20 Minuten has one and now Ringier's commuter newspaper heute has one too: a watchblog. The official start of work was on Monday afternoon and verbal fire is already being fired. "After the two failed attempts to cuddle up to Heute, we are mercilessly settling accounts with the grotesque and tabloid-like tabloid Heute," reads the blog's official manifesto. Heute is to be duly imitated and challenged. All "disgusted" people should also be offered a platform on which they can express their displeasure. The aim is also to counteract the "subtle dumbing down of the people" by Today.

Billag, the Swiss collection agency for radio and television fees, intends to carry out regular checks in future to ensure that it is not being ripped off by those exempt from paying fees. Since 2001, AHV and IV recipients with supplementary benefits have been exempt from radio and television reception fees upon written request. Before this rule was introduced in 2000, Billag had to waive the radio and TV fees of around 33,000 households. Today, this figure has risen to 180,000 households. For this reason, Billag intends to regularly review those exempt from fees in future. There could be changes, particularly in the case of IV recipients. As a first step, around 25,000 affected households are currently being contacted. Further letters will follow in 2007 and in the coming years.

Bargains are always well received and especially popular among the Swiss is also everything that is free. Particularly interesting in recent times are the newspaper archives that do not provide users with their information free of charge. What has long been popular in relevant blogger circles as an intelligent activity, namely fiddling around with how one could get hold of protected newspaper content without having to pay for it, has now found a larger circle of imitators. The reason: The blog of the commuter newspaper Heute recently posted the success story of the hack of the Weltwoche and Tagi archives, and already the blogs were full of such publications. Everyone wanted to be the first, even if it meant: Byebye free e-paper.Because the newspapers were fine with it. Holes that are known can be plugged more quickly. Weltwoche, Tages-Anzeiger, Facts, Sonntagszeitung, Netzwoche and NZZ were pleased with the publications. The commuter paper Heute, which wants to act emphatically cool, has made a game out of e-paper hacking. Anyone who tries to hack the e-paper issue of Heute, which is free anyway, and copies the link of the last issue into the address field of the browser and sets the date (e.g. 20102006_ZH) to the current day (23102006_ZH) in the file name receives the friendly message: "Dear bloggers. From 15.30 you may download our newspaper as often as you like ;-)". And 3:30 p.m. is, after all, half an hour ahead of the masses.

The loss of the Bundesliga rights (see ) is forcing pay-TV broadcaster Premiere to reorganize. Premiere wants to divide itself into three independent business areas. Premiere boss Georg Kofler does not rule out the possibility of three separate companies in the future, as reported by Netzeitung. With the restructuring, Kofler wants to position the broadcaster more strongly as a partner and service provider for other TV and telecommunications companies. One part of the group is to concentrate on content such as sports rights and the purchase of films. The second division is to take care of marketing, channel distribution and customer service, while the third division is to drive forward new business such as betting and mobile TV, according to the German industry magazine Werben & Verkaufen.

29% of European Internet users regularly access the Internet via their cell phone. In the USA, the figure is only 19 percent. This is the result of a new study by ComScore Networks, which analyzed Internet usage via cell phone in six countries (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the UK and the USA). Of the countries analyzed, the highest proportion of mobile Internet use is found in Germany and Italy (34% each), followed by France with 28%, Spain with 26% and the UK with 24%. The study also revealed that in all countries surveyed, it is predominantly men (55%) who access the World Wide Web via their cell phones. In addition, the Finnish manufacturer Nokia is said to be the leading brand in Europe in the mobile Internet sector: between 22% (France) and 50% (Italy) use Nokia cell phones for mobile access. In the USA, only 17% use Nokia and 26% of all users use competitor products from Motorola.
According to the study, people primarily surf on the major online portals such as Google, Yahoo or MSN. In contrast to the USA, however, these are facing considerable competition in Europe from operator portals such as Vodafone, O2 or T-Mobile.
ComScore Europe is a division of ComScore Networks Inc., the market leader in digital media measurement. ComsScore Europe provides details on visits, demographics and online purchasing power of website visitors in European, American and global markets.

Pocket TV users mainly look at their cell phone screens in the morning and at home. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, this is the result of initial surveys on user behavior. This disproves expectations that mobile TV would be most popular on the move or in waiting situations. Further results: Usage time is 18 minutes a day. This is good, at least for a service that is still in its infancy (see ). In search of the right broadcast formatMany questions remain unanswered, such as standards and broadcast formats. Is it enough to simply broadcast conventional TV programs 1:1 on the mini screens or do we need special mini formats? At the Munich Media Days, it was announced that user-generated content will soon be available on cell phones. Mobiles Fernsehen Deutschland (MFD) wants to launch a show with the best 20 video clips and is also promoting user-generated content for the mouse cinema. Meanwhile, the production company Ufa is investing a lot of money in developing three-minute crime dramas especially for cell phones. MTV and Discovery are also experimenting. The Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper says with a twinkle in its eye that there is still no eroticism on cell phones. The risk of the cell phone battery dying just before the climax is probably too great.

The two former city presidents, SP politician Klaus Baumgartner and Werner Bircher from the FDP, are campaigning for the Bern West streetcar (see ). Five weeks before the vote, the two Bernese politicians want to support the streetcar proposal. As Peter Gysi, President of the Tram Bern West support committee, explained, they are appearing in advertisements that are being placed in the local press with immediate effect. Both are convinced that the extension of the streetcar network to Bümpliz and Brünnen is important for the development of the districts in the west of Bern, reports SDA.

Martin Kaufmann is joining the sales department of Lucerne-based printing company Sticher Printing at the end of October. He will take up the position of sales consultant and will focus on agencies and companies in the greater Zurich area, as the company reports. Kaufmann has already worked in sales at a printing company in Central Switzerland since 2002. Sticher Printing has been part of the UD Medien Group since January 2006.

The plastic packaging designed by star architect Jean Nouvel will be a thing of the past from January 2007. Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck has decided: The old paper packaging will be back, but with the new logo. Only the Frigor squares will remain in PET, although this will be reduced by 25 percent. As reported by the SontnagsZeitung, Nestlé's decision was in response to the poor response to the packaging from consumers. The new products are to be presented in the first quarter of 2007.  
Wenger era overAccording to the SonntagsZeitung, Nelly Wenger is said to have already vacated her office at the end of September - Wenger fell ill with breast cancer. She is not expected back within Nestlé, writes the SonntagsZeitung. The positioning of the traditional chocolate as a premium brand has not been received in the market as planned. Denner has been lost as a sales channel, cumulative sales figures from January to September are around 30 percent down on the previous year and the situation is also difficult in Germany. The repositioning has cost 40 million Swiss francs - industry insiders expect another 10 to 20 million to be added: For the conversion of the packaging system and the new advertising campaign. Until the end of September, the focus was on Christmas business and foreign markets (see
). However, according to figures from AC Nielsen, Cailler only generated half as much sales from mid-August to mid-September as in the same period last year. Nestlé CEO Brabeck obviously didn't want to wait until after the Christmas business. 

Dramatic, exaggerated and surprising elements always go down well in advertising. And because the congressional elections are just around the corner in America and the Republicans are lagging behind in the polls, they have turned to this tried and tested means for their latest election commercial. In the dramatically staged film, none other than public enemy number one Osama Bin Laden is used to bring voters to the polls and Republicans back to power. To this end, the film virtuously plays on the registers of fear: The al Qaeda chief calls for the killing of U.S. citizens and threatens more attacks. The quotes are from previous years. Images of training camps are shown in the background. The end of the one-minute spot is faded in with the quote: "What is yet to come will be even worse" - followed by an explosion.

It seems unlikely that Osama's likeness and the advertising of terror will be able to persuade voters to change their minds. Representatives of the Democrats see the election commercial only as a desperate attempt by the Republicans to mobilize their voters. The commercial will run on U.S. cable television starting Monday.

Subscribed newspapers and magazines should continue to benefit from reduced postal rates. The Swiss Press Association welcomes the proposal. 
The State Policy Committee (SPK) has drawn up the legal basis so that the press can continue to benefit from lower postal rates after 2007. The bill will be submitted for consultation until January 10, 2007. The National Council intends to discuss the bill in the next spring session.
 
Essentially, the previous system will be continued. Swiss Post will be obliged to grant preferential prices for the transportation of the press, irrespective of distance, in accordance with the previous tariff system, for which it will receive a maximum of CHF 60 million per year from the Confederation. It is now planned that the Confederation will make a further CHF 20 million available to Swiss Post for discounts for the transportation of titles with a small circulation.
 
Swiss Press Association welcomes "sensible reform "On Friday evening, the Swiss Press Association welcomed the sensible and practicable reform of the current system. The model of indirect press funding has proven its worth in Switzerland for decades. The proposal would take into account the important democratic function of the press and contribute to maintaining a pluralistic media landscape. The model presented would also allow the current system to be adapted to today's needs by simply amending the law. However, the Swiss Press Association points out that the model of cross-subsidization of small titles only works if the large titles also participate. If this is not taken into account when setting prices, the large-circulation titles could switch to alternative offerings - which would cause the entire subsidy system to falter. It therefore makes sense to include other providers, as a significant proportion of the daily press is currently distributed by early delivery organizations in densely populated areas. However, as the small-circulation local press is dependent on distribution by the postal service, it is justified to limit the reduction in distribution costs to the postal service.
 
As part of the consultation process, the association announced a more detailed examination of the SPK's proposal.
 
The template can be obtained from the postal regulation authority (PostReg, Bundeshaus Nord, 3003 Bern) and is available at:
www.admin.ch/ch/d/gg/pc/pendent.html
viewable.

Both the Basler Zeitung (BaZ) and the Berner Zeitung (BZ) are officially considered to be no longer certified. According to SonntagsZeitung, the two newspapers have not submitted their circulation figures to the responsible Wemf AG für Werbemedienforschung. Thus, for both newspapers, the complete comparability within the industry is no longer given. According to BaZ, they want to wait and see the effect of the large circulation launched. The BZ publishing house cited computer problems to Wemf.