Gian Meyerhofer will be the new producer of the regional television program Automobil Revue TV from next year. The 45-year-old will take over management of the program from Hannes Stark.
Meyerhofer has previously worked as a producer and editor for Schweizer Fernsehen, TV3 and Tele Züri, among others, as Tele Bärn announced on Thursday. The show, which is presented by former Miss Switzerland Jennifer Ann Gerber, has been broadcast weekly on eight different regional stations for two years.

The Zurich agency Eyeworks has teamed up with star photographer Alberto Venzago to create an image campaign for the Zurich Ballet. The campaign focuses on the art of dance.
Various poster subjects were created in collaboration with the ballet's choreographer Heinz Spoerli. These are now on display at selected APG locations in Zurich city center until October 12 and are available in F4 format at the Zurich Opera House box office.
The campaign was supported by UBS and the "Friends of Zurich Ballet" association.
Responsible at the Zurich Ballet: Heinz Spoerli (overall responsibility), Peter A. Marschel (manager). Responsible at Eyeworks: Daniel Soldenhoff (overall responsibility), Chris Burkhard (art director), Alberto Venzago (photography).
Production: Tutto Fatto, image processing: Bildwerk, printing: Seaprint.

Tamedia and the NZZ Group are planning to transfer the early delivery of newspapers and magazines to Swiss Post. The three parties signed a letter of intent to this effect on September 26, 2008. This was announced by Swiss Post in a communiqué on Thursday. At the same time, Swiss Post intends to sell a majority stake in the Internet portal Search.ch to Tamedia. With this step, the three companies want to concentrate more on their core area in future.
The NZZ Group and Tamedia are transferring their shareholdings in Zuvo Zustell- und Vertriebsorganisation AG (50 percent each) and their shares in Presse Vertriebs GmbH (50 percent) to a subsidiary of Swiss Post. The NZZ Group is also transferring the remaining shares in Presse Vertriebs GmbH and the early delivery operations of DZO Druck Oetwil am See AG to this company, while Tamedia is transferring the Sunday and daily delivery operations of Espace Media Groupe. The Bern-based contract delivery organization Bevo, in which Swiss Post and Tamedia each previously held a 50 percent stake, and the Swiss Post subsidiary Prevag will also be merged into the new delivery company. Swiss Post will hold 75 percent and the NZZ Group and Tamedia 12.5 percent each.
The new company will have around 6,000 employees, as Richard Pfister, media spokesman for Swiss Post, told SDA on request. The second step after the merger will be to "reduce duplication". This could lead to job cuts, but it is still too early to provide more concrete details.
In a communiqué, the communications union sees the further bundling in the as a step in the right direction. This will prevent competition from being carried out unilaterally at the expense of employees, in particular by worsening employment conditions. A progressive collective employment contract is now required.
At the same time as the consolidation of early delivery, Tamedia is taking over 75 percent of Räber Information Management GmbH, which operates the online portal Search.ch, from Swiss Post. Founded in 1995, the portal reaches 2,512,000 unique clients in Switzerland (Wemf Net-Audit August 2008), making it the second most visited website in the country. The Internet platform currently employs 37 people. Although the Internet portal has "developed well" since the takeover by Swiss Post in 2004, the planned synergies with Swiss Post's core business could only be realized to a limited extent, the yellow giant writes in its press release. However, Swiss Post will retain a 25 percent stake in Search.ch. The operational management of the website will remain with the current management.

Former Publicitas Product Manager Daniel Weick is returning to the Publicitas branch in Basel. As of January 1, 2009, he will take over as sales manager there.
Weick worked as a product manager at Publicitas in Basel and Baden from 1983 to 1988, then moved to Swiss Bank Corporation Basel as head of sports sponsorship and advertising. From 1996, he worked again with Publicitas as director of the publishing house Inserateunion Basel. Since last year, he has been a member of the extended management team at the gastronomy and hotel company Gastrag in Basel.

Microsoft is significantly expanding its research and development activities in Europe in the battle for the lucrative search engine market. To this end, the software giant will set up a research center with offices in Munich, Paris and London, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced in Paris on Thursday, according to SDA. The new search technology center is an important step in its long-term strategy, said Ballmer. The software group wants to invest more in local markets in the future.
"Online search is still in its infancy, and there is a huge amount of potential to take it far beyond the ten blue links we know today," Ballmer continued. Despite intensive efforts, Microsoft had not been able to even come close to the success of market leader Google's search engine for years.
Microsoft wants to concentrate on three goals in online search. According to Ballmer, these are: Delivering the best search results, simplifying key tasks and developing new innovative business models.
According to its own figures, Microsoft invests an average of 439 million euros in research and development in Europe every year. In the past twelve months, the software group has reportedly spent almost two billion dollars to prepare itself for the online search market in Europe.
Microsoft tries to score points against Google with rewards program
Another report states that Microsoft wants to steal users from its rival Google by means of a rewards program. In a test run, US users of the Microsoft Internet search will initially be credited with points for every query. These can be redeemed for music downloads, T-shirts or even air miles once a certain number of points have been earned. Online search is highly competitive due to the lucrative advertising revenue it generates.
Microsoft's Live Search has recently lost further ground to Google in the USA, despite other incentive programs already in place. The test of the Search Perks program will initially run until mid-April, Microsoft announced on Wednesday.
Each user can earn a maximum of 25 points per day. From 525 points, five songs can be downloaded, 1,000 air miles cost 1,800 points. It was only in May that Microsoft introduced discounts for customers who find and buy products from certain retailers via the software company's search engine.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, the S&W agency has given itself new agency premises. Since mid-September, the nine-strong advertising agency has been housed in the spacious premises of the former Merker washing machine factory in Baden. The opening and birthday celebrations are planned for the end of November. S&W's clients include the Aargau-based AZ Medien Group, the Stadtcasino Baden, the Canton of Aargau and Sika AG.

Goldbach Media Group company Ad Link Media is expanding its team in the area of consulting. Patrick Koller will strengthen the company's level of service and consulting expertise, writes Ad Link Media Switzerland in a statement.
Koller most recently worked as an online marketer and planner at Publicitas Web2Com. At Ad Link Media, he is now to expand the consulting and service offering to media agencies, according to Yves Keller, head of the consulting team.

The Basler Zeitung (BaZ) has been on the market with its current layout and editorial offering since 2004, but like all subscription newspapers, the BaZ is also feeling the effects of changing consumer behavior in media usage. "We now have five free products in the region, which have hurt BaZ's paid circulation somewhat," BaZ publisher Matthias Hagemann told Werbewoche. "The increasing number of Internet offerings is also leading to a redistribution of readers' attention and time."
Against this background, Basler Zeitung Medien has significantly expanded its news offering in recent months. Just over a year ago, the commuter newspaper News was launched together with Tamedia, and on August 8, 2008, Newsnetz was launched, whose news is now included in Bazonline.ch. "The cooperation is going well, even if we have to find each other again and again," says Hagemann. The alliance has a future in any case, because none of the partners can undertake such a costly project as the Newsnetz alone. It also opens up the national advertising market.
Combining newspaper, radio and Internet
Hagemann now wants to expand the offering in a targeted manner, while at the same time increasing productivity. "In the area of the Bazonline.ch website, we want to break the offering down to community level, also so that communities can form," says Hagemann. The aim is to promote reader loyalty and anchoring in the region with local editorial offices. In addition, the publisher wants to conduct an in-depth analysis of the Basler Zeitung to determine readers' expectations and examine the organization and structures, also with regard to the planned cooperation and the associated synergy between the various news channels print, Internet and radio.
The flagship Basler Zeitung, the free newspaper Baslerstab, Bazonline.ch and Radio Basel 1 are to be brought together in a kind of "newsroom". "Our aim is to create a central desk where current events are discussed during the day and where decisions are made on which channel to use for the news," said Hagemann. However, the extent to which radio can be included will depend on the license and the conditions attached to it - if it is then awarded again by DETEC.
No Sunday newspaper planned
When asked whether he was planning a Sunday newspaper or so-called seventh edition, as all major media companies in Switzerland will soon be doing, Hagemann replied in the negative. "We don't think another Sunday newspaper is a viable business model". Nevertheless, he does not categorically rule it out. We want to observe the development of the others. "In addition, Basler Zeitung Medien has already launched enough projects that involve a certain amount of risk. We don't want to overload the cart."
Clear strategy against Wanner's invasion
There is, of course, the problem with the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung (Bz). Hagemann does not believe that Peter Wanner's commitment to the Bz will be successful, an act that Basler Zeitung Medien simply regarded as an invasion of AZ Medien's home turf: "In my opinion, it makes no economic sense. As far as the advertising market and the economic area are concerned, Basellandschaftliche belongs to us. Peter Wanner hardly generates any major additional income, but has additional expenditure, I suspect."
In addition to hoping that Wanner will be shipwrecked with the Basellandschaftliche, Basler Zeitung Medien is also pursuing a clear strategy: "We are also distributing the commuter newspaper News in the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung's home region," said Hagemann. "And we already doubled our regional reporting in 2006. Last but not least, a large edition of the Basler Zeitung is published every Friday with 90,000 additional copies, which are delivered to all households in Baselland that do not subscribe to BaZ." It remains to be seen whether the strategy will be successful. (elk)
(Image: Keystone)

The Christian family channel Bibel TV wants to establish a family of channels. A Christian children's channel and a preaching channel are planned, as the media messenger announced in a press release on Thursday.
The expansion phase began with the spin-off for young viewers "Tru: Young Television". This was launched in December 2007.
After six years on air, Managing Director Henning Röhl takes stock. Bibel TV is the only TV channel in Germany that is supported directly by donations from its viewers.
Röhl is not pleased about planned future competition, Medienbote writes further in the press release. A TV channel of the Bibel-TV shareholder Evangeliums-Rundfunk is planned for spring 2009. He is also skeptical about the future prospects of other planned Christian TV channels, such as Trinita TV and C-TV.

The series is starting to take hold," says a delighted Gabriel Peisker. For around a year now, the CD of the Biel-based agency Erdmannpeisker and his team have been using interactive advertising instead of one-way communication for their client Mammut. To launch the idea, an employee event was organized "as a test for the next steps". Everyone from the telephone operator to Marketing Manager Michael Gyssler was allowed to spend a night in a Mammut sleeping bag on the glacier. The event was captured on film and in photos. The creative team at the advertising agency later used these documents to design advertisements, brochures, leaflets, inserts in suitable print media and the new website. Soon afterwards, a "laundry test" for customers was advertised on the website. 800 "real fans of Mammut" responded. 200 were selected in the casting and were allowed to pose in their underwear at the foot of the Eiger. The proud memory "I was there" developed into important word-of-mouth propaganda in mountain sports circles. The pictures from the event were in turn used to create new advertising material.
To the making-of film
In the meantime, a third event has already been held. The Little Camel on the Furka has been climbed by 25 professional mountain guides in Raichle boots. They were able to see for themselves that the famous Raichle boots have not deteriorated since the traditional company and its entire workforce were taken over by Mammut three months ago. Since then, the shoes have been sold under the Mammut brand. "This positive assessment from the experts was very important to Mammut and to us," explains Peisker. Mountaineers are not so easily seduced by advertising. Their equipment is also a matter of faith. And with such advertising campaigns, realized in real self-experimentation, Mammut gains exactly the credibility it wants.
Opinion leaders as a target group
The mountain guides then pass the message on to their customers. A concept that has worked. "The campaign is well known in the mountaineering scene and has become a much-discussed topic," says Peisker. The idea has also been positively analyzed in the NZZ under the all-important title "Between alpinism and trend for the masses". There was a report in Schweizer Illustrierte about the adventure of this advertising. The events are made even more attractive for participants with celebrities from the outdoor scene. The supporting program and the ingredients of the gourmet picnics can be voted on the website. There is also a photo competition on the website for post-processing the customer file.
Another customer event is planned for January 2009, followed by a retailer event with backpacks.
Andreas Panzeri

Cooking tips for the whole of German-speaking Switzerland: The program Kochen.tv will also be broadcast on Tele Bärn from October 1, 2008. Kochen.tv can now be seen throughout the German-speaking region. To date, Kochen.tv has been shown on Tele Züri, Tele Top, Tele Südostschweiz, Tele M1 and Tele Tell.
The weekly magazine Kochen.tv has been produced for almost two years and, according to the Schlieren-based production company Primetime, has so far reached an audience of over 350,000 people per week. The cooperation with Tele Bärn will now further increase the potential audience. No information was provided on the actual viewer figures.
Kochen.tv is presented by Joël Gilgen. Every week, he assists chef Meta Hiltebrand in the preparation of dishes, gets advice from wine expert Kathrin Hodel and presents decoration and design suggestions together with Sabina Sommer.

ViznerBorel has upgraded. The Zurich-based agency announced three new appointments on Wednesday. Gian Andrea Maurizio as art director and consultants Patricia Tschumi and Nina Böhi have joined the team of the Samariterstrasse-based advertising agency. The agency, which works for clients such as Heineken, Austrian Airlines and Ikea, now has 12 employees.