would have howled with laughter, said Costa-Gavras, because he never lit a pipe in any of his films. Jacques Tati is best known for his 1953 film burlesque "Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot".

The Federal Supreme Court has ruled: The regional private television stations may continue to produce their own football and ice hockey reports for short reports. Even if SRG has exclusive rights. SRG's appeal was thus rejected by the highest court. SRG had invoked the guarantee of ownership and economic freedom.
The dispute between SRG and the eight regional private television stations Tele Bärn, Tele Basel, Tele M 1, Tele Ostschweiz, Tele Südostschweiz, Tele Tell, Tele Top and Tele Züri is about the right of regional stations to broadcast short reports of sporting events. The Radio and Television Act obliges the holders of exclusive rights to grant the possibility of short reports. On the one hand, the image material must be made available, and on the other, access to the event itself.
However, the regional television stations are restricted in their use of the material. The report may not exceed three minutes and may only be broadcast once the event is over. In addition, filming permission is limited to matches involving teams from the licensed broadcasting area. Although SRG was prepared to make its material available, it wanted to restrict the filming rights of the regional television stations. Tele Züri and Co. were only to have the right to record images of the atmosphere and any interviews. Images of the match itself should be excluded.
Eight regional broadcasters defended themselves against the SRG's request. They appealed to the Federal Office of Communications, which ruled in their favor. The Federal Administrative Court confirmed this decision, whereupon the SRG took the case to the Federal Supreme Court.
As can be seen from the ruling published on Thursday and reported by SDA, the Federal Supreme Court now also supports the decision of Bakom. The court states that short reporting plays an important role in information activities. The right of a secondary broadcaster to report from a different perspective is an important contribution to the diversity of opinion. The general public should not be excluded from public events through the granting of exclusive rights. SRG had invoked the guarantee of ownership and economic freedom to legitimize its claim. It was not acceptable for the primary broadcaster to acquire broadcasting rights for expensive money and for others to benefit from these rights free of charge.
The Federal Supreme Court has now denied the SRG the right to restrict television stations' access to sports images. The regional television stations must be granted access as far as the technical and spatial conditions allow. In particular, the holder of the exclusive rights has priority in the positioning of cameras and microphones.

The Swiss real estate show on Homegate.tv has a new host face. Vice Miss Switzerland and former Miss Zurich Sabrina Knechtli will be leading the show from Wednesday, April 15. She takes over from TV presenter Olivier Laube. Knechtli not only hosts the show in her role as a Swiss celebrity, she also has the necessary know-how. According to press portal 60%, she works as a commercial employee in the real estate industry and is continuing her education to become a real estate manager.

After several rounds of cuts, the loss-making Chicago Tribune is now planning to cut a further 20 percent of its editorial staff. According to the news agency UPI, this would mean around 90 jobs as things stand. The cuts were justified by the Tribune Company with declining advertising revenues.
The newspaper itself reported that the number of job cuts is still open. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a number of papers have already given up. Others, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, are threatened with closure.

For the new WOZ advertising campaign, the Zurich agency SFLB has turned portraits of personalities from the world stage upside down. The pictures look different depending on how you look at them. The idea behind the subjects is that readers who do not want to be influenced in their opinion should read the WOZ. In keeping with the campaign's claim: "Make up your own mind".
SFLB has reversed the shape of the eyelids and lips to make the portraits appear different depending on the view. However, this is only recognizable in the pictures when the reader turns the picture 180°.
Responsible at WOZ: The collective of the weekly newspaper WOZ. Responsible at Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett: Pablo Schencke (AD), Patrick Suter (text), Martin Spillmann, Peter Brönnimann (CD), Mirjam Eberle (consulting).

The current financial situation is increasing the pressure on newspapers. Jobs are being cut, salaries reduced and titles discontinued. The death of newspapers is also making the rounds in the USA due to falling advertising revenues. Readers and classified ads are migrating to the Internet. San Francisco will soon have to reckon with no local newspaper at all. According to Tagesspiegel.de, the San Francisco Chronicle made a loss of 50 million dollars last year. Its owner, the Hearst Group, has already cut 150 jobs.
In San Francisco, there is an alternative option should the San Francisco Chronicle be discontinued. On the Spot.us website, journalists and users suggest topics that should be researched. Donations are collected for the suggestions until a journalist can be commissioned. This usually involves a sum of between 400 and 500 dollars, with the current donation amount and the amount still outstanding being displayed. The research work is initially limited to the San Francisco region.
One of the first commissioned stories centered on San Francisco's growing tent and car villages of unemployed and low-income employees. The two-part series was written and researched by radio journalist Thea Chroman. Donations are currently being sought for research into the use of recyclable waste. But donations are also being sought for topics such as Twitter and Oakland's infrastructure.

The US technology company Hewlett-Packard has launched its own video site, Gabble. Similar to You Tube, it allows users to upload footage. However, unlike You Tube, Gabble is geared towards privacy. Only those people who have been invited to the corresponding group can watch videos.
HP now also wants to get companies that use commercials as a means of communication interested in Gabble, as Pressetext.ch writes. Although Gabble is currently still free to use, a fee could be charged in the future. With Gabble, HP is pursuing its strategy of trying out various online services and finding success. If a service spreads quickly, it will be pushed forward, otherwise it will be shut down again quickly, according to Shane Robinson, Chief Technology Officer at HP, in a recent Pressetext interview.

A study by ICF International, a consultancy specializing in climate change, shows that advertising emails consume as much electricity per year as 2.4 million households. In other words, spam consumes 33 kilowatt hours of energy per year and causes the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million cars, as the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper writes on Wednesday. Last year, 62 trillion spam messages were sent, with each message producing 0.3 grams of CO2, according to the study. 80 percent of this is consumed during sifting and deleting, 16 percent during filtering. Given these prospects, agencies will also have to buy CO2 certificates for their advertising emails in the future: A certificate for causing one ton of greenhouse gas currently costs 12 euros.

The British advertising watchdog has banned a brewer's poster linking the consumption of its alcoholic drink to success with women. The poster for the brewery Wells and Young's Courage beer shows a nervous-looking young man sitting next to a woman wearing a tight-fitting dress. Above it is the ambiguous slogan "Take Courage my Friend", which can be translated as "Take courage, my friend" or "Take (the beer) Courage".
The regulatory authority stated on Wednesday in London that although it understood the humorous intention of the advertisement, it considered the content to be a breach of advertising regulations. It had also received three complaints. The critics had either complained that the advertisement suggested that beer could inspire courage or that it incited people to make negative comments about the woman.
The brewery's head of marketing, Chris Lewis, expressed his surprise at the ban. According to Lewis, the advertisement shows a very common situation that the target group can relate to. There was no indication that the man on the poster was making negative comments about the woman or trying to take advantage of her.

The agency / department created the brand and packaging design for Tavolago’s new Central Swiss beer, Urbräu. The agency drew inspiration for the medieval-style label from the region’s dragon legends. A unique legend surrounding the locally brewed beer tells of a hunted dragon that sheds tears from Mount Pilatus, thereby contributing to the beverage’s flavor, as the agency explains in a press release. The legend is printed on Urbräu’s labels, packaging, and beer coasters.
Tavolago has now also entrusted the agency with developing further marketing initiatives.

Dieter Bohlen will soon advertise for Deutsche Bahn. You can already see his appearance for the meat producer Wiesenhof, where he looks into the camera for the Bruzzzler sausage. However, the commercial is very lame and rather uninspired. Didda sits by the swimming pool in front of the charcoal grill and makes moderately funny comparisons between (the female buttocks wiggling past) and (the sausages lying on his grill) ("I like well-browned and crispy"). Even by Bohlen's standards, such sayings are somewhat modest. It won't be a cult commercial, on the contrary. To put it in the words of the commercial: Man, that's crap.