Disappointment is spreading at Swiss Music Radio, as it has not been granted a license for digital broadcasting by DETEC. With the help of its partner Radio Sunshine, the Zug-based station wanted to expand its program. A total of 18 applications were submitted, 10 of which were rejected. The rejection of the radio license application has left Rotkreuz stunned. In its press release, Swiss Music Radio expresses its surprise at the rejection of the digital radio license (DAB+) application, which would have allowed wireless terrestrial broadcasting in digital quality throughout German-speaking Switzerland.
The Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) justifies the decision only indirectly by the lack of contribution to increasing the attractiveness of DAB technology and refers unspecifically to all rejected stations. The fact that Swiss Music Radio mainly wants to broadcast music by Swiss artists such as Polo Hofer or apparently does not arouse enough interest in the Federal Council to cause a license to be granted.
The plan was to expand the DAB+ Swiss Music Radio program with the help of its partner Radio Sunshine. Swiss Music Radio had therefore applied for the license together with Radio Sunshine. This expansion will now come to nothing for the time being. The boards of directors of the two companies will now have to decide on how to proceed at their next meetings.
Radio Sunshine will now participate in the DAB+ operating company to be founded instead of Swiss Music Radio. Whether Swiss Musc Radio or Radio Sunshine is to be transmitted on DAB+ as a notifiable station, or even both, will only be decided at a later date once the broadcasting modalities have been clarified.

DETEC has selected the eight stations that will receive a radio license for digital broadcasting in German-speaking Switzerland. A total of 18 applications were submitted. Eight licenses for digital broadcasting in German-speaking Switzerland were to be awarded. According to the SDA, the winners were Radiolab, Radio For Youngsters, Swiss Mountain Holiday Radio, Sound City, Radio Eviva, Radio.ch, RadioJay and DjradioDeluxe. The licenses include a right of access to the new DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) transmitter network. A total of 18 applications were received for the eight licenses awarded following an invitation to tender last autumn. DETEC has not yet provided any further details on the reasons for the rejections. In general, it was important to DETEC to increase the attractiveness of DAB technology through innovation, originality and market stimulation.

 On July 7/8, Live Earth, the most gigantic music spectacle of all time, will flicker across the stages. SF Zwei will broadcast live shows by superstars such as Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sheryl Crow. The international pop stars are protesting against the threat of climate collapse with their performances around the globe.  
The design for the 24-hour concert special on the second channel was developed by Frame Eleven in collaboration with the design department of Swiss television. It builds consistently on the appearance of Music-Night-On-Air, which was also realized by Frame, as the House for Moving Media announced on Thursday. Live Earth will be broadcast from 9.00 a.m. on Saturday morning until 8.00 a.m. on Sunday morning.

Djradio is one of the eight stations that have received a radio license from DETEC for digital broadcasting in German-speaking Switzerland. However, it is still uncertain whether the station will be allowed to broadcast its programs in parallel via FM. In its press release, Djradio is delighted with the new license and intends to use it to build on FM radio in Zurich. The only question now is whether it will be possible to broadcast digitally and on FM in parallel as planned, or whether FM radio will soon not have a license. Legal disputes with Radio 105 have made it impossible for FM radio to start broadcasting to date, but the operating company Beril is confident that it will receive the FM license for Djradio.

Awards On Wednesday evening, the Media Trend Award took place for the tenth time at Moods in Zurich. Around 350 people from the industry celebrated the new media winners at the event hosted by Anna Maier. Cinecom took first place among the marketers. For the first time on the podium is IP Multimedia, which took second place. Radiotele came third. Publisuisse had to make do with the leather medal.  
Among media providers, 20 Minuten has moved up to first place; last year, the free newspaper came second. Silver went to Handelszeitung and Clear Channel Plakanda took third place on the podium.
 
The award is organized by Media Trend Journal. This year, 34 media companies and 17 media marketers entered the race. The jury for the Media Trend Award is made up of media and advertising agencies. They evaluate the participants in an online survey based on the categories of service, consulting expertise and value for money. (cs)

Help Sexual abuse is a sensitive topic. The CP9 agency was commissioned to design hanging boxes for the Castagna advice center, which were used as part of a VBZ campaign. The visual realization speaks a clear language. The "screaming face", which is "forbidden to speak", picks up those affected where they stand - in the inner conflict between wanting to scream and having to suffer in silence. CP9 has consistently geared the hanging boxes towards the target group. There is no reference to donations or requests for membership.

 The third edition of the study on the media budgets of Swiss private households, conducted by the Swiss Press Association, also shows that Mr. and Mrs. Swiss are spending a little more on their media consumption every year. Expenditure rose by two percent last year to an average of CHF 3137 per household. The cinema and television segments benefited most from this upward trend, with print media remaining stable with total sales of CHF 1.8 billion. Total media consumption in the country with one of the highest media densities in the world is correspondingly high and amounted to an impressive CHF 10.4 billion last year. Content accounted for CHF 5.8 billion, devices for CHF 3.1 billion and access for CHF 1.5 billion. While the market for content and access continues to grow, the market for hardware declined slightly.
With a 30.6 percent share of the total content budget of CHF 5.8 billion, the press is still the largest producer of content and therefore also the largest opinion maker. The three best-selling newspapers are Blick, SonntagsBlick and Tages-Anzeiger. In the consumer, financial and business press, they are Beobachter, Schweizer Illustrierte and Das Beste/Sélection, and in the specialty press K-Tipp, Saisonküche and Saldo.
IT and telecoms are in second place with 19.3%, ahead of television with 13.6%. According to the study, this documents the socio-political role of the press, which largely sets the topics of public debate with news and information. It can also be concluded that despite the many new free offerings, the Swiss are still prepared to pay for attractive content.
Television continues to grow Radio and TV are the second-largest expenditure item with a combined total of almost three billion francs and a rising trend. With TV reception fees remaining the same, sales of television sets exceeded one billion francs for the first time. As in the previous year, flat screens were the top seller. Although digital cable television grew by around twelve percent, this was below expectations. At the end of the year, Bluewin TV recorded around 20,000 new connections. 55,000 satellite dishes were sold in 2006, 10,000 more than in the previous year. While fee income for the medium of radio remained practically stable, sales of radio receivers fell by a third.
The turnover for Internet downloads grew by 24 percent, that for mobile downloads by 38 percent in 2006. Last year, a total of over one billion Swiss francs was spent on paid content via the Internet, mobile or landline telephone. Expenditure by private households on broadband connections rose by around 16%. By contrast, spending on computers has fallen. Desktop devices even saw a slump of almost 30%.
The Swiss went to the movies more often again in 2006. Revenues rose to 245 million francs. DVDs are also becoming increasingly popular. The Swiss spent around 360 million francs on films on these glittering disks in 2006. The market for computer and video games also grew by 14.4 percent. At around 689 million, books are still an important budget item, even if their sales are on a slight downward trend.
The detailed media budget can be downloaded at www.medienbudget.ch.

Barley juice ViznerBorel is relying on the instincts of the stronger sex in an ironic campaign for the new Rowenta BeerTender from Heineken. Now men can do two things at the same time: stay at home and still drink a freshly tapped beer. Because anyone who knows anything about drinking beer knows that freshly tapped beer tastes best. That's why Heineken is launching "the first dispenser for maximum beer enjoyment on the sofa at home". The BeerTender guarantees weeks of fresh beer with tap quality as well as automatic cooling and printing quality. And it is easy to use, both "for right- and left-handed users".  
The tender is advertised by ViznerBorel. The Zurich agency has been working for Heineken since December 2006 and has previously also advertised the Draught Keg party keg and Heineken Extra Gold.
 
Battle of the sexes launched For the launch of the new Rowenta BeerTender, Heineken and ViznerBorel are focusing on the "highest urge" of men: a freshly tapped beer. With a "crystal-clear positioning", the new BeerTender is brought closer to the stronger sex in an ironic way. Whatever the situation, there is no room for a woman in the new BeerTender: only for a fresh Heineken or Calanda beer. "With this idea, we wanted to relaunch the battle of the sexes in a sympathetic way," reveal Lajos Vizner and Gauillaume Borel.
 
With appropriate irony, the two have therefore also had their advertisements placed in the women's magazine Annabelle. A special version for Playboy has not yet made it beyond the beer table. The national print campaign is supported by a strong POS presence and direct marketing - where Heineken International also invites people to join its own "BeerTender Club" via a website. ViznerBorel produced various advertising materials for the blues 'n' jazz in Rapperswil last weekend and soon for the Montreux Jazz Festival, where Heineken is a sponsor.
 
Andreas Panzeri

Press Under pressure from the up-and-coming free press, subscribers to traditional newspapers should forget that their subscription costs something if at all possible The appearance of another national free newspaper in the media triangle of Basel, Berne, Zurich and the cities of St. Gallen and Lucerne next September is causing quite a stir in the print media industry. Just one week after the official media information from .ch publisher Sacha Wigdorovits, the commuter paper 20 Minuten, which is under direct attack from the newcomer, has increased its circulation to 550,000 copies, and at Tamedia, publishing director (and ex-Mister 20 Minuten) Rolf Bollmann is working on a Tagi light, which - it can be assumed - will be distributed to the public free of charge. This means that as early as this fall, together with Ringier's free titles Cash Daily and Heute, there may be five free newspapers vying for readers and advertisers on the market.  
Cumulus card for subscribers It remains to be seen whether the public will also appreciate the boost from the free press, as well as whether this will further strengthen their expectation that journalistic content should be free per se. This is apparently the conclusion drawn in Bern by BZ Verlag (which is part of the Espace Media Groupe and publishes the Berner Zeitung, among others) with a new reader loyalty tool. Lorenz Brügger, the head of reader market at Espace, does not want to know anything about this: "The free newspapers were not the trigger." But the timing for the launch of the "Espace Card", a kind of Cumulus card for subscribers to Espace titles, could not be more appropriate. However, this is also linked to the Swiss market entry of the responsible German software company, with BZ Verlag being the first to use this card system, says Espace spokesperson Christopher Wehrli.
 
Specifically, BZ Verlag wants to use this electronically readable card in credit card format to strengthen the loyalty of readers of its subscription newspapers, such as the Bund and Berner Zeitung, by offering them added value. The principle is a kind of carousel. With the card, subscribers receive discounts in selected Bernese stores. These in turn are advertisers in the Espace titles.
 
It is hoped that the discounts on the products will attract some of the readership to the stores as additional customers. Customers can then offset the accumulated percentages against their newspaper subscription or have the amount transferred to their account. In times of the booming free press, subscribers should forget that their favorite paper costs a pretty penny in comparison. It will soon behave like a free newspaper itself. Lorenz Brügger prefers the positive formulation and clearly emphasizes the added value for the readership: "Thanks to my newspaper, I have many advantages."
 
Brügger does not yet want to say anything about the details. However, it is clear to him that new ways of dealing with subscribers have become necessary. Over the past four to six years, the pressure in the reader and advertising market has increased massively and the "shelf life" of customers has steadily decreased. The publisher therefore introduced its own customer relationship management system last year. Brügger sees the Espace Card as a further development of this, whereby advertising customers are also integrated into the relationship network. "It's about offers for the advertising market as well as the reader market." The project is obviously of great importance within the BZ publishing house, with all departments involved. It is quite likely that the publisher will distribute the cards to all its subscribers as early as this fall.
 
At Tamedia, which recently became the new owner of Espace Media Groupe, such reader retention tools would hardly make sense, according to media spokesman Christoph Zimmer. "Because many of our titles have a national focus." Some of them have their own offers, such as the Tages-Anzeiger with its long-standing Carte Blanche for discounts in the cultural sector.
 
René Worni
 
 
City paper in partnership subscription  
Added value models
such as those currently being devised by BZ Verlag in Berne, have long been known. The busy Vorarlberg publisher Eugen A. Russ is regarded as a pioneer, with readers of his Vorarlberger Nachrichten enjoying a whole range of benefits, from a preferential NZZ subscription to insurance policies. At one time, it even included discounted electricity.  
Guido Blumer also
The courageous publisher of the Winterthur Stadtblatt and chairman of the publishers' association, was inspired by Russ. Blumer is following two trends with his Stadtblatt. On the one hand, in line with the imminent movements of the regional Sunday press, he has shifted the publication frequency to reading Sundays and transformed his title into a (Blumer: "reflective") free weekly newspaper, where 5 editors and 40 freelancers fill a paper that sees itself as a deliberately leadless thing between a book and a newspaper. On the other hand, Blumer is introducing a voluntary subscription for 100 francs per year.  
In contrast to BZ Verlag
in Bern, the subscription cards are signed by Blumer himself. "I'm a print fanatic." With this so-called partnership subscription, its owners currently receive discounts of 3 to 35 percent in 27 stores in Winterthur. Of course, the retailers are also advertisers in Blumer's magazine, which brings us full circle. From January 6, 2008, he will distribute his flagship publication to all households in Winterthur and have it marketed by Kretz AG in Feldmeilen. How many partnership subscriptions he has already taken out remains his secret for the time being. What is certain, however, is that the Winterthur trade is very interested in his model. Blumer is convinced of his idea, and if it were possible, he would also be selling green electricity with his city paper tomorrow. (rw)

Poster A few days ago, Affichage and JCDecaux parted ways in Eastern Europe For ten years, the outdoor advertising company Affichage pursued its expansion in Eastern Europe as part of the company EuAffichage alone in the East Poster A few days ago, Affichage and JCDecaux parted ways in Eastern Europe. For ten years, the outdoor advertising company Affichage operated its eastern expansion as part of the company Europlakat (EPI), five years of which with the French poster company JCDecaux. Since July 1, however, the two companies have gone their separate ways in the east: Affichage has expanded into Hungary, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and northern Italy in a south-easterly direction, while JCDecaux, which still holds a 30 percent stake in Affichage, is moving north-eastwards. "The demerger is almost complete and we will soon be founding Affichage International, based in Vienna," says Affichage CEO Christian Kauter. It is not yet clear who will manage the company. However, Thomas Rainer, the current co-Managing Director of EPI, will remain on board.  
Kauter, who has just returned from Southeast Europe, is satisfied with developments there. Affichage was recently awarded the contract for outdoor advertising in and around the airport in the Serbian capital Belgrade. In Greece's second-largest city, Thessaloniki, Affichage has just won the contract for 40 poster sites at the centrally located exhibition center. And in Romania, an acquisition is imminent, making it the country's number two out-of-home advertiser. Another door seems to be opening thanks to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch: He wants to sell off his out-of-home advertising business - including activities in Romania and Bulgaria. "We will of course look into this," says Kauter.
 
Markus Knöpfli

 The Swiss outdoor advertising company APG has been able to reduce its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 22 percent since 2000. Since 1990, the reduction has even amounted to almost a third. The overall environmental impact was reduced by 19 percent between 2002 and 2006. These are the findings of APG's annual environmental report. The CO2 reduction was made possible thanks to a consistent vehicle procurement policy and staff training. With 88 gas-powered and 6 hybrid vehicles, APG now has one of the largest private eco-vehicle fleets in Switzerland, according to a press release.
The 2007 edition of the environmental report again provides a concise overview of all relevant environmental aspects of the company and shows the key data in a 5-year comparison. The booklet can be requested free of charge by calling 052 208 92 39 or www.apg.ch/publikationen, where a pdf version is also available for download.

 The new Zurich-North-Eastern Switzerland TV coverage area, which now includes the cantons of Zurich, Thurgau and Schaffhausen with a total of 1.6 million inhabitants and provides for two window solutions, already has at least three interested parties. Not surprisingly, the media group Tamedia immediately announced on Wednesday via its TV station Tele Züri that it intends to apply for a license. The press release regrets that the area in the west follows the cantonal border exactly and no longer extends into Aargau or almost as far as Zug. In principle, however, Tamedia welcomes the Federal Council's decision. The second interested party is the Glatttal local station Züri Plus, which actually has an area in mind that extends from Glarus via Zurich to Schaffhausen - as was envisaged in the original proposal. In order to cover this area, Züri Plus had joined forces with Ringier, SchaffhauserTV, Tele Südostschweiz and Goldbach Media. Although the canton of Glarus is no longer part of the Zurich-North-Eastern Switzerland coverage area, "we will still apply for the license - just without Tele Südostschweiz", said Züri Plus Managing Director Peter Steinmann. However, he qualified that he had not yet been able to consult with his partners following yesterday's decision by the Federal Council.
Tele Top, which currently covers Schaffhausen and St. Gallen in addition to its core area of Winterthur/Frauenfeld, also announced its intention to apply very quickly. Top boss Günter Heuberger was "very satisfied" with the Zurich-North-Eastern Switzerland coverage area, but would also like to add St. Gallen: He will therefore also apply for the second Eastern Switzerland concession, which includes St. Gallen, the two Appenzells and Upper Thurgau, knowing full well that - if awarded the contract - he would then have to compete against two strong, even overpowering opponents: Tele Züri in the west and Tele Ostschweiz in the east - both of which had already made it clear earlier that they would continue broadcasting without fee splitting and a performance mandate if necessary.
On Wednesday, however, Hanspeter Klauser, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tele Ostschweiz, was reluctant to comment on such a scenario. Instead, he referred to the "good performance figures" of his station, which differed "strikingly" from the figures of Tele Top in the St. Gallen area. "In any case, we will apply and believe we have a good chance," he said.
Norbert Neininger, publisher of Schaffhauser Nachrichten and head of Schaffhauser Fernsehen, was dissatisfied with the Federal Council's "somewhat unusual decision". As a member of the executive committee of the publishers' association, he had presented a concept at the time that envisaged 14 coverage areas, including a separate one for the canton of Schaffhausen. He regrets that there is now to be a "large concession" for the cantons of Schaffhausen, Zurich and Thurgau. The cantonal government of Schaffhausen echoed this sentiment on Wednesday. It now expects, it wrote, that the Schaffhausen window solution will at least include Schaffhausen television.
It is not least this clear partisanship that puts Neininger in a special position: his station is now likely to be particularly heavily courted and thus to a certain extent tip the scales. He also seems to be savoring this situation, as he sees four options for action. The focus is on a continuation of the Züri Plus project with window solutions for Schaffhausen and Thurgau, he said. However, he also wants to keep open cooperation talks "with other potential applicants for the Zurich-North-Eastern Switzerland supply area". Thirdly, Neininger does not rule out the possibility of his station continuing to operate without fee-splitting and a performance mandate, although he adds that this is not his preferred solution. And finally, he reserves the right to appeal yesterday's Federal Council decision to the Federal Administrative Court.
Not only in Schaffhausen, but also in Winterthur, Uster, Kloten, Frauenfeld and Weinfelden, the authorities took sides in favor of a broadcaster - but there for Tele Top. The five municipalities welcomed the Federal Council's decision because it gives Tele Top the chance "to obtain the license for this broadcasting area with a good concept." They will now work to "ensure that the broadcaster to be selected is given good starting conditions so that the concentration in the newspaper sector does not spill over into the electronic media." The Media Forum in Köniz, which describes itself as an "independent interest group of Swiss media consumers", expressed similar sentiments.
Markus Knöpfli