The Swiss media group Ringier has bought the oldest Serbian weekly magazine Nedeljne Informativne Novine. Founded in 1935, NIN is 87 percent state-owned. A further 10 percent belongs to the newspaper publisher Politika and the remaining 3 percent to NIN employees. As the Serbian privatization agency announced on Friday, the media group will pay 810,000 euros for a 61.5 percent stake. Ringier also undertook to invest 186,607 euros. The Belgrade tabloid Vecernje novosti was also interested in acquiring the weekly, but only offered 760,000 euros.
The magazine is one of the oldest and most traditional political magazines in Serbia, Ringier wrote in a press release on Friday. It focuses on politics, society, art, science and sport. The Serbian news and political magazine has a circulation of 1.1 million copies, employs 36 people and, according to official figures, achieved a turnover of 1.5 million euros in 2007, as Derstandard.at writes. The profit amounted to 12,000 euros. The magazine became famous after the Second World War thanks to its literary prize.
Ringier has been present on the Serbian media market since 2004, according to Derstandard.at. In addition to Blic, the group also owns the daily newspapers 24 sata and Alo as well as the weekly magazines Blic Plus and Blic zena with a total of 470 employees. According to earlier media reports, the three daily newspapers have a daily circulation of more than 500,000 copies.

Blue Spirit Communications has won the pitch for an advertising contract from La Gruyère Tourism. The Lausanne agency has been selected to promote the region by means of a visitor trail for the opening of the new tourist office in June 2009. The aim is to introduce the region to the 1.2 million people who visit Gruyère every year in just a few minutes, as the agency writes in a press release.

The economic crisis has put a damper on the results of the Vaud advertising agency Publigroupe. The company suffered a loss of CHF 42.1 million in 2008. In the previous year, Publigroupe had still made a profit of CHF 73.1 million, thanks in part to the sale of an investment.
The current loss is due to goodwill amortization of CHF 33.8 million, including at the subsidiaries Cinecom and Radiotele, as the company announced on Friday. The core Media Sales division, which bundles press, television, radio, cinema and online advertising, accounted for around CHF 28.9 million of the loss.
In addition, there were corrections to the shareholdings - for example in the publishing houses Edipresse (19.9 percent) and Tamedia (1.4 percent) - which had a negative impact of 44.7 million on the result. Publigroupe's Board of Directors now intends to reduce the dividend to CHF 3.50 per share, compared to CHF 13 in the previous year.

Operating profit despite drop in sales
Sales fell by 1.9% to CHF 2.121 billion. The Media Sales division recorded a drop in turnover of 11.7% to CHF 1.736 billion. In the Swiss market, the decline in this division amounted to 12%, while sales abroad were down 11.7%.
Thanks to the positive figures from Publigroupe's other divisions (Search & Find, Digital & Marketing Services, Custom Publishing) and the profit from the sale of real estate investments, operating profit (EBIT) amounted to CHF 40 million. However, the decline of 47.7 percent compared to the previous year is still considerable.

Online market continues to grow
While press advertising also declined at the beginning of 2009, online activities continue to grow strongly. Publigroupe already generates 14% of its gross margin in the online and digital sector. Sales have risen by 23 percent to 123 million. These figures do not include the stake in Zanox (47.5 percent), whose sales amounted to CHF 322 million.

Changes in the Media Sales segment
Due to the poor results in all areas of Media Sales, with the exception of the Internet (up 15 percent) and television (up 7 percent), the company now intends to change its cost structure. According to the press release, this will result in additional savings of CHF 20 million in 2009. There are changes at the subsidiary Publicitas, including to the business model: specifically, a different remuneration concept and a digital and open platform for the management and transmission of advertising orders.

The Press Council wants to examine on its own initiative whether it was ethically justifiable for several media outlets to publish the photo and name of the confessed perpetrator in the Lucie murder case. According to the committee, the media are obliged to critically examine every case, even if law enforcement authorities release a name for publication.
On Thursday, the Aargau authorities released the picture and name of the confessed perpetrator in the Lucie murder. In this way, the police wanted to find other girls and women who had been approached by the 25-year-old. Numerous media then published the man's picture and name. In a planned statement, the Press Council wants to show whether this was "justified in terms of professional ethics or whether it should have been avoided".

Together with Caritas Zurich, FC Winterthur has created a campaign with the slogan "Only together are we complete". This will be used on March 15 during the match against Gossau. The FC Winterthur players will launch the campaign with a campaign before kick-off and will play the match in a specially designed jersey. Instead of promoting the main sponsor, the T-shirts will advertise integration.
By working with Caritas Zurich, FC Winterthur is strengthening its social commitment and supporting projects run by the cantonal aid organization, according to an OTS press release.
Pictures can be downloaded after the game from the website www.wintegration.ch
can be downloaded. The website will provide information about the campaign from March 15, 2009. The site is supported by Der Landbote, Winterthurer Stadtanzeiger, Radio Top and the Zurich advertising agency Jung von Matt.
Among other things, FC Winterthur is also a partner of Caritas' Kultur Legi program, which enables financially disadvantaged people to attend football matches at half price. FC Winterthur will also support Caritas Zurich projects and help to raise public awareness of integration and the fight against poverty, the press release continued.

The Swiss School of Journalism Maz celebrates its 25th anniversary. The MAZ has been training journalists in Lucerne since September 1984. The anniversary celebration took place on Friday at the Lucerne Cultural Center. Egyptian entrepreneur Samih Sawiris was invited as a guest speaker.
The media training center was founded on 11 September 1984 as a self-help organization for the industry, as the SDA writes in a press release. 27 journalists attended the first basic course at Villa Krämerstein on Lake Lucerne. The school continuously expanded its range of courses: From individual continuing education days to part-time diploma training and a master's degree program. Today, the MAZ offers around 1000 course days every year, with around 1500 people attending the courses and degree programs.
The school has an annual budget of around CHF 5 million at its disposal. It generates 80 percent of this itself. 10 percent comes from donors and 10 percent from the public sector. The MAZ is supported by the Swiss Press Association, the SRG, journalism associations and the city and canton of Lucerne. The school is also supported by the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM).

Moritz Leuenberger is holding the SRG to account: the planned closer cooperation between radio and TV must first be structurally designed before discussing personnel issues. The media minister is thus referring to the rumors circulating that television boss Ingrid Deltenre is to become the new general director of radio and TV as part of the planned restructuring.
Leuenberger said in an interview with the Tagesanzeiger newspaper on Friday that the convergence project harbored risks from a journalistic perspective. Restructuring would have to be accepted by consumers and employees. Great caution was therefore required with regard to personnel issues and the speed of the reform. It is also important that media convergence does not lead to a concentration in individual cities. In German-speaking Switzerland, television is already very "Zurich-heavy".

Transitional head as a possible solution
The restructuring will be made easier if it is not carried out by the future superintendent, said Leuenberger. In this case, the future head of radio and TV would not be able to bring his personal interests into the media convergence project. Such an interim head could be an external person or someone who would not subsequently be responsible for implementing the media convergence project. However, such questions would have to be clarified by the SRG Board of Directors.

Savings potential for technology and buildings
The media convergence project offers opportunities above all in the online sector. "Not every radio and television station has to have its own website," Leuenberger continues. Synergies could also be better exploited in terms of building and technology purchases. A review by the federal government in 2006 showed that there was potential for savings in these areas.

Support also from SRG
Leuenberger's demands have also met with approval within SRG: there has long been a great deal of untapped savings potential at SRG, said Dieter Niedermann, Chairman of the Presidents of SRG Deutschschweiz, in an interview published in the Berner Zeitung on Friday. From a purely economic point of view, centralization also makes sense for radio and TV. However, television and radio do not simply produce ravioli, but contribute to the formation of opinion. Niedermann therefore doubts that radio and television can be merged editorially. As the SRG President told the NZZ am Sonntag, he criticizes above all the SRG's poor information policy: "I don't have the SRG report, but I may have to make a decision in a week's time".

(Image: Keystone)

Aktion Medienfreiheit is calling on the Zurich Journalism Prize Foundation to deny Charlotte Jacquemart and Daniel Hug the 2007 Zurich Journalism Prize, which is endowed with CHF 7,000. The prize was awarded to them for a series of articles on the merger between Swissfirst and Bellevue Bank. The NZZ am Sonntag journalists had claimed that the pension funds had been damaged to the tune of millions as a result of the merger. It was even suggested that bribes had been paid. All of these allegations proved to be false.
Last Sunday, the NZZ am Sonntag had to apologize for this series of articles. The series of articles meant a serious violation of personality for Thomas Matter, who was pilloried as a journalist at the time. He had to resign, Swissfirst no longer exists and dozens of jobs were lost. The credibility of the Zurich Journalism Prize as well as its sponsor, the Zurich Press Association, has been called into question, according to a press release. The prize should therefore be withdrawn from the journalists.
Monika Menne, Managing Director of the Zurich Journalism Prize Foundation, told Kleinreport.ch on Thursday that the Foundation Board had taken note of the appeal by Aktion Medienfreiheit and would discuss the issue with the jury at the next joint meeting. This meeting will take place later this month.

High write-downs in the UK have more than halved the net profit of Europe's largest television provider RTL Group in 2008. Net profit fell from 674 million euros in the previous year to 296 million euros, as the Luxembourg-based company announced on Thursday, according to SDA. Despite the difficult economic environment, operating profit increased by 2 percent to a record 916 million euros. However, the company had to make high unscheduled write-downs on television activities in the UK, which alone amounted to 337 million euros.
Adjusted for acquisitions, disposals and currency effects, revenues rose by 2.6 percent to 5.75 billion euros in the past year. Despite an increasingly difficult advertising market in Europe, RTL has increased its revenues and operating result for the seventh year in a row, explained CEO Gerhard Zeiler. RTL intends to pay its shareholders a dividend of 3.50 per share, of which 2.10 euros will be paid as a special dividend. The lion's share will go to Bertelsmann. The media group holds around 90 percent of RTL.
In view of the situation on the advertising markets and the very short booking cycles, Zeiler did not dare to make a forecast for the current year. But it is to be expected that the profitability level will be below that of 2008, said the RTL boss.

In an extensive interview in Bilanz, Ringier CEO Christian Unger commented on the future prospects of Blick and Cash as well as further job cuts at Ringier. Cash is in a complex situation: it has increasing readership figures and is gaining market share, but has been thrown down to a lower level by the collapsing advertising market. According to Unger, the question now is how Ringier can move forward with Cash.
Cash: sooner or later only online
With regard to the annual deficit of 10 million Swiss francs, Unger said that Cash was an economic loss-maker and that he did not want to gloss over anything. He also hinted that sooner or later only the online edition would survive. The Cash brand should therefore be strengthened in the electronic sector. He hopes that the transformation process (from print to online) can be accelerated. "So that we don't have to let both print and online die."
Blick: Probably away from tabloid format
Blick is working "at full speed" on a repositioning in terms of both form and content. The format is of course an issue, Unger continued, and he described the switch to tabloid format as a "flop". In two to four weeks, those responsible should therefore deliver concrete plans. A change to the larger format would provide a differentiating feature from free newspapers.
Blick: Repositioning for the 50th birthday in October?
In terms of content, Unger said that the focus had "perhaps been too ideological" in the past. However, this had since been corrected. He did not want to comment on the related insult of Swiss bankers as "vain fools of Switzerland". When asked about the timing of the relaunch of Blick, whether this could perhaps be to coincide with its 50th anniversary in October, Unger said: "It could be, a repositioning to coincide with the anniversary would be obvious."
Satisfactory situation at Sonntagsblick and Blick am Abend
With regard to Sonntagsblick, Unger said that the paper is putting in a solid performance and that he is very satisfied. Blick am Abend is also in a good growth phase and the team has developed good momentum. With regard to further job cuts at Ringier in Switzerland, Unger said that he could not yet say. But of course that is one of the options.

Far-reaching advertising bans for alcoholic beverages in electronic media are currently booming again among lawmakers. In France, the National Assembly approved a bill this week that aims to make the sale of alcohol to young people more restrictive. In the same breath, parliament has adopted far-reaching restrictions on alcohol advertising on the internet. The background to this is the (alleged or actual) increase in excessive binge drinking among young people.
In Switzerland, the Council of States will have to deal with a similar bill next week. As part of the media agreement, it will also discuss the issue of advertising for light alcoholic beverages, whereby the Stöckli's preliminary consultation telecommunications committee has requested that advertising for beer, sour cider and wine be banned in all electronic media.
In a letter, the Interessengemeinschaft elektronische Medien (IGEM) opposes this proposal. As the media agreement has not yet been concluded, it remains to be seen whether foreign advertising windows will also have to comply with Swiss regulations. If not, the Swiss media would be disadvantaged by such bans.
The IGEM also writes that advertising for alcohol has no influence on the drinking behavior of the population. This is shown by the examples of Germany and Finland. In Germany, alcohol consumption has been falling for years with less restrictive alcohol advertising laws, whereas in Finland consumption has also been rising for years despite restrictive advertising laws.
To summarize the latest wave of alcohol advertising bans: the advertising industry is being punished for something it didn't cause, legislators are passing laws that are useless, and young people continue to drink anyway. Grand opera.

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