Publimedia has reorganized itself. This is in response to the departure of Markus Ehrle to NZZ. On the other hand, the company wants to better adapt to the needs of advertising clients and publishing houses. Alexandra Kasper will take up her position as the new Marketing Director at Publimedia on November 1. Kasper has been Managing Director of Publicitas Swiss Press since October 1, 2002. Prior to this, she was Vice Director at Publicitas Frankfurt and then Sales Director at Publicitas International in Zurich.  
Kasper will take over the Marketing/Communications division as Marketing Director, with the rank of Vice Director, and will also be in charge of publishing relations. She will continue to be responsible for Publicitas Swiss Press as Managing Director in the international area. The Publicitas Swiss Press team will be led and coordinated locally by Francis Brunschwig, Deputy/Sales Manager.
 
The Zurich consulting groups, led by Account Directors Astrid Gartenmann and Markus Bien, will report directly to Daniel Strobel, Director/CEO. Cesare Patella, previously Head of Publisher Relations, will lead the team of media planners in the "Business Development/Media and Research" division under the direction of Othmar Fischlin. Ivo Knüsel, previously Head of Media Planning, will be the new Head of Media Projects.
 
Corinne Blaser, Product Manager PrintPlus, and Philipp Semmler, Training/PrintPlus, will now also be working in Business Development. Reto Pensa will have overall responsibility for the new "Technology" competence center with the Web Management/Marketing Services and IT departments. Michael Bürki will take over the management of the Administrative Services department.

For Thomas Zeltner, Director of the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), a total ban on tobacco advertising is "not an issue". He said this in an interview with the Sonntagszeitung newspaper. However, the existing advertising restrictions would have to be extended if Switzerland wanted to meet the requirements of the WHO Tobacco Convention. Nevertheless, advertising at the point of sale should remain possible in his eyes. The FOPH wants to remove the tobacco chapter from the current Foodstuffs Act and create a separate Tobacco Products Act. The aim is to submit the corresponding bill for consultation next year, Zeltner continued. It is currently unclear whether it will include further-reaching advertising restrictions or youth protection provisions, i.e. no cigarettes for under 16 or 18-year-olds. The head of the FOPH considers sales bans for young people to be more promising than some prevention campaigns. The canton of Baselland introduced a corresponding legal provision on Sunday (see ).

Max U. Rapold, former President of the Swiss Association of Newspaper and Magazine Publishers (SZV) and publisher of Schaffhauser Nachrichten, has died at the age of 82. Rapold had chaired the SVZ from 1980 to 1992 and was also a member of the Ethics Council of the Swiss Press Association. From 1971 to 1999, he was Chairman of the Executive Board of Meier+Cie. Druckerei und Verlag, the publishing house of Schaffhauser Nachrichten. Rapold was also editor-in-chief of the paper until 1994. Schaffhauser Nachrichten announced on Saturday that Rapold had died after a long illness. He remained Honorary Chairman of the company's Board of Directors until his death.

The latest issue of Bilanz will probably have to be censored. On Friday, the business magazine had to retract an advance report concerning Roland Rümmeli, manager of the Siemens pension fund. Apparently, legal action was taken against the article, reports Sonntagsblick. The editorial team withdrew the announcement that had been circulated in the morning in a "denial" e-mail on Friday afternoon. The problem now is that the Bilanz issue with the erroneous text has already been printed. However, the issues will not be canceled, Bilanz editor-in-chief René Lüchinger told Sonntagsblick. That would be too expensive. The alternative is to black out or cut out the pages in question. Lüchinger said: "We will decide on Monday." The issue had been announced for Wednesday, September 27.

Voters in the canton of Baselland have clearly approved the new Alcohol and Tobacco Act. It was approved by 63,819 votes to 25,574, with a 50.25% turnout. The law provides for a ban on billboard advertising on public land and in public buildings. It applies to private property if it is visible to the public (see ). The law also prohibits the sale of tobacco to minors. This also applies to cigarette vending machines if the operators are unable to prevent sales to under-18s. As reported by the SDA, the law is based on the Basel model.

Representatives of the various media genres like to take a side swipe at their dear colleagues: The NZZ am Sonntag reports that during the "Sessiun" in Flims, SRG employees enjoy a discount on lunch and wellness offers at the Parkhotel Waldhaus. Armin Walpen had personally arranged this - the paper from the house on Falkenstrasse came up with the imaginative title of "expense knight from the fee-financed figure" for the SRG boss. How unfair in view of such creativity: The writing guild would have to pay the normal prices for lunch and the wellness amenities in the Waldhaus. The NZZ am Sonntag attributes this to the fact that the press did not already put Flims in the limelight on August 1, as the SRG had done. It remains to be seen whether Sunday's report was motivated by an honorable sense of justice or merely by disdainful envy.

The channel 3sat is drawing level with Swiss television SF and wants to defend its name against the new private channel 3+. As reported by Sonntagsblick, 3sat submitted a six-page notice of opposition to the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property. "The trademarks 3sat and 3+ are confusingly similar," the Zurich patent law firm Schaad, Balass, Menzl & Partner explained to Sonntagsblick. They are bothered by the number three - especially because it appears at the beginning of both names.  
The head of
3+, Dominik Kaiser, reacted with a shake of the head. After all, the TV station TV3 already had a three in its name. The plaintiffs had obviously not noticed this, Kaiser told Sonntagsblick.  
The new legal problems for 3+ come shortly after SF had already filed a lawsuit against the new channel (see
). Incidentally, SRG, to which SF belongs, has a 10 percent stake in 3sat.

Artur K. Vogel is to become the new editor-in-chief of the Bernese newspaper Der Bund. After consulting the editorial team, the Board of Directors today appointed the 53-year-old from Lucerne as the successor to Hanspeter Spörri, whose employment contract was terminated at the end of May (see ). Vogel will take up his position on January 1, 2007. Until then, the two deputy editors-in-chief, Dr. Rudolf Burger and Dani Landolf, will head the editorial team.
 The new "Bund" editor-in-chief studied law and business administration in Zurich. He has 30 years of journalistic experience. He worked for 20 years at the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper in Zurich, including as a correspondent in London and from 1988 to 1996 in the Middle East. He then became head of the foreign desk. Artur K. Vogel has also worked as Switzerland correspondent for Facts magazine and was head of foreign affairs at Weltwoche. He has been working for the "Aargauer Zeitung" for three and a half years in both the foreign and domestic editorial departments.

There has been a small change in the editorial management of the consumer magazine Beobachter. Editor Matthias Pflume and head of copywriting Thomas Roth are swapping roles, reports the Aargauer Zeitung. The change is at their own request. Roth was already working as editor ad interim at Beobachter.

Editor-in-chief Ueli Haldimann has appointed Kurt Schaad as head of the planned SF business magazine. The project group for the new format was already headed by Schaad (see ). The 56-year-old has been working for Swiss television since 1972 and has been head of the "SF Spezial" editorial team since 1993. Among other things, he was previously producer and presenter of the early evening program "Karussell" and the "Tagesschau".
 
From August 2007, the business magazine will report on economic developments, events and players, with a special focus on Swiss companies. According to a press release, the aim is to give a wider audience access to more complex economic topics.

The music channel Viva Switzerland and Bebe Young Care held a major VJane casting in the Viva studios in September. From over 300 applications, 17 finalists were selected and invited to the casting. Linda Gwerder won the race for the coveted presenting job. In future, she will present the daily chart shows alongside Fabienne, Jubaira and Robin and announce the program highlights.
 
Linda Gwerder is 21 and comes from the Zurich Oberland. She attended grammar school in Wetzikon and then studied fashion design at the textile college in Zurich. Gwerder will also represent the Viva channel at events.

For the second time in his career, Wolfgang Vyslozil, Managing Director of the Austria Press Agency (APA), will become President of the European news agencies. The 60-year-old was unanimously elected Chairman of EANA (European Alliance of News Agencies) for two years in Geneva on Friday, replacing the Managing Director of the Dutch agency ANP, Paul Tesselar. At the same time, EANA celebrated its 50th anniversary. It also presented the Award for Excellence in News Agency Quality to the European mobile communications project Minds for the first time (see ).
 
Born in Thuringia, Vyslozil began his professional career in 1974 at the Vienna Press House as assistant to the management of the daily newspaper Die Presse. In 1976, he became deputy managing director of the traditional newspaper. As a representative of the press, he was already a member of the APA Supervisory Board at that time. In 1982, he was appointed Managing Director and member of the Management Board of the news agency. Under his leadership, the initially financially unstable APA developed into one of the most successful news agencies in Europe, generating regular profits since 1988 and distributing annual dividends to its owners, the ORF and all Austrian daily newspapers with the exception of the 'Kronen Zeitung', since 1993.
 
The main aim of EANA itself is to ensure press freedom and independent reporting through suitable economic and legal framework conditions. In addition to the Swiss SDA, the alliance includes AFP (France), Dpa (Germany), PA (UK), EFE (Spain), ANSA (Italy) and ITAR-TASS (Russia).