The communications agency Stahelpartner has relocated: it is now based where Peter Lesch and Reinhold Weber were previously based, namely at Weinbergstrasse 29/31 in Zurich. The move also marks the beginning of a cooperation between Stahelpartner, Lesch+Frei and Büro Reinhold, according to a press release. At the new location, the agency will have the entire orchestra of communication at its disposal under one roof: strategic planning, copywriting, art direction, consulting, production, FFF, desktop publishing. Stahelpartner is the agency of copywriter/conceptual designer Mark Stahel and art director Alfred Burkard. Stahel counts Lesch+Frei, Aebi&Partner, GGK Basel and Zurich as well as Lowe among his professional stations. Burkard worked at the advertising agency FCB in Stockholm, at DDB in New York and at GGK Basel and Zurich as well as at Lowe. The agency manages various mandates for AMAG Automobil- und Motoren AG, the Shopville-RailCity Zurich shopping center, the Carey Olsen Group's "Sorbes" project and Zett-Meyer Schmuck und Uhren.

 The editorial management of the radio magazine is being replaced: Marcel Nusskern will be replaced by 36-year-old Claudine Gaibrois from July 1. Nusskern will take up a new position in the media industry, the magazine announced in a press release on Friday. His successor, who holds a doctorate in political science, has been working as an editor at the radio magazine since the beginning of 2007. She has been working for the magazine as a freelancer since 2000. Stefan Christen also joined the editorial team on July 1. The 44-year-old from Lucerne most recently worked for K-Tipp. Before that, Christen worked for Radio DRS's Regionaljournal Zentralschweiz and as a freelance cultural and news journalist.

 The Association of Public Relations Agencies in Switzerland has gained an agency from French-speaking Switzerland as a full member for the first time. Cohn & Wolfe, which has been operating in Geneva since 2001, is a new member of the association. The agency is part of the Young & Rubicam network and focuses on building and maintaining internationally recognized brands. It is primarily active in the areas of corporate, B2B, B2C, technology and healthcare communications. In a press release, BPRA President Peter P. Knobel is delighted about the eighteenth full member and the fact that the association now also has a full presence in French-speaking Switzerland.

 New fuss about Saatchi & Saatchi Simko winning lions for the Voltaren campaign. Because the Saatchi & Saatchi agencies in Frankfurt and Milan were involved in the campaign, according to German media reports, they now also want to receive lions for it. The work was submitted by the Geneva agency, which is why it was previously assumed that it alone would receive the awards. However, this apparently does not suit the German creative director Burkhard von Scheven, as reported by the industry services Horizont.net and Werben & Verkaufen. He has been assured by the organizers in Cannes that up to three agencies can be named for one work. And the original idea for the campaign came from the creative agencies in Milan and Frankfurt, von Scheven told W&V. Saatchi & Saatchi Simko CEO Kaspar Loeb had described the campaign to Werbewoche as the "result of a cooperation" (see
). According to Loeb, the responsible and leading creative director was Olivier Girard from Saatchi & Saatchi Simko. It is still unclear whether Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt's wish will be fulfilled and whether they will also be awarded Lions in the Press and Outdoor categories. A corresponding inquiry by Werbewoche to the press people in Cannes remained unanswered for the time being. However, in the winners' list on Canneslions.com, the Milan and Frankfurt agencies are already named as the agencies responsible for the Voltaren campaign alongside Saatchi & Saatchi Simko. If this is confirmed, the case would probably set a precedent: in future, several branches of network agencies could always claim awards for the same campaign. Agencies that are not part of a network would hardly be pleased.

 Swiss agencies entered eight entries in the Titanium & Integrated category. However, the Swiss agencies were denied success in this category, which is considered the supreme discipline alongside the Film Lions: they did not win any of the 33 shortlist places awarded by the jury. Worldwide, 432 works were submitted for Titanium & Integrated.

 Ex-Swissfirst boss Thomas Matter filed a lawsuit against NZZ am Sonntag last year for its reporting on the merger of his former bank with Bank am Bellevue. He is still prepared to see the case through to a court ruling, he told Bilanz. Matter is demanding ten million francs in damages. However, he had reached an out-of-court settlement with Blick and Sonntagsblick: The two papers had apologized to him prominently and given him the opportunity to present his side of the story in interviews. Felix E. Müller, editor-in-chief of the NZZ am Sonntag, recently told the Sonntag newspaper that no settlement with Matter was being sought: The intention was to prove the accuracy of the account in court, he said. Matter himself holds shares in the NZZ publishing house. However, he is not planning to increase his stake to more than one percent, he told Bilanz. The NZZ stake is not a strategic investment of his company Matter Group, but he holds it privately. He has been a shareholder in the publishing house for some time and does not want to harm it with his million-euro lawsuit. "But as a citizen, you can't put up with everything," says the financier. He wants to defend himself against what he sees as an unjustified campaign. It was about the reporting at the time in its entirety, not just about individual articles (see
).

 On Friday, the Press Council commented on a complaint from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The SDC had intervened against Weltwoche's reporting in connection with a series of articles on Swiss aid in Sri Lanka following the tsunami. The Swiss Press Council ruled that Weltwoche had not breached any journalistic obligations because it had not consulted Deza representatives before publication despite serious accusations.Weltwoche published a series of articles in July and August last year in which it took a critical look at Swiss aid in Sri Lanka after the tsunami. Among other things, the paper accused Swiss aid money of being siphoned off into corrupt projects.
In its complaint, the SDC criticized the fact that its director Walter Fust and deputy director Toni Frisch were accused of corruption without having heard them beforehand. A statement from the SDC on the accusation was missing from the article.
According to Weltwoche, prior questioning was not necessary because there was no so-called serious accusation. In addition, the allegations in a second article were not new, so a new hearing was not necessary.
The Press Council does not share the SDC's view that Weltwoche had portrayed SDC, Fust and Frisch as complicit in corruption. Furthermore, the accusations had already been made in the first article. However, Weltwoche would have done well to hear the Deza managers again, even if it had not been obliged to do so, the supervisory body continues.

 After 100 years, the well-known Swiss hiking boot brand Raichle is finally disappearing from the shelves. Starting with the 2009 summer collection, Raichle shoes will be sold under the Mammut name, company spokeswoman Katharina Habermann said in response to an article in Friday's Mittelland-Zeitung. With this step, the Swiss mountain sports specialist Mammut wants to simplify its marketing, she said. The Mammut brand is better known overall than the Raichle brand, Habermann added.This decision brings to an end the turbulent history of the traditional brand. In 1995, the Thurgau-based manufacturing company Raichle had gone bankrupt. The brand name was then taken over by the Austrian Kneissl Group. The latter ceased production of Raichle shoes in Kreuzlingen in 2000. Three years later, the brand passed back into Swiss hands when Mammut took over the brand rights as well as employees in development, design and marketing from Kneissl.

 
Interesting new appointment at Edipresse: The position of deputy editor-in-chief at 24 heures is being filled by an experienced man. The Lausanne-based publisher has appointed Federico Camponovo with immediate effect. He already held this position from 1989 to 1992 and from 1998 to 1999. As Cash Daily reported on Friday, Camponovo succeeds Xavier Alonso, who is moving to Bern as a correspondent for 24 heures and the Tribune de Genève.

 Despite a slump in real estate advertising, the advertising revenues of the Swiss press changed only slightly in May. They fell by 0.3 percent to 183.3 million Swiss francs compared to the same month last year, and as Wemf reported on Friday, income from real estate ads fell drastically by 22 percent to 6.9 million Swiss francs. Job advertisements, on the other hand, increased by 9.8 percent to 24.7 million francs.
The increase in commercial advertising amounted to 1.5 percent to 144.2 million francs. Brochure inserts fell by 28.7 percent to CHF 7.4 million.
Developments varied greatly depending on the type of media, ranging from a drop of 9.7% for the regional weekly press to an increase of 7.2% for the Sunday press. The daily press increased by 0.9% to CHF 98.1 million.

 The Press Council also rejects Merck's complaint on lengthy grounds. The American pharmaceutical company had complained that the article "Merck hopes promising Aids drug will pay" in the Swiss Handelsblatt, which was taken over by the Wall Street Journal, contained false information that was damaging to business and competition. The article, published on October 12, 2007, begins with the sentence: "Merck could soon open a new chapter in the fight against AIDS if the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves Isentress." The stumbling block was the fact that the drug had already received FDA approval at the time and had already been launched on the American and Mexican markets, and Handelsblatt apologized for the error and printed a corrective. But that was not enough for Merck. The company therefore insisted that the correction also appear on the homepage and be sent to a number of news agencies.
The Press Council has now ruled that this was not necessary. The Handelszeitung should have added a separate note to the contractually required, unchanged reprint of the article with the information that the US authorities had approved the drug in the meantime. The fact that the respondent failed to do so because it did not clarify the current status of the approval process before reprinting the article is a shortcoming, but does not constitute a breach of the duty to tell the truth or a false processing of sources.
The Handelszeitung's error is classified by the Press Council as trivial. It even goes so far as to criticize the complainant Merck for its harsh action against Handelsblatt. It had overshot the mark with its protest. Where reactions to a minor error are so disproportionate, the concern of reporting, which is worthy of protection, suddenly turns into an attack on the freedom and independence of media professionals, the Press Council writes in a reprimanding tone.

 The SRG Audience Council particularly appreciates the added value that the news magazine program «10 vor 10» on Schweizer Fernsehen (SF) offers in addition to the daily news broadcasts. The program’s approach to topics is occasionally criticized. There is a risk of repetition and the impression that viewers have already heard or seen the same—or at least similar—content before. For this reason, the program should increasingly seek «different approaches» to topics. The audience for «10 vor 10» ranges from well-informed viewers to those who consume news late in the evening. According to the Audience Council, reliable user data is needed to meet the needs of as many viewers as possible within this diverse audience.
«Euro 2008 – at Noon» Is Too Long The Audience Council is generally satisfied with the sports magazine program «Euro 2008 – at Noon.» As with «10 vor 10,» the hosting is described as competent and audience-friendly, and the mix of topics is informative. However, the Viewers’ Council would have preferred a shorter broadcast time. It goes on to say that the discussions with guests are given too much weight and sometimes drag on. In addition, the Council regrets that the match recaps and analyses make little use of modern technical image and graphics capabilities.