Premiere Star concludes a long-term agreement with Teleclub and can now also be received in Switzerland after Germany and Austria. Swiss pay-TV provider Teleclub offers Premiere Star channels via satellite.
From November 1, the Premiere Star program package, which also includes the pay TV channels RTL Living, Romance TV, Playhouse Disney and Turner Classic Movies, will be offered via Teleclub.
Teleclub reaches over 230,000 satellite households throughout Switzerland. By concluding this agreement, Premiere Star is further expanding its reach. The Premiere Star package offered via Teleclub includes channels in the areas of film, children, lifestyle and sport.

At a long press conference on Friday morning, Federal Councillor Moritz Leuenberger commented on and explained the licensing decisions made by Bakom. He did so with strong reference to the applicable law. "The decisions were not easy for us. We are aware that there is a lot at stake," he told media representatives in Bern. "We have created a competitive situation, and that was what the legislator wanted."
The main criterion for the evaluation was the fulfillment of the performance mandate. To this end, broadcasters had to take organizational precautions for quality assurance, employ professional media professionals and offer training opportunities. In addition to this "input", according to Leuenberger, the "output" of the broadcasters was also equally important. This involved the actual program output, which had to be of journalistic quality. The assessment was made primarily with regard to the regional public service and the diversity on offer. Each application was examined independently by two Bakom experts. The results of the review were then compared. "We did not decide in favor of the previous applicants in cases of doubt," continued Leuenberger, repeatedly pointing out the legislative guidelines.
"The situation is not easy for the losers in the radio sector. But there are no fewer jobs as a result." The new stations have already signaled that they are particularly interested in the employees of the stations that were left out.
Regarding the case of Tele Züri, which has lost its license in the Zurich-North-Eastern Switzerland region to Günther Heuberger's Winterthur station Tele Top, Leuenberger said: "Tele Züri can and will continue to broadcast. We have made explicit enquiries with Cablecom. In addition, the station already broadcasts in areas beyond the concession area. The station should have been switched off there". Now they don't have to and can even expand - theoretically to the whole of Switzerland.
The two applications were both at a very high level and should therefore be considered equal. In such a case, the question of media concentration is decisive. The strong concentration of Tele-Züri owner Tamedia therefore does not allow for any other decision.

Tele Züri, Radio Energy and many of the other rejected license applicants have announced that they will appeal against OFCOM's decisions. They have 30 days to do so before the Federal Administrative Court. As Bakom announced on Friday, the court will then decide as the sole appeal authority.
The licences now granted are valid until 2019 and will enter into force at the earliest after expiry of the appeal period and at the latest after expiry of the old licences. The old licences run until the end of 2008 for television stations and until the end of March 2009 for radios. According to Federal Councillor Moritz Leuenberger, appeals have a suspensive effect. Until the proceedings are concluded and the Federal Administrative Court issues a negative decision on the appeal, the station in question can therefore continue to broadcast within the existing framework.
It is unclear what this will mean for the two radio licenses in the Zurich area in the course of next year. Roger Schawinski and his station Radio 1 have beaten rival Radio Energy in the battle for the large license for the Zurich-Glarus region. The small license for the greater Zurich area, on which Radio 1 previously broadcast, will now be awarded to Guiseppe Scaglione's channel RMC Züri. However, as Ringier, the media group behind Energy, immediately lodged an appeal, this could lead to problems. The resulting suspensive effect could force Schawinski to temporarily cease broadcasting. A delicate situation, also for Bakom, according to Werbewoche media expert Markus Knöpfli. In his opinion, however, Bakom will not allow Radio 1 to be switched off temporarily.
Knöpfli also describes the situation in the advertising sector as extremely exciting: "The two new players in the Zurich radio landscape are bringing movement into play." Guiseppe Scaglione, who is now in a very comfortable position with his two new licenses (youth radio and RMC Züri) and his cable offering, has not yet decided on a marketer.

With its new campaign for the Swiss Protestant Church Aid Organization (Heks), the Zurich agency AY&R is encouraging people to come up with more original gift ideas. The highlight is as follows: every gift arrives twice. To the recipient in the form of a gift certificate, and to people in need all over the world. A can of worms, for example, loosens and fertilizes the fields of a poor Cambodian family in a sustainable way, thus ensuring larger harvests.
With this campaign, AY&R wants to combine donating with fun, the agency wrote in a press release on Thursday. The aim is also to reach people who are put off by the usual, often depressing fundraising appeals.
The website Hilfe-schenken.ch and other advertising measures such as advertisements, posters, banners and mailings will be in use from the end of October.
The Snowflake agency implemented Heks' new website using the latest version of the TYPO3 system. The website's project database can also be searched by geographical and textual aspects. Snowflake linked the donation form to this database so that visitors can determine which projects they would like to contribute to financially, the agency writes in a press release.
Responsible at the Heks: Hanspeter Bigler (Head of Communications), Ruedi Lüscher (Campaigns/Events), Annelies Hegnauer (Team Leader Marketing/Fundraising) Responsible at AY&R: Markus Gut (CCO), Christian Bobst, Philipp Skrabal (CD), Martin Stulz (text), Lukas Wietlisbach, Martin Bettler, Emi Lehmann (graphics), Marcel Mägerle, Kerstin Schnyder (consulting), Noe Flum (photography), Süsstrunk & Jericke (image processing).

For the coming winter season, the Amsterdam agency Media Mountain and the consultancy Cotting Consulting are launching five free snow parks with the elements of action, filming and sharing. Anyone using the parks in the ski resorts of Verbier, Flims-Laax, Sölden, Livigno and Tignes will automatically be filmed by cameras.
The videos can then be viewed on large screens and are also available for download on the title sponsor's website. The focus is on the experience strategy, with consumers rather than the brand at the center, writes the agency CCI in a press release.
Various rights, such as advertising in and around the Snow Park and in the credits of the clips, as well as for spots on the big screens and presence on the title sponsor's website, have not yet been allocated.

The Jungfrau Zeitung's business model is attracting widespread interest. Its publisher Urs Gossweiler presented his media company's strategy for localization and multimedia at the IFRA Expo in Amsterdam and followed an invitation from the BBC to London. There, he was shown the BBC's huge newsroom by News boss Peter Horrocks.
The focus on local content with simultaneous multimedia processing and distribution has also attracted interest from Amsterdam-based newspaper publishers from different cultural and economic regions, Gossweiler Media said in a press release. Newspaper publishers from Canada, Indonesia, India, Kuwait, Germany and Belgium also showed interest in its model, according to Gossweiler.
Jungrau Zeitung was the first media company in Switzerland to introduce Web TV. This resulted in the collaboration with Pro Sieben Schweiz. For several months, Gossweiler has been producing the cooking show Funky Kitchen for the private station's Swiss window.

Peter Horrocks, Head of News at the BBC in London, shows Urs Gossweiler his newsroom.

Matthias Schneider is the new Head of Corporate Communications at Coca Cola Switzerland. He took over from Pia Lehmann on October 1, who left the company at the end of September after ten years.
In addition to Corporate Communications, Schneider is responsible for Corporate Identity, Public Affairs and Brand PR. He was previously deputy head of Euro 2008 location marketing.

The Geneva-based agency Agencing Inc. launched the new web radio Swiss.fm on Saturday. With news and chill-out music from the studio in San Francisco, the radio is aimed primarily at listeners in the Swiss, French and Canadian markets.
Agencing Inc has already launched theme radios such as Wimaxradio.fm, Slow.fm, Chillout.fm, Ktfm.fm, as well as web radios for brands such as Le Shop in French and German.
The music news radio station starts on Friday at 11 pm.

The agency Draftfcb has launched a campaign for Appenzeller Alpenbitter beer with new images. The new image builds on last year's campaign with the slogan "We won't reveal any more so that Appenzeller remains the original".
The information about the recipe and production process is concealed with herbs and product elements, true to the Appenzeller motto "the recipe must remain a secret".
The campaign will appear on advertisements and posters throughout Switzerland from Monday.
Responsible at Appenzeller Alpenbitter: Willi Felder. Responsible at Draftfcb Lowe Group: Florian Birkner (Creative Director), Sebastian Hugelshofer, Urs Hartmann (Art Director), Patrizia Harzenmoser (Graphics), Marcel Elsener (Text). Aline Litchenhaus: Christoph Bögli (consulting).

After more than seven years as Head of PR at KPMG, Stefan Mathys is moving into self-employment. He becomes a partner at Barino Consulting, but will remain with the company until the end of 2008. Mathys will be replaced by Andreas Hammer, who will be responsible for external communications as the new Head of PR from November 1.
Andreas Hammer has spent the last two years as Managing Director of the FDP of the Canton of Zurich. Prior to that, he worked as a consultant for various international PR agencies in Switzerland.

The media union Comedia has seen the Uvek's licensing decisions as a signal for media diversity and collective labor agreements. Following the award, Comedia hopes for a media diversity of healthy competition in the service of journalistic quality.
All in all, Comedia has criticized the awarding of the disputed radio and television licences.
is seen as positive. This is because Tele Top in the Zurich-North-Eastern Switzerland region will conclude a company agreement with the trade unions, as promised in the license application, Comedia wrote in a press release on Friday. Tele Züri, on the other hand, does not respect a collective labor agreement. Furthermore, the decision to grant a license to Roger Schawinski's Radio 1 in the Zurich area is a welcome contribution to media diversity.
The union is calling on media companies to respond to the new competition by investing more in journalistic services.

"20 Minuten needs a glossy sister in which we can depict the consumer world."
The new lifestyle magazine from 20 Minuten has been launched. Tamedia launched its latest baby with a celebrity-filled christening party on Thursday evening. A free magazine for young female readers aged 16 to 28, which Editor-in-Chief Marco Boselli (43) is very proud of.
The successor to the music-based magazine Week celebrated its christening on Thursday with an almost pompous event. Swiss media, PR and show business celebrities gathered at the recently opened Klub Escherwyss on the Sulzer site to toast the new lifestyle magazine, which is increasingly geared towards the needs of the advertising industry. The magazine, born from a pool of ideas fed by the heads of the commuter newspaper 20 Minuten, the women's magazine Annabelle, the event platform Tilllate and the top management of Tamedia, is being published for the first time today, Friday.
American actress Lindsay Lohan, known for her forays into singing and numerous escapades, was emblazoned on the cover. And it is precisely such personalities and their lives that will in future fill the magazine, which is printed on glossy paper and in many ways resembles the layout of Annabelle. An interview with editor-in-chief Marco Boselli.
What caused Week's death?
If, like us, you make a newspaper that reaches 1.5 million readers, you have similar expectations for a free magazine from the same company. Unfortunately, Week has never reached more than 240,000 readers. So we had to question ourselves. There seemed to be something wrong with the expectations, with the potential that the magazine actually had. We analyzed this quite carefully. We made a good magazine, but in the end there were already other papers in the regions that were superior to us. For example, Züritipp or other event calendars from Bern or Basel. We simply never succeeded in creating a good product for the whole of Switzerland that fully exploited the potential of the 20 Minuten brand. We also noticed from customers that the need was more in the lifestyle sector. However, the paper quality of the Week was not good enough for this. That's why we never got these customers. We were always in the black, but it was a constant kicking in the teeth. That frustrated us as creators.
What was done then?
We then decided that things couldn't go on like this and retreated into a quiet little room. We thought about it: What would be a magazine that could be successful in this country? What doesn't exist yet? What is the advertising market interested in? - After all, we are a free magazine, so we are dependent on our advertisers. And then it was actually obvious not to make corrections in between, but to tackle the whole thing from A to Z from scratch.
To summarize again: What did Week miss?
A new calculation, a new approach. If you want to produce a magazine that is suitable for the masses in this form, you have to have glossy paper, a large editorial team and a large budget for images. If you want to cover these costs, then that defines the type of content you have to produce. And that is no longer music, but lifestyle, cosmetics and fashion. 20 Minuten needs a glossy sister in which we can better reflect the consumer world.
Week was already often described as a prestige paper in the publishing house, should 20 Minuten Friday also fulfill this role?
Week was a prestige object. Now a new era has begun. Friday will also be a prestige object. I believe we have succeeded in bringing another innovation to the market. We have discovered that our hundreds of thousands of readers do not have a magazine that meets their needs.
The layout is very reminiscent of Annabelle in places. How is the collaboration going?
That was an interesting development. We have a so-called "innovation group" at Tamedia in which we think about new projects. All the editors-in-chief are part of it. Annabelle editor-in-chief Lisa Feldmann and I discovered that we both had a problem. We haven't fully exploited the potential of our brand and Annabelle lacks a young mainstay. So we decided to combine the two problems and look for a solution. Tilllate then came on board relatively quickly. They had the problem that they didn't have a print connection yet.
How did you then proceed?
Well, you have to be honest: there are already magazines that work in a similar way. There are a relatively large number of such titles in America. We thought that with our strong 20 Minuten brand behind us and the incredibly good distribution via the box system, it should be possible to produce a magazine that can be financed by advertising revenue. We then got together in a group of five and came up with a draft. When this was ready, we presented it to the management of Tamedia. After a critical assessment, the go-ahead came relatively quickly.

(Interview: Adrian Schräder)