The sports editors of the Oltner Tagblatt, Eric Send from Regionaljournal Aargau Solothurn and Hanspeter Späni from Schweizer Fernsehen have been awarded the Aargau/Solothurn Media Prize. The award winners were honored on Monday in Schönenwerd, according to the SDA news agency. As part of the UN Year of Sport, the sports editorial team of the Olten Tagblatt had examined the sportiness of communities in various reports. Eric Send received the award for his report "15 years of Velobüro Olten" on Radio DRS. Hanspeter Bäni from SF was also honored for his report "Die Kinder vom Schloss Kasteln".
Media professionals submitted a total of 135 entries. These were assessed by a jury in a multi-stage process. The Aargau/Solothurn Media Prize is endowed with CHF 10,000 and is awarded by the two cantons and the regional media companies.

The official circulation bulletin of the circulation of all newspaper titles certified in 2006 was published on Monday. The bulletin of Wemf AG für Werbemedienforschung is no longer distributed in paper form, but is now available free of charge as a PDF on wemf.ch. Titles that are not listed in the document are either confirmed for the postal service or have not taken part in the circulation certification process, according to a press release. The certification is based on the principle of self-declaration. Advertising-relevant titles are now checked by external auditing companies. If discrepancies are identified during the audit, these will be published in a correction list, the statement continues. The "certified edition" certificate is to be given greater importance.

Creative agency Vizner Borel created the accompanying communication measures for the opening of the furniture group's most modern branch.  
Ikea Spreitenbach is now a Minergie building and meets the latest ecological standards. However, Vizner Borel is not only showing Ikea in a modern way, but also as a source of inspiration - because the new attractive exhibition areas include 9500 living ideas on display. Although the campaign only shows a few of the same ideas, radio spots, advertisements, direct marketing and many other measures were used in addition to the large poster campaign.

The Swiss cinema portal Cineman.ch has been given a facelift, a French language version and new forms of advertising. A lot has also happened in the Cineman.ch environment. Clubgirl.ch has been transformed into Moonwalk.ch, making it the first party portal to specialize in party videos. The TV guide Teleboy.ch will also be given a new look in the coming weeks. All themed portals will now be under the umbrella brand Entertainfo.com, under which a continuous thematic and geographical expansion will take place, according to a press release. At the same time, the parent site provides the connecting element between the various sections. Film reviews can now not only be read on Cineman.ch, but also downloaded as podcasts or watched as videos. The website has also been available in French since Monday morning. An Italian and an English version are planned.

Since the beginning of November, PR specialist Roger Waber has been working as a media representative in the Corporate Communications & Media department at Switzerland Tourism (ST). The 39-year-old replaces Oliver Kerstholt, who will take over the ST office in Hamburg on February 1, 2007. Waber worked for Swiss Television for eight years. He worked in the Communications and Marketing department in the Media Relations division. He later joined the editorial team of the TV youth program Oops! and moved to the Advertising and Public Relations department. 

Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey has commissioned communications specialist Patrizia Haller to develop a communications concept for the popular American whiskey brand. The first step will be publicity reports, followed by public relations work, according to a media communiqué. The main aim of the measures is to further consolidate and raise the profile of the Jack Daniel's brand. 

The presenters of the "Meteo" weather program on Swiss Television (SF) will remain on the roof: from November 6 to mid-December, however, they will be reporting from a temporary weather desk - high above Leutschenbach. The reason for the temporary solution is the renovation of the broadcasting platform. In addition to a new weather desk, the broadcast will be equipped with new weather maps and display formats. State-of-the-art meteorological and forecasting technologies and forecasting options will be used, as SF announced on Monday. In future, for example, clouds or rain will be animated and Switzerland will be divided up more finely in the weekly outlook. In addition, "Meteo" will appear in widescreen format "16:9" after the relaunch.

In Germany, the 24-hour channel Help TV started broadcasting on Friday evening. The program has a tip in store around the clock on almost all everyday topics - and also features TV pastor Jürgen Fliege, among others. Monday to Saturday, the help channel broadcasts live from 3 p.m. to midnight, otherwise repeats are shown, reports Pressetext.ch. Every hour, doctors, psychologists, lawyers, nutritionists and esotericists, among others, take their place on the counselor's couch. The advertising slogan is "the channel that knows the answer".
 
For the person seeking advice, help via the screen is not cheap. It costs 49 cents to dial in - regardless of whether the caller gets through or not and how long the call lasts. The channel is also financed exclusively by the distress of its viewers, without any advertising customers, industrial companies or other TV stations. The TV professionals behind Help TV include the WestCom Media Group and the Potsdam-based production company Das Redaktionsbüro. Help TV can be received via satellite in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

The Radio and Television Society of Western Switzerland (RTSR) has elected Jean-François Roth, who is stepping down from the Jura cantonal government, as its new president. He will take office on July 1, 2007, as reported by the news agency SDA. Roth is leaving the cantonal government at the end of the year, where he has represented the CVP government since 1995. The 54-year-old succeeds Jean Cavadini, a former National Councillor from Neuchâtel. 

Stéphane Justin, a journalist from French-speaking Switzerland, has founded the internet station Radiocinema.ch in Lausanne. For the past week, the channel has been broadcasting exclusively film music around the clock. Justin is supported by film students as well as media and cinema professionals, according to a report by the news agency SDA. As the radio producer explains, the aim of the station is not to earn money, but rather the team is an association of enthusiasts. In a few weeks' time, the Radiocinem.ch crew will also be chasing contributions on film history through the net. The website already contains information on current movies and DVDs. The language of the new station is French.

Bloggers are faster than any PR department. And as a new study shows, private user comments are also increasingly influencing purchasing decisions. As reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the survey of 2000 Internet users in Europe conducted by the market research institute Ipsos revealed that around a quarter of European Internet users believe private comments on blogs or user comment sites. Thirty percent of German respondents stated that they would not have bought a product or used a service if they had found negative comments from private users on the Internet. In contrast, 56 percent stated that they would be prepared to purchase a product or service if they read positive comments online.
Although only around 15 percent of German users currently read blogs, the number is on the rise. However, blogs play a far greater role in purchasing behavior than company blogs, for example.
Companies are also increasingly observing discussions on blogs in order to obtain feedback on their products and services more quickly and honestly. But when it comes to attempts to influence the blogosphere, it is important to be careful not to make yourself unpopular. When it was discovered that Wal-Mart had hired two bloggers to spread positive comments about the company on their blogs, the company was inundated with negative comments on other blogs.

The yellow plastic from the post office has a new application: it is also a concert ticket. Concert tickets can be booked online directly onto the card. PostFinance is also offering preferential conditions for using the new service. The associated campaign was created by Publicis. Based on this, Maxomedia in Berne has staged a large-scale online campaign on high-profile online portals such as Cineman.ch, Usgang.ch and Tillate.ch. The young target group in particular is expected to jump on board the new offer. And another PostFinance online campaign is also aimed specifically at this target group: anyone who subscribes to the new newsletter can win a VIP event in a prize draw.