The Swiss private broadcaster Star TV is currently negotiating for the broadcasting rights for Formula 1. Just last week, it became public that Swiss television would be foregoing the sports program in the future (see ) - Formula 1 will only be broadcast on Swiss state television this year. As Star TV writes in a press release, negotiations have already begun with Ian Holmes in London to take over this program window. Holmes awards the television rights to Formula 1 on behalf of Bernie Ecclestone.

The Zurich agency Futurecom implemented the technical relaunch of the websites of all four Pro Helvetia websites. The aim was to harmonize the look and structure of the websites based on the new corporate identity of the Swiss Arts Council. The websites link the offices in Warsaw, Cairo and Cape Town. Pro Helvetia fosters cultural relations with other countries and operates various branch offices far from Switzerland.

The French media group Vivendi was able to slightly increase its turnover by 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter. Vivendi thus achieved revenues of 5.545 billion euros, as SDA wrote in a press release on Thursday. Turnover for 2006 as a whole amounted to 20.044 billion euros, but fell short of the expectations of the financial markets. Accordingly, the shares fell by a good three percent in Paris trading.

Blumen Walker has shot a bunch of new commercials for Fleurop for Valentine's Day. In Billy Wilder's film "Some like it hot", Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon get into a wild shootout in the opening sequence. This alludes to the now famous "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre". On February 14, 1929, Al Capone took down a large part of the gang of his adversary Bugs Moran. This made Valentine's Day famous, which was already celebrated as a Christian festival in ancient Rome under Pope Gelasius in 496, but today Valentine's Day is only remembered as a time to say or give something sweet to your loved one in this pre-spring phase. But how and why?
"Men can't write, especially emotional love letters," agency boss Pius Walker believes he knows. And he has now incorporated this insight into his latest work for Fleurop. The seemingly strong
Men of the opposite sex often simply cannot find the words to express their feelings. The Walker agency therefore wants to help these men. On behalf of Fleurop, the advertisers want to breathe new life into Valentine's Day.
In a new series of commercials, a film team accompanies a group of men for a weekend in their search for the right words. However, it soon becomes clear that the words are vastly superior to their hunters. The word "love" in particular makes life difficult for the men, as the films show. Even the best sneak-up techniques and the best snare traps don't help. "Don't look for words. Say it with flowers," says Walker. The simple advice at the end of the humorous commercials should "work like a redemption".
Following the films for Fleurop, which have just won awards at the ADC and several times worldwide, Walker has now sought a completely different style of advertising for Valentine's Day after the Mother's Day and Wedding Day. The only thing they have in common with the earlier films is that the commercials for the Fleurop brand have a "very rejuvenating" effect. This is reflected not only in the successful market figures, but also in the "youth medium" of the Internet, where the previous Fleurop commercials are already living a very viral life and bringing the florists "a lot of free advertising".
The new series was filmed in the forests of Sweden, where the desired winter-like conditions prevailed weeks ago. The series was directed by Axel Laubscher in a production by Hamburg-based Cobblestone.
Andreas Panzeri

UEFA holds its trademark rights sacred. Anyone who sells Euro 08 products on a large scale or uses the European Football Championship logo will get into trouble. Small-scale traders are excluded from this. Last year, the football association tried desperately to create a new law to put an end to so-called "parasite advertising". The Federal Council initially agreed to the demand, but then backed down (see ). Meanwhile, UEFA no longer seems to have a problem with ambush marketing, as can be seen from an interview with Euro 08 boss Martin Kallen in the Tages-Anzeiger. In addition to Euro hamburgers from McDonald's, butchers, bakers and others will also be allowed to bring their very special football products to football fans. So we can look forward to Euro 08 sausages and croissants next summer. We are also pleased that there will be no license fees for restaurants and bars showing the games - which is also different from the plans of the football mother! But are the Swiss really happy about Euro 08 sausages and live broadcasts of the matches throughout the city? Apparently not, as a recent survey by Demoscope shows. 44 percent of respondents are not interested in the football event - but perhaps a Euro 08 doughnut will get them in the mood.

Mediafocus The 2006 advertising year closed with a record-breaking plus of 8.5%, surpassing the peak year of 2000. For the first time in ten years, the daily newspaper media group soared by almost 15%, making it the most important driver of overall market development. Internet advertising increased by 44%, TV advertising by 10%. The key markets of energy (+35.5%), finance (+21.6%), consumer electronics (+13.7%), household articles (+13.6%), furnishings/furniture (+12.5%), transport (+11.8%) and vehicles (+11.6%) saw the strongest growth in 2006. TV & Co. on the riseGemi
The Goldbach Electronic Media Index (GEMI) experienced a fireworks display in December in terms of advertising investment in electronic media. With growth of 6 index points, the result rose again, this time from 349 to 355 index points. All of the media covered recorded growth in December of 2 index points to 180 (178). Television once again proved to be the growth driver with an increase of 7 index points to 359. The Internet also shone with an increase of 6 index points (to 256). Adscreen (up 1 index point to 233) and radio (up 2 index points to 252) also increased. Teletext was unable to keep its November promise and fell by 1 point to 144.

Press The first adjustments to save Blick are underway. For the time being, optimization is taking place on the sidelines of SonntagsBlick, whose editor-in-chief will be transferred to Mark Walder, still editor-in-chief of SI, from mid-February. Christoph Grenacher, in office as SoBli boss since March 2004, will continue to be employed within the Ringier publishing house. Walder is regarded as the preferred candidate and his enthronement is probably also a test scenario for the new strong man at the top of Ringier Switzerland. Thomas Landolt, a combative returnee from the Carpathian country of Romania, has proven himself as a crisis manager in the unpredictable boom of the Romanian economy. With the reshuffle at the top of SoBli, Landolt can comfortably test the sensitivities at Dufourstrasse and will know the reflexes when it comes to pushing through the strategic goals at the faltering flagship Blick or even scratching the "emancipated" tabloid understanding of Ringier's chief mastermind Frank A. Meyer. René Worni

The young Swiss private television channel 3+ has appointed Arne Kreutzfeldt as its new Head of Entertainment Editing and Executive Producer for in-house productions. After a long and intensive search in the German-speaking world, 3+ was able to hire the favorite in Kreutzfeldt, according to the station's press release. Kreutzfeldt already worked for Brainpool TV, producer of TV Total, Ladykracher and other successful programs, while studying media business administration in Cologne. After graduating, he worked for several years as a producer for various entertainment formats. Kreutzfeldt would like to achieve initial success with a large-scale model casting show, a cooking program and a science magazine.

Following a multi-stage competitive presentation, ViznerBorel beat two other competitors for the Schild advertising budget. The Swiss fashion house is seeking a long-term partnership with the Zurich-based communications agency, as announced by Schild's Head of Marketing in a press release on Wednesday. Schild wants to further expand its position in the Swiss market by adding well-known brands to its range and adapting its stores to the new store concept. Following an evaluation, Schild has awarded the media account to Mediaschneider, while Flowcube Communications will continue to be responsible for PR work.

20minuten.ch has been publishing a daily news program for five months now. Under the label "20 Minuten TV", the free newspaper is now expanding its web TV offering to include movies and music. Once a week, two new programs provide an overview of the latest films and cinema highlights for the coming week and information about upcoming music releases and trends. A video player based on Flash technology enables the user to interact directly. In addition to the moving image, they receive further links and information related to the content, such as the cinema program, ticket draws or themed dossiers.

Radiocontrol Hardly any changes in listening habits - radio market shares are largely stable. As the radio research institute Publicadata has published the current semester figures with a slight delay, Werbewoche is only publishing the results in the current issue. In the second half of 2006, just over 4 million people in German-speaking Switzerland listened to the airwaves (1.253 million in French-speaking Switzerland; 283,000 in Ticino), compared to 3.9 million in the same period last year (1.289 million in French-speaking Switzerland; 244,000 in Ticino), with net listening time falling from 116.1 to 111.9 minutes a day (from 110.8 to 109.1 in French-speaking Switzerland; from 112.4 to 110.6 in Ticino). Private stations hold a quarterIn the second half of 2006, Radio DRS was able to improve its market share from 63.1 to 64.8 percent compared to the same period in 2005, reaching around 2.76 million listeners. DRS 1 lost significant ground (-0.3%), while DRS 2 increased by 0.5% and DRS 3 by 1%. Radio Suisse Romande significantly improved its market share by 1.1% to 57.5%, reaching just under 900,000 listeners. La Première lost 0.6%, while Couleur 3 gained 0.8%. Option Musique also gained 0.9 percent. Radio della Svizzera Italiana gained 0.3% to 71.3%, with the first station losing 1.2% but the second and third stations gaining (+0.5% and +0.9%).
The Swiss-German private broadcasters continue to hold a market share of 25.5%, while the foreign share fell by 1.4% to 6%.
Among the private stations, Radio 24 remains the leader with an unchanged market share of 2.7%, followed by Argovia and Pilatus (1.9% each), Radio Top and Zürisee (1.8% each) as well as Energy Zürich (1.7%) and Radio 32 (1.6%). Top and Pilatus made gains, while the others lost minimal market share.
The statistics also include private cable radio stations. According to Radiocontrol, Radio 32 Goldies has replaced Radio 105. The former gained 6400 listeners (new 31,900) while the latter lost a significant 5200 (new 24,300). Both stations have a market share of 0.2 percent. On the occasion of the publication of the radio control figures, Radio 105 boss Giuseppe Scaglione reiterated his criticism of the survey, stating that the streaming of web radios is not taken into account in the measurement and therefore makes the study unreliable. Finally, Radio Live Channel reaches 10,300 listeners and has a market share of 0.1 percent.
In French-speaking Switzerland, the Privées' market share fell by 0.4% to 22.9%. The foreign channels also lost share (-0.6%) with a new figure of 12.7%.
The strongest private station in French-speaking Switzerland is Lausanne FM with 3.1 percent (-0.2%), closely followed by One FM with 3.0 percent (+0.6%) and RTN2001 with 2.9 percent (+0.1%). In fourth place is Nostalgie Léman with 2.5 percent
(-0.2%) followed by Rouge FM with 2.4 percent (-0.5%).
In Ticino, the private station 3iii has a market share of 4.2 percent, which it increased by a significant 0.9 percent.
René Worni

Commercials The Interdata research institute has once again measured the impact of the best commercials with its Psycho-Meter, a standardized measuring instrument for TV commercials and tests advertising blocks from Swiss television. 660 commercials from 2005 and 2006 were shown to 120 people aged between 16 and 50. After a single screening, the test measures 19 dimensions, including spontaneous recall, aided recall, degree of familiarity and impression of detail. The most important criteria are the four resonance values of attention, liking, improved opinion and incentive to buy. As the tables opposite show, none of the 660 commercials managed to make it into the top 20 in all four of these dimensions. And this is the secret of success: commercials that are most liked and have the strongest opinion-enhancing power are about twice as interesting as average ones. Spots that are easy to remember and strengthen the brand's reputation are particularly likeable or entertaining. Commercials that stimulate buying focus on the product and convey competence, but have an average effect on consumers because they are not aware of the importance of an intensive product presentation and actually expect interesting entertainment. Further information can be found at www.interdataforschung.ch.
Andreas Panzeri