The Federal Council elections met with great interest from the TV audience on Wednesday morning. An average of 501,600 viewers watched the broadcasts from the Federal Palace on one television set. The audience market share amounted to 79.2 percent. This means that four out of five viewers watched the elections on SF. The SF homepage, where the broadcasts were shown live, recorded a record number of visitors: the website received 418,289 visits. It is still unclear how many people were waiting in front of the screen on Thursday morning for the decision of the elected Federal Councillor Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf. As usual, the figures will be collected by the morning of the following day.
SF has scheduled a special broadcast of "Classe Politique" with Widmer-Schlumpf for Thursday evening. She will be interviewed by Urs Leuthard.

 Last week, the Swiss Post subsidiary Publiposte invited agencies in Bern to a Töggeli tournament. 26 teams from 15 agencies and communication companies took part, including Freiburghaus & Partner, Neue LGK, Republica, Agentur 01 and Polyconsult. Druckerei Ritz took home the victory, beating a team from Republica in the end. Next year, the creative minds of Zurich and French-speaking Switzerland will probably also be able to compete in the Töggelen.

Claus Kleber, the most hotly tipped candidate for the position of Spiegel editor-in-chief, has turned the magazine down. He will remain director and chief presenter of the ZDF program "Heute-Journal". Kleber described the Spiegel offer as a great honor. However, after careful consideration, he had determined that his medium was television: "So it's not a decision against the most important print magazine, but for the best TV magazine," Kleber explained on his show's website.
ZDF Director General Markus Schächter is delighted with this decision: "Claus Kleber is the top man in German TV journalism. I am delighted that he is staying with us."
Kleber had received an offer from Der Spiegel to succeed Stefan Aust at the end of last week. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, this was followed by talks between ZDF and Kleber, in which his salary was also discussed. It is therefore open to speculation whether Kleber had his decision to stay with the "Heute-Journal" paid for.

 The Swiss Public Relations Institute (SPRI) and the Graubünden School of Tourism (HFT) are expanding their existing cooperation. Until now, prospective tourism professionals have been able to specialize in the field of communication at the HFT. According to a press release issued on Thursday, it is now possible to continue learning after the specialist training and graduate with a Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Corporate Communications with a focus on tourism.SPRI already offers the CAS in Corporate Communications together with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (HWZ). The HFT Graubünden is now adapting the existing offer for tourism professionals. The basic knowledge taught will remain the same, but the case studies will be related to tourism and the lecturers will also come from this sector.

Swiss TV personality Nik Niethammer is leaving the German channel Sat.1 at the end of the year. His departure is part of the restructuring of the management, Sat.1 announced (see ). Niethammer had been with the German broadcaster since 2004. Only last October, he was appointed editor-in-chief (see ). He was responsible for the magazines and news. In future, Sat.1 will have its own managing director for information, Torsten Rossmann.

 The new high-definition SRG channel HD Suisse is struggling with teething troubles. The channel is apparently experiencing regular picture interference on certain devices, as reported by 20 Minuten. According to an SRG helpdesk employee, some popular brands and manufacturers of HDTV receivers have problems processing the HD Suisse signal. SRG spokesperson Daniel Steiner told the commuter newspaper that individual customers are experiencing difficulties. These are being addressed together with the equipment manufacturers. The HD Suisse channel is intended to provide viewers with five times the screen resolution via satellite receiver or cable TV network (see ).

 News on the Internet is increasingly taking readers away from printed daily newspapers. This is the result of a study published on Friday in the journal Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft. The authors Castulus Kolo and Robin Meyer-Lucht report that they have succeeded for the first time in demonstrating a shift in usage between print and online.  
The two researchers examined the use of news websites and printed newspapers in the period between 2001 and 2006. According to Netzwoche.de, this showed that daily newspapers lose many loyal readers precisely where a strong shift towards the Internet as a news medium can be observed. This behavior is particularly pronounced among 25- to 34-year-olds and 35- to 44-year-olds. Among them, the proportion of regular readers of subscription daily newspapers fell from 50.5 to 37.4 and from 64.8 to 54.2 percent respectively between 2001 and 2006. During the same period, the proportion of intensive users of news websites rose from 7.9 to 14.2 and from 7.0 to 12.3 percent respectively.
 
According to the study, this development underlines the need for publishers to drive forward the digitization of their brands quickly and comprehensively. This is the only way they can retain the online news consumers that they are losing as newspaper readers.

 From December 13, 2007, Sunrise Mobile TV users will be able to watch Star TV on their cell phones free of charge. The offer can be used for an unlimited period of time and anywhere in Switzerland. This was made possible by the relaunch of the Sunrise mobile TV portal, according to a press release issued on Thursday. According to Paul Grau, CEO and main shareholder of Star TV, this is an important step towards the future. Following the IPTV expansion, Star TV can now cover a further network and thus also offer mobile entertainment.

 Ringier TV now has its own store on the Appple multimedia platform iTunes. All Ringier programs can be downloaded there free of charge as podcasts. A total of over 20 broadcasting channels with 400 episodes are available, as Ringier announced on Thursday. These include the programs produced for SF2/PresseTV and Sat.1 Schweiz/Pro7 Schweiz as well as Cashdaily and SI-Web TV, and the next step into the podcast future has already been initiated, it added. For Cash TV, Ringier TV is producing a special program in high-definition HDTV format for the first time. This program will be available in January 2008 as an HD postcast in a higher picture quality. The podcasts, which were initially intended for the iPod, will then be available in full-screen format.
 

 The digital marketing agency Planetactive is starting the new year with a new management structure. Andreas Jorgella, previously Managing Director at Planetactive Zurich, will hand over his position to Martin Sinning at the beginning of 2008 at his own request after seven years. He wants to take some time out and reorient himself, according to a press release issued on Thursday. Jorgella set up the Planetactive Zurich office in 2000, which today serves clients such as Migros, Swisscom and Travelhouse. Martin Sinning will take over responsibility for the two offices in Zurich and Vienna as Managing Director Switzerland and Austria. He was previously responsible for the agency's activities in Germany together with Stefan Längin.
In addition, the Planetactive Group, which is active throughout the German-speaking world, has announced another personnel change: Founder and CEO Matthias Kurwig will move to Neo@Ogilvy in New York as Chief Operating Officer (Worldwide) on January 1, 2008. From there, he will drive forward the further expansion of the network. Since its acquisition by Ogilvy, Planetactive has been part of Neo@Ogilvy, Ogilvy's digital marketing network. Kurwig was previously responsible for the network's activities in German-speaking countries. Stefan Längin will take over this position at the beginning of the year.

 In an interview, Swisscom CEO Carsten Schloter acknowledges the numerous problems with Bluewin TV, his company's digital television service. A quarter of customers are still experiencing technical problems, he told the French-speaking Swiss newspaper Le Temps. It even happens that the television picture is impaired when the washing machine is in use at the same time. According to Schloter, the problem is due to the inadequate quality of the Internet cable. From now on, Swisscom will only accept customers for whom the service works perfectly.
The telecommunications group wants to connect the network with that of its Italian subsidiary Fastweb, which specializes in digital television. As Schloter said, this will enable cost savings of CHF 300 million.

In Winterthur, the free newspaper euphoria spills over into the weekend: The Stadtblatt will soon be published on Sundays, free of charge and with a circulation eleven times higher. As of January 6, the Stadtblatt Winterthur will no longer be published on Thursdays, but on Sundays. The previous subscription price of 150 francs is no longer applicable, and the newspaper will now be distributed free of charge to every household. Accordingly, the circulation increases from 4,377 to 460,00 copies. The Winterthur Stadtblatt thus becomes the first free Sunday newspaper in German-speaking Switzerland - with home delivery to boot. Whether this heralds a new era in the Sunday market remains to be seen. It was not financial need that prompted Stadtblatt majority shareholder Guido Blumer to make the change. "The trigger was my age," he says. At 55, he said, he was taking stock of where he stood. And because it had always appealed to him to do a Sunday paper, he developed a concept and is now implementing it.
He has two goals in mind: His newspaper should be able to continue to exist without him one day. In addition, unlike in the past, it should be, if not indispensable, then at least interesting for the national advertising market. Blumer now expects around 70,000 readers. He is increasing the advertising price from currently 2328 to 3136 Swiss francs per 1/1 page four-color. However, Blumer will have to pay a tribute: In the future, his city paper will no longer be the publication organ of the city of Winterthur and the municipality of Seuzach. The new concept with a free Sunday newspaper does not meet the criteria of the city council, says a statement of the Winterthur government on Wednesday. In their eyes, an official publication organ should be a subscribed newspaper.
However, Blumer does not want to do without subscription income altogether. That's why he is setting up voluntary partnership subscriptions at 100 francs, which in turn entitle the holder to discounted purchases in 28 Winterthur stores.
Aiming for more volumeOther than that, however, little will change at the Sunday city paper. The tabloid format will be retained, and the editorial section will continue to do without colors. Only the logo has changed slightly: instead of being read from bottom to top, it now appears from top to bottom. And it is only half visible. In terms of content, Blumer's paper remains "a reflective weekly newspaper" that is likely to increase in size somewhat (to 48 pages), but remains true to itself and its left-liberal course. Commentary and cartoons will continue to kick off the front page, and there will be a weekly focus, arguments, opinions and an agenda. New is a contemplative column written alternately by a pastor, a rabbi or a Muslim woman. True to the intention of the publisher and the five-member editorial team, primarily to stimulate discussion and build bridges - even across party lines.
That the Stadtblatt exists is a minor miracle, given that it has to coexist with the daily Landbote and the weekly Stadtanzeiger Winterthur (majority-owned by Ziegler Druck) and Winterthurer Zeitung (Zehnder). But Blumer does not consider them competitors. "Because we're not into current affairs and news, nor are we into people and lifestyle," he says. At the time, the city paper evolved from Winterthur's AZ, which was published three times a week. In 1997, Blumer took over from the SP and turned the paper into a weekly. Blumer holds a 60 percent stake, and two other people each hold 20 percent.
Markus Knöpfli