The need to optimize costs in the wake of the recession is also leading to adjustments to existing structures in the electronic media, writes Basler Zeitung Medien in a press release issued on Thursday. For this reason, the activities of the previously independent Bazonline team will be integrated into the Basler Zeitung newsroom. Only on Wednesday four jobs were cut at Baslerstab and in January a fifth of the jobs at Basler Zeitung.
Six jobs will be lost when the online editorial team is dissolved. Online editor-in-chief Andrea Müller is among those made redundant, for whom a social plan exists, as CEO Beat Meyer told SDA on request. Manfred Messmer, who built up the online division at BZM at mandate level with a fixed-term contract, is also affected by the redundancies. He is leaving the company.
The measure to "optimize costs" appears to be purely prophylactic. According to Meyer, the company is currently still in the black. In the last financial year, Basler Zeitung Medien made a profit of CHF 7 million.
Bazonline is part of the online platform Newsnetz, which is jointly operated by Tages-Anzeiger, Berner Zeitung and Basler Zeitung. Despite the reduction in the editorial team, the quality of electronic reporting will not change, according to the press release.

SRG closed its 2008 financial year with a deficit of CHF 79 million. It considers cuts to the range of programs and in-house productions to be unavoidable. An increase in fees is not under discussion.
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What will be cut from the programs will be decided "as part of the medium-term planning", as SRG wrote on Thursday. Where, when and how much will have to be cut over the next three to five years will keep SRG and its committees very busy. In view of the economic crisis, an increase in fees is not under discussion for SRG. In 2009, it intends to cap the number of jobs at the level of the 2008 budget and increase the savings volume to CHF 100 million by 2010. The wage bill will increase by 2.8 percent in 2009.
SRG had budgeted a deficit of CHF 57 million for 2008, partly due to the costs of Euro 2008 and the Olympic Games. Commercial revenues fell in 2008. Due to the financial crisis, the pension fund was also underfunded. SRG therefore had unbudgeted expenditure. SRG closed the 2007 financial year with a deficit of CHF 18.5 million. Until 2007, it had still been possible to largely cushion the real decline in income since 2000 with savings and efficiency measures.

Hansjörg Wigger is the new editor-in-chief of Elektrotechnik ET, a trade journal published by AZ Medien. The 54-year-old will take over from Franz Lenz on April 1, who has been interim editor-in-chief since October 2008 in addition to being editor-in-chief of HK-Gebäudetechnik.
Wigger has been a press officer at Siemens Switzerland since 2004. Previous positions include Project Manager Corporate Publishing at Siemens Building Technologies, Editor Advertising and Public Relations at Cerberus and Head of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Public Relations at Hilti.
The publication Elektrotechnik ET provides information on all areas of electrical energy, installation, lighting and automation technology as well as building automation. The editorial section includes technical articles, news from the industry and further training.

Dietschi Druck & Medien in Olten, publisher of the Oltner Tagblatt, Sonntag-OT and the Oberbaselbieter Zeitung, has successfully completed the expansion of its newspaper printing plant to four-color throughout. CEO Thomas Müller, who took over the overall management of the media company two years ago, pursued two goals with the expansion of newspaper printing: "First and foremost, we made the investment for our print customers, as without the expansion to full four-color printing, we would not only have lost all of our external orders sooner rather than later, but would also have had no chance of winning new ones," Müller is quoted as saying in the press release issued on Thursday. The second goal is the independence of the company, which could be ensured with this investment.

The Swiss press generated significantly less advertising revenue in February. This fell by 25.4 percent to CHF 120.5 million compared to the same month last year, as reported by Wemf on Thursday. All advertising categories declined. This ranged from -45.9 percent for job advertisements (CHF 17.1 million) to -19.4 percent for commercial and other advertisements (CHF 91.7 million).
None of the print media categories increased. The strongest percentage decline was recorded by the financial and business press, whose advertising income fell by 45.1% to CHF 3.2 million. It was followed by the Sunday press (-28.8 percent to CHF 10.7 million) and the daily press (-28.1 percent to CHF 70.4 million). The smallest decline was recorded by the regional weekly press (-11.2%).

Ammarkt has created a TV spot for Sony Ericsson to promote a music subscription for cell phones. For the spot, the St. Gallen agency worked closely with international network partners, according to a statement. Thus the citizens of Berlin Benjamin Brettschneider could be won as a director and mark film Switzerland as a producer. The main actor Stefan Ruhmke was discovered at a casting in Berlin. The spot was then shot on home turf, namely on the Toni-Areal in Zurich-West.
The spot will be broadcast from March 15 on SF 1 in the context of the Swiss casting show Music Star.
> To the TV spot
Responsible at Sony Ericsson: Rolf Weiss (Head of Marketing Austria & Switzerland), Simone Stocker ( Channel Marketing Manager Austria & Switzerland). Responsible at Ammarkt, St. Gallen: Michael Schmid (concept), Michael Weber (consulting), Martin Fuchs (text), Dominik Sieber (AD). Direction TV spot: Benjamin Brettschneider. Producer: Markenfilm Schweiz, Heinrich Reinscher, Natascha Meislitzer.

Kathrin Winzenried will be in front of the camera in the spring for the first fully moderated "doc" film. According to SF team leader Andrea Pfalzgraf, they want to test whether and how this is received by the audience. The film will be the prelude to this year's "Schweiz aktuell" summer series entitled "Alpine Fortress - Life in the Reduit", as the TV magazines Tele and TV-Star report in their latest editions. Winzenried thus has two major assignments this summer - she is also traveling through the Alps as one of seven presenters for the show "Fernweh".

Keystone and Swiss Olympic are extending their partnership for a further four years. This means that the photo agency will remain the federation's official image supplier until the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Keystone will continue to support Swiss Olympic with photographs of athletes and competitions and will provide the association with the necessary photographic material, particularly in the run-up to and during Vancouver 2010 and London 2012.
Keystone has been a supporter and official picture agency of Swiss Olympic since 2004.

More and more Swiss people are watching Swiss television programs available as podcasts on the Internet. The satirical program "Giacobbo/Müller", for example, is now watched by one in five viewers not in the live broadcast but later in the recorded version on the SF Internet portal.
In future, Swiss Television intends to offer its programs not only on the Internet but also via the digital television network of cable network operator Cablecom. The joint venture, known as Catch-up TV, envisages Cablecom recording all Swiss Television's own productions from fall 2009 and making them available for viewing via set-top box.
For those who already use Cablecom's digital service, there will be no additional costs. Repeat programs on SF info will not be affected by the new service, at least not for the next ten years.

Due to the increasingly difficult earnings situation, the publishing house Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM) has decided to only publish the Baslerstab on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In addition, the editorial team at Basel's largest free newspaper has effectively been dissolved and four people have been made redundant. Four of the remaining seven members of the editorial team will move to the PR and publishing department under the overall management of the previous managing director Patrick Wehrli. Two employees, including the current editor-in-chief Mischa Hauswirth, are moving to the editorial department of Basler Zeitung, while another has an offer from LV Lokalzeitungen Verlags AG.
The editorial content, which previously made up around 30 percent of the "Stabs", is to be replaced by a broad spectrum of new, consumer-oriented containers, collective pages and supplements, according to a press release issued on Wednesday. With this content, the Baslerstab, which is primarily an advertisement and therefore a marketplace for advertisers, will continue to offer customers from a wide range of sectors an attractive environment for advertising, according to the publisher. However, the price structure in the advertising sector will be significantly simplified and expanded to include cost-effective placement options.
Previously, the Baslerstab was published five times a week in Basel (Basel edition) and twice a week in the surrounding area (Region edition). The new publication frequency on Tuesday and Thursday will now be introduced on May 7. There are few changes to distribution. Home delivery - now also in Riehen and Bettingen - will be retained and the full distribution of the "Basel" edition will even be expanded in the agglomeration belt. However, the number of distribution boxes will be concentrated at 30 locations in highly frequented areas.

The Council of States wants to completely ban alcohol advertising on Swiss radio and television stations and in foreign program windows. This was decided on Wednesday by 22 votes to 19. Several organizations immediately commented on this: Schweizer Werbung SW, the Swiss Press Association and the Campaign for Media Freedom.

Swiss advertising
"Swiss media policy is a tragedy. While the Federal Council wants to allow alcohol advertising on all Swiss TV stations out of consideration for the EU's "MEDIA" support program for filmmakers, the Council of States is now putting the brakes on it with a general ban. This decision contradicts the RTVA, which was intended to give private broadcasters a certain advantage over the SRG.
Of course, this decision by the small chamber comes as no real surprise. As long as film funding and advertising are treated in the same package, there are bound to be disagreements. Spirit and money do not mix well. The opinion on the preventive effect of advertising bans is apparently equally inconsistent. The Federal Council does not believe in this, while the otherwise more business-friendly Council of States supports this thesis.
Everything will probably be completely different again in the next session."

Swiss Press Association
Media agreement: Decision goes in the wrong direction and weakens Swiss media industry
"As part of the implementation of the Media Agreement, the Council of States today decided by 22 votes to 19 to generally ban alcohol advertising on radio and television in future. Until now, alcohol advertising was permitted for private broadcasters in Switzerland. Swiss Press regrets this decision and doubts both the preventive effect and the feasibility of this regulation at European level, as attempts must be made to enforce such a ban by the federal government vis-à-vis foreign TV advertising windows.
Moreover, there was no need for this decision as part of the implementation of the Media Agreement, which is why the Federal Council had even proposed an extension of alcohol advertising to all providers (including SRG). The Council of States' decision will further weaken local media providers and thus also part of the Swiss economy. It is not clear how, in times of economic crisis and economic stimulus programs and in view of increasing media concentration, such measures will further worsen the economic framework conditions for media companies. The National Council will comment on this bill in the summer."

Media Freedom Action
The EU media agreement as an opportunity to restrict advertising bans
"The Council of States today narrowly decided in favor of a radical ban on advertising for alcoholic beverages in television programs aimed at the Swiss public. This is intended to undermine the RTVA regulation in force since April 1, 2007, which allows local and regional commercial TV and radio stations to broadcast advertising for light alcoholic beverages (beer, wine). The Campaign for Media Freedom regrets that the Council of States is in favor of additional advertising bans, thus further worsening the economic situation of Swiss private broadcasters.
The renewed discussion of alcohol advertising is taking place against the backdrop of the Media Agreement with the EU. This not only affects film promotion, but also means that Switzerland must adopt the more liberal EU regulations in connection with advertising for alcoholic beverages.
Unfortunately, the Council of States did not seize the opportunity for a more liberal regulation. Although it wants to contribute to EU film funding in order to benefit from film funding, it does not want to go along with the more liberal regulation of alcohol advertising. It is not at all clear why the current Swiss solution, which allows regional language channels (e.g. 3+, StarTV) and local channels (e.g. Tele Top, Tele Basel) to advertise light alcoholic beverages, should be abandoned. Rather, the media agreement represents an opportunity to give the completely over-regulated electronic media a little more freedom and to make the misguided RTVA at least a little more liberal.
A total ban on alcohol advertising for all Swiss television and radio broadcasters is tantamount to self-discrimination. Heineken would then also be allowed to announce the Champions League match on the German channel in future, while Feldschlösschen would be banned from all advertising for non-alcoholic beer on Swiss television channels - unequal treatment that harms Swiss breweries and puts jobs at risk.
In the discussion on alcohol advertising, the Campaign for Media Freedom is hoping for a more liberal stance from the National Council's Committee for Transport and Telecommunications (KVF). If no further corrections are made in the National Council, the Campaign for Media Freedom is considering rejecting the entire media agreement."

The title is just too good not to copy: In today's edition, Süddeutsche printed an article entitled "City without a newspaper" about the (already repeatedly) reported decline of printed newspapers in the USA, but this time focusing on a very specific problem. There is a possibility that the megacity of San Francisco will soon no longer have a single daily newspaper.
The latest "Report on the State of the News Media" in the USA refers to the city that may soon be without a newspaper. The San Francisco Chronicle is described as one of those newspapers that are so economically weak that they are unlikely to survive the current slump in the advertising market. The Chronicle is the largest newspaper in Northern California and belongs to the Hearst newspaper group. It has not made a profit since 2001, but last year it lost a whopping one million dollars a week.
The fact that the somewhat apocalyptic scenario of a city without a newspaper could come true in the very city that is itself an eager producer of fictional apocalypses is not without a certain comicality. The newspaper's employees, on the other hand, will hardly find it funny; through the union, they have already agreed to several self-imposed restrictions out of necessity: Cuts to maternity leave and protection against dismissal, the extension of working hours from 37.5 to 40 hours and the elimination of 150 jobs. Crises have strange consequences.