Former Swiss television presenter Athos Del Ponte (39) is moving to the AZ media group's television station Tele M1. There he will strengthen the news team as a presenter and video journalist and will mainly be used as a news presenter for the daily regional news program "Aktuell". In him, the broadcaster has found the ideal news face, editor-in-chief Heinz Lang announced in a press release. Del Ponte was most recently Managing Director of Skin Wellness. From 1993 to 2002, he worked as a producer, editor and presenter for Swiss television.

In collaboration with Publiconnect and Publicitas, the Neue Luzerner Zeitung has created two cross-media marketplaces for the online portal Zisch.ch. According to a press release, one is the largest real estate marketplace and the other is the largest job marketplace in Central Switzerland. The two new marketplaces were realized with the Publisherconnect solution launched at the beginning of the year. Publisherconnect is an application with a connection to Publicitas systems that acts as a hub between advertisers and all print and online media. The collaboration between Neuer Luzerner Zeitung and Publiconnect was announced back in September (see ).

The selection process is now based on the number of entries and last year's rankings per country. Switzerland is represented on the jury in the "Media" and "Direct" categories. Last year, two Gold Lions went to Switzerland in these categories. Cinecom Managing Director Matthias Luchsinger is somewhat disappointed that Switzerland no longer has a jury member in the supreme discipline of "Film". However, he is all the more satisfied and delighted that for the first time a member will have a say in the Media Lions. "Switzerland has always been very well placed since the launch of this award and has won shortlist awards - and in some cases Media Lions - every year," says Luchinger. In addition, Switzerland has a large circle of competent media experts who can represent it worthily.

The radio station of the Zurich publishing house Tamedia and number one among Swiss private radio stations has created a new service for companies, department stores, bars and other publicly accessible locations: It sells customized music programs. According to the communiqué, the music is put together entirely according to the customer's needs. The music programs can also - if desired - be enriched with target group-specific audio files such as advertising announcements.
Delivered in the current new technologies: Webcast, IP radio, UMTS or any other digital data carrier. There are virtually no limits to the possibilities, the company continues. There are also no limits when it comes to cooperation with carriers: whether Swisscom, Orange, Sunrise or Cablecom - Radio 24 says it wants to ensure that customers can integrate existing agreements and subscriptions.

The EU culture ministers reached an agreement in principle on Monday in Brussels regarding rules for advertising and product placement on European television. Whether the rules can come into force will be decided next spring when the European Parliament has expressed its opinion on this issue. Product placement on television is to be banned in principle - exceptions are possible for feature films, series, sports and entertainment programs. A total ban would also have been difficult to implement. For example, Bond films could no longer be shown. In "Another Day" alone, 20 companies paid 70 million dollars for the placement of their products. Product placement should also be permitted if the companies do not pay a fee but provide goods or services. However, this form of advertising is to be expressly prohibited for children's programs.
Twelve minutes of TV advertising per hour In future, there will no longer be a daily upper limit for advertising on television. However, a maximum of twelve minutes of advertising per hour will still be permitted. Children's programs may only be interrupted for advertising purposes every 30 minutes. Television films, feature films and news of more than 30 minutes in length may also be interrupted no more than once every half hour.

The online agency Orange8 Interactive has announced that it has once again won the Peugeot pitch. With an innovative approach, the Biel-based agency was able to hold its own against the competition. Peugeot Switzerland reviews its supplier relationships at regular intervals. This successful, almost four-year collaboration on Peugeot's online activities is now entering the next round. The first fruits of this renewed collaboration will be seen at the beginning of 2007.

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) is courting readers for the first time with a 30-second TV commercial. It advertises the "two-week free subscription" to the international edition in the German market. The aim: to position the international edition even more strongly in the German market. The commercial will be shown in the evening program on the Vox channel. The TV commercial was realized by the Düsseldorf marketing agency OMA.

In keeping with the self-confident slogan "U1 TV - we are Switzerland," the station from Schlieren is now also making the program: a holistic one for the Swiss heart, soul and body. So first of all, folk music is put firmly on the horse to give people a piece of home feeling in the misty November times. Since November 8, there has been a piece of folk music every day on the evening before - including a Kasselruther Spatzen special.  
That pleases the Swiss heart, but not his soul. For the soul, however, the good news came quickly that U1 TV would bring the church directly into Swiss homes. In the future, the German TV preacher Wolfgang Wegert will also try to reach Swiss souls with sermons from the TV pulpit in the Arche TV broadcasting format. According to the announcement, the service from the TV wants to strengthen, purify and change through the preaching and the work of the Holy Spirit.
 
This would serve the heart and soul, but a holistic program also thinks about the wicked body and lower sensual pleasures. And, yes, a few days later, the news came that U1 TV was going to launch Switzerland's first erotic talk show. And immediately got one of the very bad boys to compensate for the TV priest in the moderation: the former banker and foreign exchange broker and today's porn actor J.-P. Love.
 
In the face of so many great program ideas, even its own reportage magazine "Dossier 24" has to get down on its knees. Or at least "far below the belt," as U1 TV reports. Because on November 14, it explores the prominent life of new moderator, who had his peak with "Porno Heidi". However, whether U1 TV with its new holistic program will also have highlights, remains to be seen. Self-assured slogans are great, but they don't help if you holistically miss the (good) taste of the audience.

Children are to have their own channel on Swiss Television (SF). From 2008, SRG wants to launch a fourth channel that will broadcast a program for children. Whether and when this will actually start, however, depends on financial developments. 
In addition to children, the Romansh-speaking population in Switzerland would also benefit from the new channel. SRG wants to broadcast children's and youth programs during the day, but make room for the expansion of Televisiun Rumantscha in the evening, as SRG spokesperson Simon Meyer confirmed to SDA in a report by NZZ am Sonntag.
 
The children's channel on SF is still in the project phase, emphasized Meyer, and has therefore not yet been approved internally. The aim is to collaborate with ARD and ZDF's children's channel Kika. According to the SDA report, a decision on its realization can only be made once there is clarity about the financial situation of SRG, which will only be the case once the Federal Council has decided on a possible fee increase.
 
In mid-October, SRG notified the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) of additional funding requirements of CHF 136 million per year. Of this, CHF 45 million is to be saved and CHF 19 million recovered through additional revenue.

In French-speaking Switzerland, the Sunday press reports that radio man Hugues De Montafalcon wants to enter the television business. His goal: a regional private television station.  
As reported by SDA on Sunday, French-speaking Switzerland is to receive a regional private television station. The boss of the radio stations Rouge FM and Radio-Lac, Hugues De Montfalcon, wants to enter the television market. "Our aim is to enter the television market in one way or another," De Montfalcon is quoted as saying in the SDA report from the Matin Dimanche newspaper.
 
He assumes that radio and TV will be closely linked in the future. De Montafalcon predicts that radio sets will be able to receive images in around seven years' time. He wants to be ready for this development. As a first step, radio programs will be designed in such a way that they can be filmed in the future. From next summer, the studios will be equipped accordingly.
 
Radio Rouge and Radio-Lac were merged this summer. The radio conglomerate is part of the large French-speaking Swiss publishing house Edipresse.

Lively warbling over the Internet: Everyone is talking about karaoke via the web of all webs. Karaoke communities are growing, generate their own stars and are extremely convenient. 
As the Sonntagszeitung reports in its multimedia pages, Internet karaoke has become a real craze in the (un)culture of telemedia talent-finding events such as Music, Pop, Superstars, etc. Those who participate in an online karaoke community have a much more gracious jury and a much larger and global audience compared to the TV faction. In addition, online karaoke is best suited for couch potatoes or stoner heads who could never get their butts up on a casting stage. Or for extremely shy people who suffer from severe nervous flutter as soon as they see a stage up close.
 
On the karaoke website Singshot.com, for example, anyone can join in who has an internal or, even better, a USB microphone on their computer. To register, participants create a MySpace-like profile and off they go: 1100 songs from 40 years of pop history are available for reinterpretation. Sometimes the originals are distorted beyond recognition, sometimes they reveal singing gems. Like the 29-year-old American Dsvmusic, the current superstar of the community. But he's no mere amateur; he's a music professional in real life, too. If you think things through further, and if CD sales continue to plummet, you can predict that Robbie Williams will soon be on Singshot.com as well.

The Zurich agency TBWA Health has been commissioned to create a communications presence for Kalixan's Calisan product range. Allergies have a hard time with Calisan products. TBWA welcomes Calisan users to the allergy-free zone.  
Allergies can make life difficult for those affected. Kalixan founder Dr. Thomas Bohner, who suffers from allergies himself, is well aware of this. His company is now launching a real alternative for consumers with skin and allergy problems in the form of Calisan detergents and cleaning products. These hypoallergenic products consistently do not contain enzymes or other biotechnological or genetic additives and are free from colorants and fragrances. The result: healthy skin is protected and diseased skin can heal better.
 
TBWA Health handled the communication campaign for Calisan products with the help of a specialist and consumer brochure, POS measures and a specialist mailing. The result was a simple and convincing solution: the allergen-free zone. The yellow frame dramatizes the various areas of application that are enzyme and allergy-free thanks to Calisan. Further advertising material is being planned, as the agency writes in a press release.