Publisuisse subsidiary Mediasense has been given the green light for radio marketing by the Swiss Competition Commission (COMCO). "There are currently no more investigations underway", confirmed Competition Commission spokesperson Patrik Ducrey to Werbewoche in a report by Kleinreport. "In our opinion, there are currently no abusive practices". The only open question at the moment is whether there is cross-subsidization between SRG, Publisuisse and Mediasense. The ComCo wants to examine this together with the Federal Office of Communications: "We still have to clarify with Bakom what the responsibilities are here", says Ducrey. A decision is expected in two or three months. The Competition Commission had dealt with the marketer because the Publigroupe subsidiary Radiotele and the Goldbach subsidiary IP Multimedia had filed a complaint against the new marketing model of the Swiss Radio Pool (SRP). Publisuisse was said to dominate the market and to be abusing its position by offering low prices for the placement of radio advertising and requiring bookings to be made via the Publiplan booking system. The Competition Commission had already refrained from taking precautionary measures in October, but this did not mean that Mediasense was off the hook (see
).

 The Ewz.Selection photography platform (formerly The Selection Vfg) and the Association of Photographic Designers (Vfg) are awarding the Swiss Photography Prize for the tenth time. It is now endowed with the Ewz.Selection Award of CHF 15,000 as well as other category prizes. Anyone wishing to take part in the competition must register by Monday, January 14. The entry forms are available at Ewzselection.ch. Pictures can also be uploaded later, but no later than January 21.

For a new price comparison campaign by Sunrise Business, the Zurich advertising agency Brot und Spiele (Bread and Games) has strikingly implemented the fact that many corporate customers could save money on mobile telephony: With business people on the phone, holding unfolded wallets to their ears instead of (flip) cell phones. According to the agency, many corporate customers pay too much for mobile telephony and could save up to 40 percent by switching. The campaign comprises five different subjects, ranging from individual companies to large corporations. They can be seen as advertisements, posters and cross-media. The photographs were taken by Diego Alborghetti, a Swiss national living in Paris.
Responsible at Sunrise (Business):
Roberto Arias, Marco Wermelinger. Responsible for Bread and Games: Markus Läubli, Thomas Campolongo, Urs Schwander. Photography: Diego Alborghetti (DS Photographers).

 Roger Schawinski's station Radio 1 will start broadcasting on Monday at 10 am. Radio Tropic, which has been broadcasting on the 93.0 Mhz frequency for twelve years, will cease broadcasting on this date. For the next two months, Radio 1 will initially only broadcast a test program under the title "Soundcheck". After completion of the new studios in Zurich, the station will officially launch on March 17. The Radio 1 team wants to create a program aimed at adults. Roger Schawinski comments on the launch: "It is a moving moment for me to launch another completely innovative radio project almost thirty years after the launch of Radio 24 from Pizzo Groppera." His new station is the first private radio station in Switzerland for a target group of 30 to 60-year-olds. In contrast to other population groups, this age group has so far
"grossly underserved by radio".

The Ruf Lanz management has appointed Gian Marc Juon as Client Service Director and Deputy Managing Director Consulting Michael Gassler as of January 1, 2008. Juon has been a senior consultant at the agency for around a year, advising important key accounts on brand management and strategy issues. According to Ruf Lanz, the promotion was made in recognition and appreciation of his work and to ensure the level of quality at consultancy level. Gassler and his new deputy Juon already know each other from their many years together at Exxtra Kommunikation. Juon is a federally certified communications manager and will in future devote more time to strategy tasks and new business projects in addition to his senior consultancy work on selected key accounts.

Lorenzo Mutti has been Creative Director at the new media agency Mitlinks since the end of 2007. Mutti previously worked as a freelance graphic designer, specializing in CI/CD development in cross-media projects. He also taught screen design, ergonomics/usability and front-end programming at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.

Just under a year ago, the German edition of Vanity Fair was launched to some fanfare. Its editor-in-chief Ulf Poschardt, who is also a columnist for Weltwoche, is now stepping down again. He is resigning at his own request, the publisher Condé Nast Verlag announced on Friday. No further reasons were given. Glamour editor-in-chief Nikolaus Albrecht will take over as interim editor-in-chief.
The German trade media are speculating as to how voluntary Poschardt's departure really is. Werben & Verkaufen reports that his chair was already shaking in the summer after the lifestyle magazine's initial difficulties. Vanity Fair now has a circulation of 172,000 copies sold. However, German media criticize the magazine's lack of relevance when compared to its international sister magazines.

 
The Swiss People's Party (SVP) has canceled its participation in the "Arena" show on Swiss television on Friday because it does not want to "celebrate superficial style discussions", as it wrote in a statement. The announcement of the "Arena" program literally stated that the SVP was in a "test of strength" and that they wanted to discuss the party's "poltergeist". The SVP was not prepared to take part in a program that was announced in such a tendentious manner. For this reason, according to SDA, SVP National Councillor Natalie Rickli and other SVP parliamentarians who were asked to take part in the program have cancelled their participation.

 Over the Christmas period, a "Tatort" crime thriller caused a stir because it criticized the Alevi community in Germany for being prejudiced. Now there is also resistance in Switzerland. The Federation of Alevi Communities in Switzerland has written to the Winterthur District Court. This is a program complaint in the "most generous interpretation", confirmed court clerk Hannes Winkler in a report in the Winterthurer Landbote on Friday. In the letter, the court is asked to examine the controversial "Tatort" episode.
The district court responded that the Federation should seek legal advice. Therefore, nothing is pending at the moment, Winkler continued. It is unclear whether the Alevi community in Switzerland will file a complaint: no one from the Winterthur-based umbrella organization could be reached by SDA on Friday.
The film with Maria Furtwängler as the inspector, which was broadcast on December 23, is about a case of incest in an Alevi family. In the film, the sister of a pregnant woman is killed because she wants to help solve the case. The Alevis, followers of a religious denomination of Islam, accuse the filmmakers of reviving and confirming age-old prejudices. The Berlin community filed a criminal complaint against those responsible for the thriller for incitement to hatred.

 
At the latest after it became known that Swisscom CEO Carsten Schloter and selected members of the Swisscom management have been using the iPhone on a trial basis since last October, Swisscom has been considered the favorite in the race for the exclusive distribution contract for the new Apple phone in Switzerland. A report on the iPod news portal iFun.de has now given this rumor a boost. A user there claims to have learned from a reliable source that Swisscom will launch live TV for the iPhone on February 29, 2008. That would mean: They are preparing for TV transmission to the iPhone. "Pure speculation, there is no basis for this," says Swisscom media spokesman Carsten Roetz to Werbewoche. The company is still interested in the exclusive contract, but no decision has yet been made. "And we don't want to take part in any speculation." Swisscom is still considered to have the best chance of winning the coveted contract with Apple in Switzerland, particularly due to its technical capabilities. Last year, Apple simply said that a sale was unlikely before the end of 2007.

Denise Bolle will become program director of the Biel radio station Canal 3 at the beginning of February, succeeding Nik Eugster, who moved to the Bernese radio station Capital FM in September. Bolle wants to ensure a stronger connection to the population at Canal 3 and strengthen the francophone program, as reported by the Bieler Tagblatt. The 39-year-old is an experienced radio broadcaster: from 1991 to 1995, she worked at Radio 32 in Solothurn, which had just been founded at the time. Bolle later moved to DRS 3, where she was a presenter and member of the editorial team. At DRS 3, she was also head of training and further education.
Canal 3 was owned by Espace Media for three years. In November, it sold the station to the Biel-based company Radio Bilingue (see
).

 
On Thursday, Switzerland's first online soap opera, "Liebe zum Glück," went live. The 14-part amateur production can be seen in weekly episodes, first on the website of the evening newspaper Heute, then a day later on the main website Liebezumglueck.ch. The kitschy love drama shows the trials and tribulations of 17-year-old Lara and 19-year-old David and is set in the hip Zurich shared flat milieu in the Langstrassen district. It is played by young amateur actors from Zurich, with guest appearances by local celebrities such as Mister Switzerland Tom Wielandt, Arjeta Zuta from Popstars and Playmate Andrea Vetsch.The soap was initiated by 24-year-old ethnology student Jenny Keller and 25-year-old Blick journalist David Locher. While the idea started as a purely private project with friends for Youtube, several sponsors are now on board, including Bluewin, the Zurich restaurant Hiltl and the free newspaper Heute. The poor quality in terms of production and acting is program in the soap opera. "We had no light, bad sound and just the two of us as filmmakers," the two initiators told Tages-Anzeiger. "Some of the actors are really bad ... really trashy now, and that's how it's supposed to be."