At 64.5 percent, the five Radio DRS stations achieved the highest market share last year since the current usage statistics were introduced in 2001. This was announced by Radio Director Walter Rüegg to the media on Thursday. According to DRS Editor-in-Chief Rudolf Matter, the new DRS 4 program started at a "high level" in November 2007, with the 24-hour information service currently reaching 330,000 listeners. This number of listeners was not expected in such a short time.
According to program director Christoph Gebel, DRS 1 with its redesigned program and Musikwelle also got off to a good start at the beginning of March. Musikwelle is mainly listened to via DAB digital radio. Rüegg noted that the number of sets sold had risen considerably in the last six months. In the conurbations, the expansion of the DAB network has been completed. According to his estimates, DAB should completely replace the FM network in 10 to 15 years.
Radio DRS intends to continue investing in the online sector despite the tight financial corset. The Internet has become an important complementary medium that can no longer be dispensed with, emphasized Rüegg.
Fee issue to be put on the table Financially, a deficit of 2.3 million francs was recorded last year. A loss is also expected in the current year. According to the radio director, Radio DRS is providing substantial additional services, although radio listening has become cheaper since 1995. Because the fees have not been adjusted to inflation for 13 years, Radio DRS has to make do with 4 percent less funding in real terms, said Rüegg. It is therefore clear to him that the question of fees must be "put on the table" within the next two to three years.

 Publicis has also made it onto the coveted shortlist of the American One Show Awards with two pieces of work: in print for Deli Power and on TV for the Supernanny spot for 3+. It will be announced in May whether it will be enough for gold, silver or bronze. The One Show Award is one of the most prestigious advertising festivals and is given the same weighting in Werbewoche's creative ranking as Cannes, D&AD or The Cup.

 The client list of Basel-based advertising agency Schneider, Berthoud now includes Bayer, Nationale Suisse and Cellpack. At Bayer, the agency is working on an over-the-counter product. Promotions for insurance products are on the agenda for Nationale Suisse. And for Cellpack in Waldshut-Tiengen, the introduction of a do-it-yourself product range in European DIY stores. According to the agency, the first work can be seen in early summer.

 The Wirz subsidiary Assai will in future communicate for the Weisse Arena Group's Rocksresort hotel project in Laax. According to the press release, Rocksresort is a hotel project that operates according to the "buy to use and let" principle. Assai is implementing various online and offline communication measures for this. During the sales phase, this includes developing the logo, designing and implementing the website including a film, creating the brochure, on-site posters, stationery and factsheets.

The interim editor-in-chief of Heute, Daniel Steil, is apparently moving to the Bild newspaper. Based on insider information, the German industry service Kress.de reports that he will take on the important position of head of entertainment at the German tabloid.
Steil is already familiar with Bild: he previously worked as a freelancer for Germany's largest newspaper and was a trainee at the Axel Springer School of Journalism. He has also held the role of Head of Entertainment at the Ringier newspaper Blick. He then moved to Abendblatt Heute as deputy editor-in-chief and took over as interim editor-in-chief when his predecessor Bernhard Weissberg was appointed head of Blick. However, Ringier recently announced that Steil will not be part of Blick am Abend, which is replacing Heute.
At the time, it was still said that Steil was in talks about a new job at Ringier. This now appears to be different. However, the publisher of Bild, Axel Springer, does not want to comment on this: "We do not comment on personnel speculation," said spokesman Tobias Fröhlich when asked by Werbewoche.

 On Wednesday evening, the Xaver.08 awards ceremony, which honors live communication projects in Switzerland, took place at the Kaufleuten in Zurich. The award returned to the show stage after a break of twenty months and presented two special prizes as well as five gold, four silver and four bronze awards. The "Xaver of the Year", awarded for the first time by the Expo + Event Swiss Association, went to the two Art on Ice pioneers Oliver Höner and Reto Caviezel. Another first was the award for the most popular project with the public. This prize went to Migros "Lilibiggs Kinder-Partys", which was realized by the Lucerne event and communications agency Premotion. Gold went to Dr. W.A. Günther / Frame Factory for Marketing Day 2007, Spillmann/Felser/Leo/Burnett for Dreamcard, Schneider, Berthoud Werbeagentur for the K2007 Düsseldorf project, Snap Event and Marketing Services for Hotel Paradiso and Fast Break for Sipuro Frühlingsputz.
The Xaver Gala was hosted by Michael Genähr, known from the German show "Quatsch Comedy Club". Laudators included "Glanz und Gloria" presenter Nicole Berchtold and SF newsreader Urs Gredig. The XAVER Gala was hosted by the well-known German Quatsch Comedy Club star Michael Genähr. According to the organizers, around 500 guests attended the awards ceremony and the subsequent party.
The Xaver Award Winners 2008 Category Best Live Communication Campaign
1st place: Spillmann/Felser/Leo/Burnett AG (Dreamcard project)
2nd place: W.P.P. Expo & Event (Project Antalis Papertour 2007)
3rd place: Premotion GmbH (Lilibiggs Kinder Party project)
Category Best Expo
1st place: Schneider, Berthoud Werbeagentur AG (Project K2007 Düsseldorf)
2nd place: Bellprat Associates AG (Project Opel - The Loops)
3rd place: Andreas Messerli AG (VSG natural gas project)
Category Best Event
1st place: Snap! Event and Marketing services GmbH (Hotel Paradiso project)
2nd place: Tanner Communications AG (TAG Heuer Motor Racing project)
3rd place: Unique Events & Incentives GmbH (Sihlcity opening project)
Category Best Promotion
1st place: FastBreak AG (SIPURO spring cleaning project, Oho!)
The 2nd and 3rd places were not awarded by the jury.
Category Best Supplier
1st place: Dr. W.A. Günther AG / Frame Factory (Project Marketing Day 2007)
2nd place: MIC Catering (BaselWorld project)
3rd place: Habegger AG (project 100 years of the National Bank)
Audience Award
Premotion GmbH (Lilibiggs children's party project)
Xaver of the Year
Reto Caviezel and Oliver Höner

 IP Multimedia (Switzerland) has concluded a contract for the placement of Tele Südostschweiz. The station, which has been in existence since 1999, provides daily information on events in Graubünden, the St. Gallen Rhine Valley and Glarnerland. IP Multimedia is thus expanding its TV portfolio in addition to the contracts already concluded with the regional TV stations Tele Züri, Tele Bärn, Tele Basel, Tele Ostschweiz, Tele Top, Tele M1 and Tele Tell, which operate in German-speaking Switzerland, as well as Léman Bleu in French-speaking Switzerland. As a result, the operator will be able to offer all important channels in the Swiss metropolitan areas, it announced on Wednesday.

 The two rivals Yahoo and Google are joining forces and testing a cooperation in online advertising. This is Yahoo's way of standing up to Microsoft, which is looking to take over the company. The planned test will last up to two weeks and is limited to a small part of the search ads on Yahoo's US website, the company announced. A maximum of three percent of all search queries will be included in the test. Both sides want to assess the business potential of a more comprehensive outsourcing of search-based advertisements from Yahoo to Google.
A close relationship with Google could help Yahoo to fend off a previously unwanted takeover by the software giant Microsoft. Microsoft immediately reacted to the plans with harsh criticism: a collaboration between the two companies could dramatically restrict competition.
A few weeks ago, Microsoft submitted a takeover bid for Yahoo, which the search engine company rejected. The trial run with Google alone is not a real obstacle to a sale of Yahoo to Microsoft, according to the US media. However, it could increase the pressure on Microsoft and show Yahoo shareholders that their company also has alternatives to a sale.

 In-game advertising (IGA) is booming, but nobody knows exactly whether and how advertising in computer games works. In a laboratory experiment, two professors from the University of Mainz have now been on the trail of the mystery. Using 75 players and a football simulation, they tested the effectiveness of virtual perimeter advertising, as the Hamburg magazine Medienwirtschaft reports. The results showed that users do remember the advertising on the sidelines, but that the interactivity of computer games leads to a reduced perception of the brands advertised in the game. The "basic problem" of interactivity arises with all games: because players influence the action in the game, their attention is more strongly tied to the location of the action than it would be if they were attending a real football match, for example. Instead of looking at the boards from time to time, the player's attention remains with the game. The study also shows that although in-game advertising is noticed, "the interactivity limits the players' attention", according to the authors Christoph Klimmt and Gregor Daschmann. Therefore, the players' attention processes must be fully taken into account when designing and placing IGA activities.
Overall, computer games have become a serious advertising medium worldwide. Intel and McDonald's, for example, reportedly paid two million US dollars each for their appearances in the game Sims Online. Daimler Chrysler's US division spent ten percent of its total advertising budget on computer games in 2006. Market research institutes assume that the revenue generated by in-game advertising worldwide will rise from around 182 million dollars in 2007 to almost 900 million dollars or even more in the next three years.
The study "Advertising in computer games: The importance of interactivity for cognitive advertising impact." is presented in detail in the current issue of Medienwirtschaft (issue 1/2008).

 Swiss Radio DRS is relocating: The youth radio station Virus will be relocated from Basel to Zurich by the end of 2009. The Virus employees are to move to the DRS3 environment, according to a communiqué issued on Thursday. The three music programs produced in Bern, Swiss Pop, Swiss Jazz and Swiss Classic, will also be broadcast from a different location in future. In line with the musical orientation of the stations, Swiss Pop will be integrated into the Zurich radio studio, while Swiss Jazz and Swiss Classic will move to the Basel radio studio.
Radio managers are pleased with the listening figures. Last year, the DRS stations achieved the highest market share of 64.5 percent since the current usage statistics were introduced in 2001. Swiss DRS radio is evidently meeting the tastes and quality expectations of the audience.

 The French-speaking Swiss publishing house Edipresse increased its net profit by 7.3 percent to CHF 32.3 million in 2007. This was partly due to the flourishing advertising business of the free newspaper Le Matin Bleu. Group turnover, on the other hand, fell by 8.1 percent to 814.6 million francs. This was due to the spin-off of some business activities, as the publishers 24 heures, Tribune de Genève and Le matin announced on Thursday. On a comparable basis, turnover would have increased by 3.7 percent.
At the operating level (EBIT), Edipresse generated CHF 59 million, an increase of 4.1 percent. According to the publishing house, the pressure on margins has increased further. At 2.1 percent, the newspaper business, with which Edipresse generated turnover of CHF 349.8 million, shrank the least. Two years after its launch, the free newspaper Le Matin bleu already has 469,000 readers. The advertising volume has increased by 50 percent compared to the previous year.
The magazine business declined by 6.6 percent in terms of sales, but is still one of the strongest contributors to sales at CHF 404 million. One of the highlights of the year for Edipress was the founding of the Spanish magazine publisher RBA Edipresse.
Business in Eastern Europe and Asia is also developing well, with sales growth of 25 percent. In Poland, for example, the people magazine Party has already achieved a circulation of half a million copies since its launch in the fall.

 Radio 1 is facing legal problems: Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) is getting serious and wants Roger Schawinski to either change the name of his station or take it off the Internet. Otherwise it will go to court. There is already a Radio eins under the umbrella of RBB, which, like Schawinksi, advertises with the claim "For adults only". "As long as Mr. Schawinski's station can be heard on the Internet in Germany, we are demanding that he change the name of the radio station," RBB spokesman Ralph Kotsch confirmed to Werbewoche in a report by Radio DRS. He has now been given a deadline until the end of next week to implement appropriate measures.
As there is competition from Radio 1's web radio in Germany, RBB is making three demands of Schawinski: firstly, he should change the name of the station, secondly, he should drop the claim "Only for adults" and thirdly, he should no longer use names such as "Radio 1 am Morgen", "Radio 1 am Vormittag" and "Radio 1 am Nachmittag". The alternative would be for Schawinski to cease web radio operations. If the former Sat.1 boss does not comply with these demands, RBB intends to take legal action.
The media man never denied that Schawinski had not invented the name and claim of his latest child himself. When the name was announced, he claimed that the German founder of Radio One, Helmut Lehnert, had given him the claim.
As Werbewoche reported last November, RBB does not share this view (see
). This is because Lehnert is now head of entertainment at RBB television and in no way authorized to give away the claim or name. "Mr. Schawinski is professional enough to know that," says spokesman Kotsch. Why did RBB take several months to respond to Schawinski? "We couldn't do anything until he was on air. And it simply took a few more weeks after the start of broadcasting," explains Kotsch. RBB has not yet received a response from Schawinski.Schawinski rules out name change Roger Schawinski finds RBB's demand "grotesque", as he said when asked by Werbewoche: "There are countless other stations worldwide with the name Radio 1, even in Germany there is a second Radio eins." He was very surprised by RBB's ultimatum and will now instruct his lawyer to respond to the German media company. Schawinski has had the name Radio 1 and the associated slogan protected in Switzerland.
Schawinski categorically rules out taking his web radio out of operation or even changing the name or claim. "I don't think it will come to a court hearing," says the media man. "I don't even know what RBB's problem is! We're not competing with their Radio eins either economically or in terms of listeners. I don't believe that people in Berlin listen to Swiss-German radio."