Swiss Radio DRS gained listeners and market share in the second half of 2006 compared to the previous year. The private stations, on the other hand, lost listeners slightly overall, but their market share remained stable.  
SR DRS recorded a 1.7% higher market share of 64.8% compared to the same period in the previous year. While DRS 2 (from 4.7 to 5.2 percent) and DRS 3 (from 12.7 to 13.7 percent) increased, DRS 1 fell slightly from 41.8 to 41.5 percent. On average, 2.758 million listeners tuned in to DRS stations every day in the last six months. In 2006, SR DRS achieved a market share of 63.9 percent, an increase of 1.1 percentage points compared to 2005. These are the figures published by Publica Data.
 
Private radio stable  
Private radio stations were able to maintain a stable market share in the last six months (25.5%). Together, the 27 private radio stations in German-speaking Switzerland reached an average of 2.341 million listeners per day (-0.15%). The foreign stations lost considerable ground and fell by 1.4% to 6% market share. As before, the leader among private radio stations in the last six months was the Zurich local station Radio 24, which was able to maintain its market share of 2.7% (266,600 listeners). In contrast, Energy Zürich suffered a drop, losing 0.3 percentage points to 1.7% market share (199,100 listeners).
 
General decline in reach  
Overall, the downward trend in radio reach continued in 2006, according to a statement from Radio DRS. Compared to the second half of 2005, this has fallen by a total of one percent in German-speaking Switzerland. Nevertheless, around 90 percent of the population aged 15 and over listen to the radio every day. Almost all radio stations receivable in Switzerland are affected by the decline in reach.
 
The stations of Radio Suisse Romande RSR improved their market share slightly from 56.4% to 57.5%. In French-speaking Switzerland, the private stations lost market share, from 23.3% to 22.9%. In Ticino, Radio Svizzera Italiana improved its market share from 71 to 71.3 percent. Overall, the private stations increased from 7 to 8.1 percent.

Never before has so much classic advertising been placed as in 2006. 8.5 percent growth compared to the previous year meant that even the previous record year of 2000 was surpassed, as Media Focus announced on Monday. It is not only the growth itself that is remarkable about the 2006 result. For the first time in over ten years, the daily newspaper media group gained market share and was also the most important driver of overall market development. Internet advertising was able to increase by almost 44 percent, but the almost 15 percent increase in daily newspapers is considerably more significant. In addition to advertising on the internet and in daily newspapers, television advertising also increased by a good 10%. The other media groups - with the exception of teletext - also made gains, albeit on a more modest scale. In 2006, 17 of the 18 Media Focus key markets grew. Only advertising for tobacco products declined, by almost 25 percent. The cigarette companies are thus reacting to increasing advertising bans on the one hand and the various campaigns against smoking on the other. The following key markets recorded the strongest growth in 2006: Energy (+35.5%), finance (+21.6%), consumer electronics (+13.7%), household goods and appliances (+13.6%), furnishings/furniture (+12.5), transportation (+11.8%) and vehicles (+11.6%).
There is hardly any dynamism among the 30 largest advertisers in 2006. Only three companies were added in 2006. New to the top 30 are Aldi Suisse, Coca-Cola Beverages and Zurich Insurance. Swisslos, Hyundai and Philip Morris are no longer included in 2006. Migros and Coop are the undisputed leaders in the ranking, followed by Swisscom, L Oréal and Procter & Gamble. The 30 largest advertisers in Switzerland together account for over 36% of total advertising investment in traditional advertising media.
Media Focus has been measuring and recording gross advertising investment in the traditional advertising media of print (newspapers/magazines), television, radio, posters, cinema, teletext and the Internet in Switzerland since 1990. Media Focus is a joint venture between the two global market research companies IHA-GfK AG and ACNielsen SA/Nielsen Media Research.

A strong wind is currently blowing in the French water market: the mineral water producer Cristaline is offending good taste with a disgusting advertising campaign about tap water. The slogan "I don't drink water that I use" is causing quite a stir - which is hardly surprising when you look at the photo that is part of the campaign. After all, it shows a toilet. In the ad, market leader Cristaline also claims that tap water contains high levels of nitrates, chlorine and lead. The socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, took the city's water company to court last Friday. In the lawsuit, Cristaline is accused of violating the regulations on comparative advertising. In fact, the French mineral water industry is under pressure. In terms of volume, sales of bottled water fell by around 2.6 percent in the first eleven months of last year.

After more than twelve years at JCM Offsetdruck in Schlieren, Manfred Sollberger is leaving the company. On August 1, 2007, he will join Setaprint in Bachenbülach as a member of the management team. Sollberger was already responsible for key account management in this position at JCM. Setaprint holds a leading position in poster printing throughout Switzerland, with a share of around one third, according to a press release.

On the 20minuten.ch mobile portal, the ten most important stories from the front and the ten most recent stories from the News, Monde, Suisse, Economie, People and Sports sections can be accessed around the clock. These are now also available to the population of French-speaking Switzerland on their cell phones. Access to the 20-minute mobile news is free of charge for consumers. All they have to pay are the fees for mobile Internet data transmission charged by the mobile phone provider, which sets its own rates, as 20minuten reported on Monday.

The cantonal government of Schwyz does not agree with the new Zurich-Glarus radio coverage area, as the SDA announced today. According to the statement published on Monday, the only station based in the canton of Schwyz, Radio Central, will be at a competitive disadvantage. The planned new coverage area extends from Zurich via the Schwyz districts of March and Höfe to Glarus. The Schwyz government is asking the federal government to give Radio Central a level playing field and not just to strengthen the private radio stations in the agglomerations. Radio Central's reduced market opportunities as a result of the new coverage area should be appropriately compensated.

Renato Fischer is the new head of consulting at the BSW advertising agency Erat, Thoma & Herzog in Rorschach. He manages the agency together with Peter Thoma, Ruedi Mohler and Roland Müller. The 45-year-old Fischer began his consulting career over 20 years ago as an account director at Ogilvy & Mather, where he was responsible for international clients such as American Express, Compaq Computer, Continental Tires and others. At Aebi, Sutter, Gisler, Studer/BBDO, the passionate car enthusiast woke Volvo from its slumber and looked after clients such as KLM Airlines, Wella and Pepsi Cola. After a detour to the client side as Head of Direct Marketing at AT&T Data Center, Fischer returned to agency life after three years. Before setting up his own business as an advertising consultant five years ago, he worked for Pucci Sulzer with clients such as Lancia, Fidelity Investment and the Swiss Association of Raiffeisen Banks. Sandra Sigrist (26) has also joined the consulting team as a consulting assistant for production and media. The qualified marketing communications planner was previously responsible for Manor's direct marketing activities at CM Dialog. She gained practical experience in classic advertising at STO Pharma Werbung, where she looked after GaleniCare and Bayer Switzerland, for example. Erat, Thoma & Herzog has been in the market for over 30 years and looks after more than fifty clients.

The Swiss Blog Award committee has resigned with immediate effect. As reported by Netzwoche, the organizers Markus Böniger, Nick Lüthi and Jan Zuppinger announced in a post on the Swiss Blog Award blog on 15 January that they would no longer be in office. According to Zuppinger, there are two reasons for this: Firstly, they no longer wanted to work for two to three months without pay and secondly, the award had developed in a different direction than intended. The event should have been a party event for bloggers, but now the focus is only on evaluating the blogs. The three initiators are willing to hand over the event to a new organizing committee. The awards were presented for the first time last May.

Following an agency evaluation, sheet-fed offset printer Läser has entrusted the Baden-based advertising agency Grey with the entire budget. As a first measure, Grey is developing an advertising campaign for the Gontenschwil-based print shop. Placed in selected specialist publications, it is intended to present Läser as a dynamic and forward-looking company, according to a press release. In addition to traditional advertising, which is expected in the spring, Grey will also revise the corporate literature this year and realign other measures, for example in the DM area. Founded in 1952, Läser is a medium-sized company in the graphic arts industry with around 80 employees.

Swiss television is launching the first pop docu-soap in April. The actors are old familiar faces. The two protagonists are the Music Star couple Baschi and Katy Winter. The two fell in love in the first season of the casting show and now show their everyday lives as pop stars. The focus is on Baschi, who sang the most successful Swiss song last year with the World Cup anthem "Bring en hei". Until now, Baschi and Katy kept their private lives strictly secret. Allegedly, the two had even been forbidden by the management to present themselves publicly together or to be photographed.

With the December figures, the results of the Wemf advertising statistics for the Swiss press are now available for the whole of 2006. Compared to the previous year, the daily and regional weekly press saw an increase of 1.0 percent, as reported by Wemf on Monday. It is striking that revenues from commercial advertisements remained practically the same (-0.1 percent), while revenues from job advertisements increased by 22.8 percent. In the Sunday press, advertising revenues were 6.0 percent higher than in the previous year. The financial and business press increased by 7.2 percent and the general press saw an increase of 10.0 percent. Specialty press titles reported a 2.3% drop in volume. An increase of 2.9 percent was recorded in the trade press. In December 2006, the total volume of advertisements increased by 5.2 percent compared to December 2006. Commercial advertisements recorded an increase of 3.5 percent. Here too, income from job advertisements increased dramatically by 37.8 percent. The Sunday press recorded an overall increase of 17.2 percent. The rate of change for the financial and business press was up 51.8 percent. The general press is up 23.6% on the previous year. The figures for the specialty and trade press refer to page volumes. Compared to December 2005, the rates of change in these categories are -0.8% (specialty press) and -0.5% (trade press).

The Engadin/St. Moritz mountain railroads have given in to the dispute over the huge advertising slide on Piz Corvatsch. Following an intervention by the canton, they have decided not to go ahead with the planned second projection in February, as reported by the SDA news agency on Monday. The projection measuring 163 by 163 meters on the northern slope of Corvatsch to mark the 100th anniversary of the mountain railroads triggered protests in January not only in the region, but also from the Swiss Heritage Society and the Swiss Landscape Conservation Foundation. The Graubünden government also intervened. The cantonal government ruled that a procedure for buildings outside the construction zone (BAB) is required for illuminated night-time advertising. This means that the municipality of Silvaplana is not solely responsible for the permit. The mountain railroads are now refraining from submitting a corresponding application for an AOA procedure on the grounds that it would take too long. The permit will not arrive within a reasonable period of time, Managing Director Dieter Bogner told Radio DRS's Regionaljournal Graubünden on Monday.