The legal wrangling over Radio 1 continues: Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) has definitely decided to file a lawsuit against Roger Schawinski's Zurich-based station. The dispute revolves around the use of the station's name and the slogan "Only for adults". RBB wants Schawinski to either rename his radio station or stop broadcasting it on the Internet. RBB spokesman Ralph Kotsch confirmed at the request of the SDA news agency that the German public media company intends to take legal action. Schawinski had let the deadline set for him pass. The lawsuit is expected to be filed in one to two weeks. At the same time, Schawinski has asked the director of RBB for a meeting. This will take place on May 30 in Berlin (see ).

 The Zurich-based media agency ZipMedia has secured the entire media budget of Lucerne-based Emmi AG. The agency won the budget following a competitive presentation. The collaboration will begin this summer with the relaunch campaign for Toni im Glas, as ZipMedia announced.

 Sat.1 is passing the ball back and forth between the host nations for Euro 08: Sat.1 Austria and Sat.1 Switzerland are launching a joint soccer magazine. "KickOff" will be broadcast simultaneously in both countries from May 9. The show will be presented by a binational presenter duo consisting of Norbert Oberhauser and Claudia Lässer and will cover everything that happens off the pitch. The presenters visit the wives of the national team players, get up close and personal with the protagonists of Euro 2008 in intimate places and, of course, don't miss the opportunity to pit Austrian celebrities against their Swiss counterparts in a direct quiz duel: Miss Switzerland versus Miss Austria or Jörg Stiel versus Toni Polster. Instead, Sat.1 is relying on country exchanges: 31-year-old Austrian Norbert Oberhauser, presenter of the breakfast TV show "Café Puls", will report on his experiences in Switzerland for eight weeks from May 9. And Claudia Lässer, a Swiss of the same age and presenter of "Faces TV" and on Energy Zurich, will travel to the neighboring country to the east for the same period. The program is produced by Claudia Lässer (Trendscout GmbH) in collaboration with Norbert Oberhauser.

May 6 is World Asthma Day. The Lung League, in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, is using this day to raise awareness of the respiratory disease in Switzerland. The activities focus on the fact that for asthmatics, a small effort is a big effort. The advertising agency Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett has implemented this aspect of the disease in such a way that every non-asthmatic person can experience first-hand how sufferers fare. On the night of May 4/5, one of the stairs at Zurich Main Station, which lead from Shopville to Bahnhofstrasse, was transformed into a Mount Everest massif. Anyone who climbs it will understand that this basically easy effort can become a real feat of strength for asthmatics, as was reported in a press release. The staircase will retain its new look until May 11. The Lung League is also accompanying World Asthma Day itself with an information stand at the train station.
Responsible at AstraZeneca:
Maria-Teresa Fernandez; responsible at the Lung League: Ursula Luder. Responsible at Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett: Barbara Hutter (text), Matthias Babst (AD), Martin Spillmann (CD), Pam Hügli, Isabelle Meier, Tatjana Meichtry (consulting).

 
The Federal Council has appointed the current Deputy Director Véronique Gigon as Deputy Director of the Federal Office of Communications. She has worked at OFCOM since it was founded and, according to a press release issued on Monday, played a key role in setting up the office. 44-year-old Gigon, who is currently Deputy Director and Head of the Supervision and Radiocommunication Licenses Division, has a degree in law from the University of Neuchâtel, a license to practice law from the Canton of Neuchâtel and an MBA from the University of Geneva with a focus on e-business.
Gigon's professional career initially took her to a law firm and the Neuchâtel High Court. In 1992, she moved to Bakom as a research assistant and was appointed Vice Director in 1998. In addition to her work at the federal government, she is responsible for the legal module of the postgraduate course "Certificat Stratégie Marketing, Communication & E-Business" at the University of Geneva.

 
The Draftfcb/Lowe Group is announcing a change in management at the beginning of June. The Wallisellen-based communications agency, which operates on the market under the names Draftfcb and Lowe, intends to set the course for a successful future, according to a press release issued on Monday. The two previous Managing Partners Peter Leutenegger and Kurt Schmid are handing over the management of the agency group for strategic reasons following the completed merger of Draftfcb and Lowe in Switzerland. The new CEO will be 46-year-old Cornelia Harder, a trained advertising manager who has held positions in the investment and consumer goods industry on both the client and agency side and has more than ten years' experience in agency management. She was responsible for marketing communications at the umbrella organization of Swiss milk producers (SMP) and is regarded as the midwife of the advertising dairy cow Lovely. In 1995, Cornelia Harder crossed the Röstigraben to work for Publicis in Lausanne, where she looked after national clients such as Nestlé, L'Oréal and SwissLotto. After six years, she was asked to return to Zurich to take up the post of Managing Director. During this time, Cornelia Harder was also active in the industry associations BSW Leading Swiss Agencies as president and board member, as well as on the board of SW Schweizer Werbung. In the fall of 2005, she switched to media marketing at Publigroupe.
Their two predecessors will remain closely associated with the agency group. Founder Peter Leutenegger will remain Chairman of the Board of Directors, while Kurt Schmid will take on new tasks outside the Draftfcb/Lowe Group, but will remain associated with the agency. Together, they will ensure a smooth handover over the next few months.
According to the press release, the Draftfcb/Lowe Group recorded growth in fee income of over 140 percent in Switzerland in 2007 and doubled its workforce to over 60 employees during this period.

 
After a three-month tug-of-war, the software giant Microsoft has withdrawn its billion-euro takeover bid for the Internet company Yahoo. Both sides were unable to agree on a purchase price. According to SDA, Microsoft announced that Yahoo had not budged despite a recent further increase in its offer. With the purchase for the originally offered 45 billion dollars, the world's largest software provider wanted to break the dominance of its rival Google in online search and Internet advertising. However, Yahoo! demanded far more than 50 billion dollars. In its rejection, Microsoft also definitively ruled out a hostile takeover of Yahoo against the resistance of the management, which had been threatened several times.
 

 
Swiss Television SF has violated sponsorship regulations in its coverage of the America's Cup sailing regatta. This is according to a ruling by the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) published by the "NZZ am Sonntag". According to the ruling published on the Internet, SRG must pay the income generated to the federal treasury. The amount remains undisclosed. Specifically, OFCOM criticized the fact that the sponsorship logos on SF referred to the big bank's financial involvement in Alinghi and the America's Cup as well as to the UBS sponsorship of the special broadcasts. However, according to the RTVA, SF was only allowed to declare that the bank supported the special programs. SF had made promotional statements about the sponsor. The appeal period runs until May 24.
SF has already been reprimanded by the Independent Complaints Authority for Radio and Television (UBI) for its coverage of the America's Cup. The television station had engaged in surreptitious advertising, as the Alinghi logo was emblazoned on the presenter's microphone. The UBI criticized the presenter's credibility and wanted to prevent a precedent being set.
 

 
Due to a sex scandal involving transvestites in the Brazilian media, Brazil's football idol and AC Milan striker Ronaldo has lost a multi-million advertising contract and also his girlfriend. As the newspaper O Globo reported, citing the Brazilian mobile phone provider Tim, Tim's contract was terminated unilaterally. The 2002 world champion will lose three million US dollars by December alone. The contract was worth 4.8 million dollars a year. Tim had invoked a clause in the contract that provided for an end to the collaboration in the event of "image-damaging behavior". According to reports in the Brazilian media, Ronaldo is now also at risk of losing multi-million dollar contracts with sporting goods and beer companies, among others. According to SDA, the termination of his contract with Tim is the first "business" consequence of last week's scandal in Rio de Janeiro for the 31-year-old. He had already suffered a private consequence when his girlfriend Bia Antony dumped him after the media reports.

 
Although iPhones are not actually allowed to be sold in Switzerland because manufacturer Apple has not yet appointed an official dealer, a total of 40,000 devices are already in use at various telephone companies. According to an article in the Sonntagszeitung newspaper, 20,000 people are using the new Apple phone at Swisscom alone. The devices are sold by dealers in Switzerland, and all telephone companies offer a reduced sales price when a subscription is taken out. According to "Sonntag", Apple is not exactly pleased about the sale in the legal gray area. The company warns that unauthorized changes to the device could invalidate the warranty. The "unauthorized changes" refer to the unlocking (or "hacking") of the devices so that they can be used in Switzerland. According to legal experts, the company could confiscate devices not sold by an official partner in Switzerland. However, this is probably not being done for image reasons.
Apple is leaving it open as to when the phone will finally be officially available in this country. Market leader Swisscom is still the favorite to become the official seller in Switzerland. The iPhone is currently officially available in the USA, France, Germany, Austria, England and Ireland.
 

 
The elections for the mayoralty in London are over. The winner is the Conservative challenger Boris Johnson, and "Red" Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party has to step down. The result is not surprising, as perhaps nothing really is in connection with this rather decorative office, which after eight years of existence seems to have no other purpose than to amuse the people of Greater London. For in place of Livingstone, who has become increasingly verbally abusive in recent times, Johnson is now an at least equally burlesque political clown. And although this seems to be a prerequisite for a successful election, Tory party leader Cameron has appointed a PR consultant to Johnson because he felt his image was a little too tarnished. The PR consultant Lynton Crosby, who had already helped the conservative Australian politician John Howard to several election victories, had his hands full with the man with the extramarital affairs and the somewhat outdated knowledge of nations (he associated New Guinea with cannibalism and the killing of chiefs). He had to make a calm and serious statesman out of him, who was never punctual in a slightly aristocratic way, unerringly stepped into every politically incorrect blunder and sometimes seemed almost foolishly absent-minded. This in addition to a smear campaign against Livingstone, of course.
In any case, Johnson has now been elected. Whether because of or despite the image consultant is impossible to say. Perhaps London only elected him because he had added this ridiculous attempt to improve his image, which in his case was completely hopeless, to his previous performances. The city of Shakespeare still appreciates good theater.

 
Printbasel, which is taking place for the second time, will once again be presenting prints by various well-known painters this year. Exhibitors will be showing works by Pablo Picasso, David Hockney, Francis Bacon, Alexander Calder, Louise Bourgeois and Damien Hirst. The classic printmaking techniques of relief, intaglio, flat and screen printing, monotypes, hand-finished prints and prints produced by digital means and in small editions are permitted. The focus of Printbasel is on high artistic quality, as stated in the press release. It is therefore somewhere between a craft and art exhibition. According to the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung, it is a small gem among the numerous fairs that now flank Art Basel. It is open to art dealers, gallery owners, publishers and printers. It is organized by two Basel residents, Robert Schiess, art critic and exhibition organizer, and Armin Vogt, gallery owner and graphic designer. Printbasel will take place from June 3 to 8, 2008.