Broadcasting The Federal Council's reorganization of FM radio leaves questions unanswered. The Federal Council envisages 34 new coverage areas for FM radio stations, in 23 of which licences with a fee component are planned. This means that in future there will be slightly fewer fee-based radio stations than today, but they will be allowed to share CHF 16 million instead of the previous CHF 7 to 9 million. Among those that will have to manage without subsidies in future are Radio Central in Central Switzerland (assuming it regains its license) and Radio Ri, which will in future act as a window to the Eastern Switzerland East region (currently Radio Aktuell).  
However, the Neuchâtel radio station RTN, the Jura station Fréquence Jura (FJ) and Radio Jura Bernois (RJB) will have to reorient themselves the most. Not only financially, because the reorganization leaves no stone unturned in the Jura: The Federal Council is now combining the three radio stations into a single coverage area called Arc Jurassien (which is almost congruent with the new TV area of the same name - see article above). For this new radio area, which extends across three cantons, the Federal Council also envisages two new congruent licences, one with the core area of Neuchâtel, the other with the main area of Porrentruy/Delémont/Freiberge.
 
Perplexity and consternation However, fee money is only earmarked for the station oriented towards Neuchâtel, combined with the requirement to make a separate broadcasting window for each of the three affected cantons. Pierre Steulet, who together with his sons Jérôme and Valère has the financial and operational say at FJ, RTN and RJB, is dismayed by this. He speaks of a "mistake by the Federal Council". He doesn't know what to do now.
 
In fact, we can only speculate about the meaning of this intervention, as the person responsible at Bakom could not be reached. One thing is clear: Steulet, who founded FJ and has built up a three-radio empire over the years, would probably have to relinquish one of the three licenses under the new RTVA. However, as only one license is now required for the entire area, he has the chance to preserve his vested rights. What's more, the "Jura mini-Berlusconi", as Steulet is sometimes called, could even apply for both licenses and target two audiences. However, it is doubtful whether this is what the Federal Council has in mind. It would probably rather open the door to a competitor. It remains to be seen who this might be.
 
Markus Knöpfli

 The planned Schweizer Sport Fernsehen plans to launch its first sports broadcasts on the private television channel U1 in September. The channel will cover popular sports that have been marginalized in the media landscape to date (see ). Around 650 hours of in-house productions are planned each year. In addition to four weekly live reports, magazines, sports talks, portraits of athletes and sports flashes will also flicker across the screen. Championship matches in handball, volleyball, basketball and floorball will be broadcast live. In addition, martial arts, shooting, disabled sports and chess will also be shown on TV.
Behind the sports television project is the specially founded United Sport Production USP TV. According to SDA, the broadcaster U1 and the poster company Affichage each hold a 25% stake in the company. The remaining 50 percent of the share capital is shared by several private individuals, including the St. Gallen media entrepreneur and former FDP National Councillor Peter Weigelt.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the production company is the entrepreneur Giorgio Behr. Pascal Jenny, former national handball player and head of the national handball team, will be the managing director. According to Behr, there are sufficient financial resources to survive the first lean period. The production company intends to have share capital of CHF 2 million subscribed.
A prerequisite for the launch of the new sports channel is an activation order from the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom). The chances of this are good, Weigelt told the media in Zurich on Tuesday.
If popular sport is to fulfill its social significance, then it must become visible beyond top-class sport. In this sense, Schweizer Sport Fernsehen has a "performance mandate with a public service character", emphasized Weigelt. This corresponds to the constitutional mandate.
According to Giorgio Behr, the application for a sports channel is not directed against Swiss television. Rather, the aim is to collaborate with SF: "We can imagine that our contributions will also be shown in the Sportpanorama on SF".

 The two Sunday newspapers Le Matin Dimanche and Sonntagsblick will in future exchange editorial reports or conduct joint interviews. They will work together in all departments, Sonntagsblick editor-in-chief Marc Walder confirmed to the news agency SDA in a report by the industry service Persönlich. The Sunday edition of the Mittellandzeitung, whose editor-in-chief Patrick Müller spoke in July in the magazine Schweizer Journalist of a collaboration between his Sunday edition and the French-speaking Swiss newspaper, has been left behind. 

 In the major German-speaking cities of Switzerland, 3+ is now, according to its own figures, the sixth-largest channel with a market share of 4.7 percent (target group 15 to 49-year-olds in prime time from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.), ahead of ORF1, Vox, RTL2 and Kabel Eins. In German-speaking Switzerland as a whole, 3+ remains stable with a market share of 3.6 percent. With 28 programs, the station had a market share of over 5 percent in June. In the target group of 15- to 34-year-olds, there were even 34 programs. As in the previous month, the best day was Wednesday.

Matter und Gretener is appealing to the fairness of each individual at relevant locations with the "Stop Piracy" awareness campaign. During the summer period, the campaign will be using various measures in the travel environment to raise awareness of counterfeit brands. These include posters at Zurich, Basel and Geneva airports, small posters and flyers at border crossings and flyers in travel documents for Helvetic Tours and Kuoni customers. In addition, "Stop Piracy" is showing slides in cinemas and distributing flyers at various music festivals. In addition, rail posters on trains are intended to draw passengers' attention to the fact that counterfeit branded goods are not fair.

 Market research conducted by Axel Springer on middle-aged and older consumers concludes that they are trend- and quality-conscious, interested in technical innovations, pleasure-oriented and happy to spend money. The key message of the study is that the more mature clientele is increasingly becoming a decisive market target group. The so-called best agers, consumers aged between 50 and 69 and senior citizens aged 70 and over, now make up 39 percent of Germans and have a disposable income of around 100 billion euros, as Axel Springer writes in a press release. At 73 percent, they have one of the highest vacation travel rates, make up 42 percent of new car customers, around 40 percent prefer to buy food with health benefits and 46 percent are interested in financial investments. It is encouraging for the consumer goods industry that well over half (55%) of best agers are only marginally influenced by the price of products.  
Older people use the media intensively, with the 50+ generation leading the way in print media in particular: 84% read newspapers every day. For this reason, the study gives targeted print advertising a good report card, as it is particularly well received by the older generation, also because the intensity and duration of reading is significantly higher than among younger people. In general, advertising in newspapers and magazines is perceived as more credible than advertising on television.

 Ringier Print Zofingen, a subsidiary of Swiss Printers, is cutting 74 jobs. The reduction will take place by the end of 2009. Redundancies will be necessary, but the reduction will also be offset by natural departures and early retirements. A social plan will be implemented for the employees affected. According to a statement from Swiss Printers, the job cuts are the result of a reorganization of internal processes and the closure of a web offset press. The Zofingen printing site is to remain viable in the future despite tough, increasingly international competition and growing overcapacity. To achieve this, far-reaching measures are necessary, the statement continues.
In addition to the job cuts
Ringier Print Zofingen is outsourcing some areas outside its core business: An external partner takes over support, building technology and general services. In addition, an external company coordinates the pool of temporary staff in printing and finishing. In total, 65 jobs will be outsourced. The choice of future partners has not yet been made. In a further step, Swiss Printers is investing in a new 16-page web offset system and thus in the future of the Zofingen site. In the press release, the management and Board of Directors state that they are convinced that these measures will enable the company to work more flexibly and efficiently in future and to respond more quickly to market requirements.

 Following its strategic reorientation towards the paper market, the private equity company Sequana Capital has confirmed its intentions in this sector. Antalis is taking over the Map Merchant Group, the wholesale arm of paper producer M-Real. The acquisition, worth the equivalent of 382 million euros, will make Sequana Capital subsidiary Antalis the new number one in paper wholesale in Europe and number four globally. The acquisition is still awaiting the approval of the competition authorities. The move will enable Antalis to massively strengthen its presence in Europe and take a leading position in all countries where Antalis is present. In addition to improving operational efficiency, it is also expected to increase turnover by 38 percent and sales by 46 percent, the company writes in a press release. The merger will also expand the product range.
"This acquisition confirms our ambitions in the paper sector. The strategy is to fully support our subsidiaries so that they can strengthen their leading positions in all business areas. The current acquisition enables Antalis to clearly position itself as a leading European company, to accelerate its growth targets and to increase profitability in the medium term.

", were the comments of Tiberto Ruy Brandolini d'Adda, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, and Pascal Lebard, CEO of Sequana Capital.

 Summer vacation is the time for travel and discovery. You may be going on vacation, but are you keeping an eye out for advertising? Advertising Week is looking for the most original posters and signs you see while on vacation in Switzerland and abroad. Send us photos of particularly funny, abstruse and striking examples to the address . Please include your name, company name and vacation destination. The best advertising examples will be published on Werbewoche Online.

Pat, which claims to be the first portable ashtray with a lighter, was presented to the public at this year's Züri Fäscht. The advertising agency Favo writes in a press release that the product idea was a hit, as many Pats were sold over the counter. The Basel agency developed the stand concept for the ashtray. It created a steam stand: special smoking machines provided steam at the Züri Fäscht.

Melanie Maultzsch is taking over the position of Head of Marketing at IT service provider Unic Internet Solutions. She is the successor to Bernardo Egli. Maultzsch was previously responsible for e-marketing within Unic. This was significantly expanded under her leadership, according to a press release. The new Head of Marketing is a member of the management team at Unic and is a member of the Best of Swiss Web expert jury in the "Online Marketing" category.

Moritz Leuenberger gave the speech for this year's Cicero Prize winner Thomas Gottschalk on Thursday. The media and transport minister himself had already won this prize once before, as the very first winner in 2003. The Federal Chancellery does not want to withhold the laudatory speech on Gottschalk with the beautiful title "A god, a prankster and the holy quota or what is politics doing on a TV show?" from the local people: It can be read in full on the Internet. Leuenberger spends the first few paragraphs of the 20,400-character speech on himself and his supposed state of shock when he learned that someone else would now receive the prize in the form of a bust of the ancient rhetorician Cicero. But then there are still enough words about the entertainer Gottschalk, neatly divided into the areas of "God" and "joker". The fact that the entertainer spit on him the first time he met him with the sentence "Well, how's politics?" does not go unmentioned - and gives rise to a witty comparison between politics and the media industry. It is also clear that Leuenberger does not want to see television ratings as the measure of all things. The media minister, who is rumored to be not particularly fond of the media, has once again made his view of things known.