What had already been rumored has now been confirmed: The Ringier media company is divesting itself of all its TV program guides. The Swiss titles such as Tele will be sold to the German Axel Springer Verlag, while the foreign titles will go to the German Heinrich Bauer Verlag. The reason for the sale is strategic considerations, as Ringier announced on Wednesday. Only large providers could play a leading role in this business due to increasing industrialization and electronic competition.
Jean Frey, a member of the Axel Springer Group, is buying the German-language TV program guides Tele, TV4 and TV2 from Ringier as of July 1, 2007. According to Jean Frey's press release, the 25 employees will be taken over by the publishing house and the editorial offices of the TV program guides concerned are expected to move to the new headquarters of Axel Springer's Swiss publishing groups in Zurich's Förrlibuckstrasse at the end of August. With these newly acquired titles, as well as the weekly magazine TV-Star and the Swiss edition of TV Digital already published by Jean Frey, Axel Springer Publishing now publishes a total of five TV magazines in Switzerland.
The Ringier titles in Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic will go to Heinrich Bauer Verlag. The TV supplements in Ringier newspapers and magazines are not affected by the sale.

 Private radio and television stations that receive public funding will no longer be allowed to broadcast pornographic advertising, competitions and radar warnings in future. According to SDA, the more restrictive handling of licenses must now be approved by OFCOM Director Martin Dumermuth and Media Minister Moritz Leuenberger. The new paper also stipulates minimum wages and training and further training courses for employees as well as regular external evaluations of the companies. The changes go hand in hand with the redefinition of the licensing areas for private radio and television as part of the new Radio and Television Act (RTVA). The corresponding invitation to tender will be issued in the fall. Provided they are approved, the new bans and regulations will already be included.

 In a competition, the communications agency won the budget of the Federal Office of Public Health for the national communications tasks relating to the introduction of the new Transplantation Act. The campaign will be launched in the next few days, with the law coming into force on July 1, and will use TV commercials, posters and the distribution of a brochure to provide information about the Transplantation Act and publicize the new topic-specific Internet portal Transplantinfo.ch. As the agency wrote on Thursday, the law itself provided the basic idea for the campaign: By quoting prominent passages, the required objectivity is guaranteed on the one hand, but as the passages are taken out of context, a certain degree of emotionality could be created on the other.

 PubliGroupe is forging ahead with the implementation of its new strategic direction. The Board of Directors has decided on the management positions for the four new business divisions which will form the operational basis of the new PubliGroupe organization from 1 January 2008. The current head of PubliDirect, Robert Schmidli (57), will assume overall responsibility for the newly created Media Sales division as of November 1, 2007. According to a press release, all sales activities of PubliPresse (Publicitas, Publimedia, Publimag, Publiconnect and Mosse Media), the international Publicitas Promotion Network and the electronic, digital and interactive media managed by PubliGroupe will be bundled in this division in future.
Otto Meier, General Manager of PubliPresse since 2002, is leaving Publigroup at the end of October. With the integration of PubliPresse into the future multimedia and international Media Sales division, the 55-year-old is stepping down. According to the press release, he wants to take on new professional challenges.
The 47-year-old Jean-Pascal Michel, previously deputy to Robert Schmidli, will succeed him at the helm of PubliDirect (new: Search & Find).
As the new General Manager of the Custom Publishing division, 42-year-old Monica Woo will be responsible for the ongoing expansion of these activities in Asia, the Middle East and selected European markets.
Finally, the Board of Directors appointed 41-year-old Thomas Kaiser, Head of Group Business Development, as Head of the Digital & Marketing Services division, which has also been newly created. The international online marketing service provider Zanox, recently acquired together with Axel Springer, and the fast-growing Namics, a consultancy specializing in the development and implementation of e-business solutions, form the foundation of the Digital & Marketing Services division.
According to the press release, the early appointment of divisional heads for the new PubliGroupe organization, which will come into effect next year, will allow optimal preparation for the transition from the current to the new management structure. The composition and organization of the Group Management, which will continue to be headed by CEO Hans-Peter Rohner, as well as that of the Media Sales division, by far the largest division, will be announced in September of this year. The existing management and organizational structures will remain in place until 31 December 2007.

The federal government will reduce postal charges for regional and local press and member newspapers by 30 million a year. The Council of States has prevailed with the Unification Conference's proposal for indirect press subsidies. 20 million is earmarked for regional and local newspapers with a circulation of up to 40,000 copies. 10 million will be paid to member newspapers of non-profit organizations with a circulation of up to 300,000. According to the SDA report, the organs of Coop, Migros and TCS will not be considered.
The National Council had originally proposed an 80 million "watering can solution", from which major publishers could have benefited as before. In the last round, the Council of States changed its mind on the reduced model, but wanted to double the federal contributions to 40 and 20 million respectively.
The Council of States opposed this because the total of 30 million guaranteed the current tariffs and further funding or even free distribution was out of the question. The majority of the conciliation conference agreed.
In a secondary point, the conference and the councillors followed the National Council on Thursday: unlike the aid for the member newspapers, the aid for the 120 or so regional and local newspapers is not to be limited until the end of 2011. The scope is limited because a total revision of the Postal Services Act is in progress.
The amendment to the Postal Services Act is ready for the final vote on Friday. It must come into force on January 1, 2008 so that there is no interruption in indirect press subsidies.

 Representatives from 180 companies met at the annual meeting of the Swiss Association of Visual Communication Viscom. At the meeting in Konolfingen, they discussed the opportunities presented by the new economic dynamics and the dangers of the ongoing structural changes in the industry. The dynamics can also be felt in the graphic arts industry, said President Peter Edelmann, speaking not only of the economic upswing. The association itself is also on the move: At Viscom Day, the members unanimously backed the association's ongoing reorganization. According to the corresponding Viscom communiqué, structures will be simplified, the service portfolio will be better tailored to members and lobbying work will be intensified. According to the press release, Edelmann emphasized the importance of cooperation with the social partners, but contrasted this with the expectation of greater flexibility at company level. After all, Viscom members not only support the social partnership, but also train apprentices, added Association Director Thomas Gsponer.

 With the takeover of Rivals.com, a website specializing in university and school sports, the US Internet company Yahoo is significantly expanding its presence in the sports sector, as the news agency SDA reported on Thursday. The parties apparently agreed not to disclose the purchase price. Incidentally, there was a change of management at Yahoo! a few days ago: the co-founder of the group, Jerry Yang, took over the reins from long-time company boss Terry Semel.

Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett created an advertisement in the Daily Telegraph in which Switzerland Tourism congratulates the British Alpine Club on its 150th anniversary. In 1857, a group of British mountaineers enthusiastically returned to London from the Swiss mountains and founded "The Alpine Club". The world's first mountaineering association continues to share experiences from the Swiss Alps to this day. In the past, this even went so far that the Swiss had to ask the British Alpine Club for information on how best to reach certain glaciers or mountain peaks. The Swiss Alpine Club SAC was only founded in 1863. To mark the 150th anniversary of the British Alpine Club, Switzerland Tourism would like to thank the British for teaching us - the Swiss - how to climb 150 years ago. The ad created by Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett will appear in the Daily Telegraph on June 22.

In its new campaign for PET recycling, Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett encourages people to recycle PET bottles. Under the slogan "Stop throwing away bikinis and credit cards", the advertising points out that surprisingly valuable products can be made from old PET bottles. It is now common knowledge that PET bottles can be recycled. According to the SFLB, the collection rate has risen from 71% to 75% today, partly thanks to the successful PET tracing campaign. However, this is no reason to rest on our laurels. On the contrary, every bottle counts! As can be seen from Thursday's press release, the new SFLB campaign deals with the recycling of PET bottles from an unusual angle: empty PET bottles are not only turned into new bottles, because PET is a recyclable material that can be found almost everywhere, for example in cell phone displays, credit cards, vacuum cleaners or bikinis. Nobody would throw a sofa into the lake either, but indirectly you do this with every PET bottle you throw away - the campaign seeks to dramatize this. The motifs can be seen immediately throughout Switzerland on advertisements, posters, means of transport, ad screens, collection bins and as on-site installations.

 Following the Zurich media union Comedia, the Fribourg-based journalists' association Impressum has now also commented on the closure of Facts. "Relevant employee participation, avoidance of redundancies and a fair social plan" are the demands. As Comedia announced yesterday, Wednesday (see
), Impressum is also astonished that Tamedia has not succeeded in establishing the product on the market. As the journalists' association wrote in a communiqué on Thursday, in view of the record profits, the publishing house is now obliged to avoid redundancies at all costs, particularly in cases of hardship. The 64 employees affected must, as announced by Tamedia, continue to be employed or be socially cushioned. Impressum will help to find solutions within the framework of the legally prescribed participation procedure. Talks with the workforce are already underway, according to Impressum.

Michael Gassler and Thomas Schöb are joining the Ruf Lanz management team as Head of Consulting and Copywriter/Concept Designer respectively. Gassler has held senior positions on both the client and agency side: From 1989 to 1994, he was deputy advertising manager at Zurich Insurance (Switzerland). He then switched to the agency side and was, among other things, Group Account Director at Advico Young & Rubicam (1999 to 2002) and Head of Consulting at Exxtra Kommunikation (2003 to 2007). He is a federally certified advertising manager and holds an Executive MBA in Marketing from the Zurich School of Economics.
Schöb has worked as a freelance copywriter/concept developer for Ruf Lanz since 2001 and as a full-time employee since May 2005. Numerous campaigns in the past have borne his trenchant signature. He is a member of the Art Directors Club and has received numerous awards, including a Cannes Lion. Before entering the world of advertising twelve years ago, he completed a degree in German Studies at the University of Zurich.

Further successes for Walker: the Zurich advertising agency won seven shortlist places in the "Film" category for the Fleurop commercials.