Zurich-based sports publisher Europa Medien has appointed 41-year-old Peter A. van der Touw as Commercial Director and member of the Executive Board. Van der Touw was most recently Managing Director at Euro RSCG Dialog and before that Managing Director at MRM Partners in Zurich. The communications manager will take over the finance and sales departments in the team of Ulrich Kühne-Hellmessen, the founder of the sports publisher and former head of sports at Blick. According to a press release on Tuesday, the sports publisher intends to pursue its international ambitions with this appointment. The German Football League (DFL) has had all its print products produced by the Swiss publishing house since 2005. For the past year, it has also been publishing the football magazine Eurosoccer and, more recently, the quarterly magazine GCLife of the Grasshoppers Zurich football club. Founded in 2003, the company already has a turnover of around CHF 5 million.

 
The Zurich agency Scholtysik Niederberger Kraft (SNK) is working with the pension service provider B+B Vorsorge to develop the future brand strategy and positioning as well as a new visual and communicative presence. According to a press release issued on Tuesday, the reason for the renewal is rapid growth and the expansion of the range of services in the pensions sector, which requires the brand strategy and brand identity to be adapted to the new circumstances. Since November 1, B+B has been presenting itself with a new logo and claim as well as a new image. SNK developed the strategic positioning, brand architecture and brand design concept for B+B. All communication materials are now being gradually redesigned on this basis. Targeted market development is to follow in 2008. According to the press release, the new image is characterized by the use of visual elements in the style of concrete art.

 The Central Swiss commercial printer Multicolor Print acquires the print division of BuchsMedien. The employees will be taken over, the name BuchsMedien will be retained and the production facility in Buchs will continue to operate. With the takeover by the LZ Medien subsidiary Multicolor Print, BuchsMedien once again becomes a complete print shop: after the Buchs printing division ceased print production on its own machines for economic reasons following the restructuring at the end of 2005, the company can now once again offer the complete production of graphic products. According to a press release, the merger of the Buchser printing division and Multicolor Print will enable strengths to be concentrated and synergies to be exploited in future. In addition, the independent key account management in Buchs will continue to be available to customers and partners for the optimization of production processes.

 
As of January 3, 2008, there will be a change in the national sales team of the Tages-Anzeiger: 33-year-old Oliver Pargätzi will replace Isabelle Kropf as Key Account Manager, who is moving abroad for personal reasons. Pargätzi most recently worked at Publisuisse, before which he worked in the print industry for many years. The Sonntagszeitung sales team has been complete again since the beginning of November. The 30-year-old Thomas Frei succeeds Adriano Valeri, as Tamedia reported on Tuesday. Frei is a proven print specialist and most recently worked as area sales manager at Ringier Zeitungen and before that in various marketing and sales functions at Tamedia.
    

Oliver Pargätzi, Thomas Frei

 There is interest in Web 2.0, but it is being used cautiously. This is the result of a study conducted by Bernet PR and MAZ - the Swiss School of Journalism. For the first time, it shows the extent to which German-speaking Swiss companies, administrations and NGOs use communication tools that can be subsumed under the keyword Web 2.0. Reading weblogs has clearly established itself: Two thirds of respondents do this as part of their business activities. Specialist blogs, journalistic blogs and consumer blogs are clearly in the foreground. Three quarters never write comments and only 12.2 percent run a blog themselves. Only 7.9 percent provide bloggers with media releases and only 3.4 percent invite them to media conferences.
More than half of the Swiss-German organizations surveyed offer online subscriptions for their current content. 45.1 percent rely on e-mail subscriptions, 13.4 percent on the new RSS application. Public administrations are the pioneers here: a remarkable 42 percent of RSS mentions fall into this area.
A quarter of Swiss-German organizations allow web comments and a quarter plan to do so. The proportion of those that invite visitors to upload content to their own website is low: 6.9% allow the uploading of texts, images or videos. By contrast, 45.7% already offer video podcasts and 37.8% audio podcasts.
Almost half of Swiss-German companies, administrations and NGOs follow web content very closely. Of these, two thirds search daily. 60.1 percent search internally using search engines, RSS subscriptions or special software.
Very few companies, administrations and NGOs post their own images, videos or bookmarks on public platforms such as YouTube or Flickr. Just under ten percent do this with videos, 7.3 percent with photos and 4.9 percent with bookmarks. This means that this Web 2.0 dialog form appears to be less suitable for the communicative goals of the respondents. 91.5 percent state that they are neither present in virtual worlds such as Second Life, nor do they plan to be in the future.
Collaboratively managed knowledge pages have also gained acceptance in everyday business life: 12.5% of those surveyed use wikis, 10.6% for internal communication. And a further 12.5 percent are planning to introduce one in the next two years.
The results are based on an online survey of the largest Swiss companies, administrations and NGOs with a representative sample of 104 respondents.

Beobachter editor-in-chief Balz Hosang will assume overall journalistic responsibility for all activities of the consumer magazine in spring 2008. He is handing over the editorship at his own request at this time. A new editor-in-chief will be appointed in the coming months.
In addition to the Beobachter title, Hosang's future area of responsibility will also include the journalistic management of the compact supplements, the advisory center, online activities, the book publishing house, media partnerships and new projects.
Following the relaunch in March, the Beobachter is aiming for further growth in all areas, which requires broad support from the operational management, according to a statement from the publisher Axel Springer Schweiz. According to the publisher, various editorial and consulting projects are about to be launched. In addition to the Beobachter magazine and the consulting center, an independent team is also being set up for the "Compact Supplements and Line Extensions" division.
According to Ralph Büchi, CEO of Axel Springer Switzerland, Balz Hosang will be responsible for continuity, journalistic quality and optimal networking of all activities in this growth process.
In addition to the new editor-in-chief, other positions in the management structure will also be filled in the coming months. Roland Wahrenberger, member of the Group Management of Axel Springer Switzerland, will continue to head the Beobachter publishing house. Balz Hosang will remain a member of the extended management of Axel Springer Switzerland in his new function.

 Swisscable, the association of Swiss cable TV companies, is of the opinion that Internet TV providers are benefiting one-sidedly from the network infrastructure of cable TV companies. This is increasingly leading to capacity bottlenecks on the networks, association president Hajo Leutenegger was quoted as saying in a press release on Tuesday. In principle, however, Swisscable does not view Zattoo & Co. as competition: "We see Internet television as a supplement to the cable TV offering," said Leutenegger. Due to the strain placed on the network infrastructure by Internet television, Swisscable will analyze in the coming months whether and what concrete measures are possible. "We are in no way trying to attack Zattoo or YouTube," Swisscable Managing Director Claudia Bolla-Vincenz emphasized to Werbewoche. "We simply want to find out how we can best handle data traffic." Bolla-Vincenz compares it to traffic on a highway: "There is also the slow lane and the fast lane, and not everyone can drive in the same lane". Solutions in cooperation with Internet TV providers are an option for Swisscable. "In France, for example, a portal has been created for Internet TV services that can be accessed by those customers who wish to do so," explained Bolla-Vincenz.
It is important to the association that customers receive the offer that they actually use and are not restricted in their network capacity by other services. It is therefore conceivable that there could be specific offers for those users who receive Internet television. According to Bolla-Vincenz, customers would not necessarily have to pay extra for this. It remains to be seen when a possible solution could be implemented.
"We are open to talks," said Dominik Schmid, responsible for German-speaking countries at Zattoo. The company is fundamentally aware of the problem that Internet TV requires large amounts of data. "From a consumer perspective, however, it certainly doesn't make sense to completely exclude individual services. If a cable network provider were to do this, we believe it would quickly become clear whether customers would appreciate it," said Schmid. The industry would have to find a solution that takes all services into account. Zattoo would be happy to discuss this with the cable network providers. No official talks have yet taken place.
 

Carole Scheidegger
 

 
The Tamedia subsidiary Espace Media Groupe has sold two thirds of the bilingual local radio station Radio Canal 3 in Biel/Bienne to Radiobilingue. Radiobilingue is a company owned by several companies and personalities from Biel/Bienne and had been known for some time as an interested buyer (see: A Biel network for Canal 3
). Espace will retain a stake of around one third in the broadcaster. The new Board of Directors of Canal 3 is made up of five members of Radiobilingue and one representative of Espace. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price, according to the press release. Radio Canal 3 became the property of Espace at the end of 2004, which subsequently invested considerable resources in the renewal of the technical infrastructure and in the repositioning of the successful bilingual local station. Today, Canal 3 reaches 51,000 German-speaking and 48,000 French-speaking listeners in the broadcasting area every day. Canal 3's French-language program was voted "Radio of the Year" by the industry this year.
The sale of the radio station by Espace Media Groupe is based on the new Radio and Television Act, which came into force on April 1, 2007 and does not allow any provider to hold more than two radio licenses. Espace Media Groupe and Tamedia, which completed their merger on October 1, 2007, jointly held four licenses: Radio 24, Radio Basilisk, the capital city radio station Capital FM and Canal 3. Espace was therefore forced to sell the majority shareholding in one radio station. Tamedia, for its part, recently sold Radio Basilisk.

 Concern about the climate has prompted the Swiss Printing Industry Association (VSD) to take concrete measures. It has entered into a partnership with the climate protection consultant ClimatePartner and wants to encourage the printing industry to print in an environmentally friendly way. Interested print shops can calculate their CO2 emissions using a calculation method from ClimatePartner, which is supported by the VSD. The method takes into account the different circumstances of each company in a process-oriented approach. In this way, print stores can independently create emissions balances for print products, the basis for implementing a climate-neutral print product. "The calculation result tells the print shops how much they need to offset. It examines the entire process, not just individual products," explained VSD project manager René Theiler. Print shops with a poor energy balance have to pay higher compensation in line with their consumption.
Theiler emphasizes that the VSD initiative is not limited to a mere "indulgence trade", i.e. compensation payments. If a company wants to receive the "climate-neutral printing" certificate, it must undergo an energy audit. This also provides all the necessary information for the implementation of energy efficiency measures. "To make it transparent which print shops are doing well in terms of climate protection, we will publish the names of exemplary companies on our website in future," explained Theiler.
VSD is also active in the field of environmental protection with an eco-rating system. This system covers various ecological topics that will be relevant for print shops and their customers in the future. From February 2008, it will be available to print customers as a basis for decision-making. Components of the eco-rating include the "climate-neutral printing" process, the "Winergie-Check", FSC certification and the ISO 14001 environmental management system. Together with partners in this project, VSD will be providing information on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 from 5 p.m. at the Blumenhalle Eventhall & Lounge, Zurich-West, about the opportunities and the right way to achieve the goals. The event is free of charge, interested parties can obtain information from VSD, phone 031 351 15 11, René Theiler.

 The Atlantis publishing house and animator Ted Sieger have been awarded this year's Swiss Children's and Youth Media Prize. The non-fiction series "Atlantis Thema" was awarded in the "Books" category. It takes children's curiosity seriously, according to a communiqué from the Swiss Institute for Children's and Youth Media (SIKJM). The publisher is committed and takes an "innovative approach" in terms of presentation and choice of subject matter.The award in the "Non-Book" category goes to filmmaker Ted Sieger. His animated Christmas film "The Fourth King", which is available on DVD, was praised as "warm-hearted and humorous" in Monday's press release.
The Swiss Children's and Youth Media Prize is awarded every two years by the SIKJM and the umbrella organization of teachers. The prize money is CHF 10,000 in each case. The award ceremony takes place on November 20, Children's Day, at the Swiss National Library in Bern.

 The German Springer Group is currently providing a somewhat absurd lesson in how to fuel the competitive situation within a company. The imminent relocation of the Bild editorial offices from Hamburg to the Springer high-rise in Berlin - currently only home to Welt and Berliner Morgenpost - has led to an amusing battle for occupancy. Actually, the battle between the blue Welt Group and the red Bild Group has already been decided from afar. The chief editors of the Bild newspaper, led by Kai Diekmann, will move into the 16th floor of the high-rise in the spring. Christoph Keese, editor-in-chief of Welt am Sonntag, Welt Online and spokesman for the entire Welt and Berliner Morgenpost group, will have to move to the 14th floor. The new newsroom of the Welt newspapers will also have to make way for the red faction: The Bild am Sonntag team will soon be setting up shop on the 15th floor. The blue papers will have to prepare their news on the humiliatingly low 14th floor. Of course, this is no coincidence. "Whoever brings in more money gets to sit higher up," says the board, which is located at the divine height of the 18th floor, thus intensifying the rivalry between the profitable Bild and the loss-making Welt Group. Somehow you feel very sorry for the employees on the first floor.

On Cablecom's info channel, a strange electrical expert is currently explaining how to install and program the network operator's Mediabox recorder: Fredi Muggli visits customers together with his apprentice and demonstrates how the new device works. The fact that Fredi Muggli seems a little clumsy and the assistant is no paragon of elegance is due to the fact that the quirky expert and the apprentice are the TV satirist and advertiser Frank Baumann and the comedian Kaydee. With false teeth and murderous glasses, Baumann plays the overly helpful boss who does everything he can to make his customers happy. "I actually wanted to make the role of Fredi Muggli a lot weirder, but we mustn't overwhelm Cablecom customers - it's enough if the audience can smile or marvel a little," explains Baumann in a statement from his company Wörterseh.
The first six episodes are already running on Cablecom's info channel, with more in the pipeline. The three-minute short films are filmed in a reportage style. They are intended to show viewers that the Mediabox recorder is foolproof if even Muggli and Kaydee can operate it: "If Muggli can do it, then anyone can!".