TV magazines The US television market is in a state of upheaval, and with it the market for program information and magazines.  
TV Guide magazine has held the monopoly on TV listings since its introduction in 1953. Even with the many new possibilities of the digital era, little has changed so far. Gemstar, owner of TV Guide and 43% owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, is currently pumping millions into the development of digital features. Above all
the website, offers a wealth of information. For example, you can enter the name of your favorite actor and immediately see not only all upcoming shows, but also all articles about them that have appeared in TV Guide since 1953. Content details for individual episodes of series and video downloads are also offered.  
The company is currently working on license agreements with TV broadcasters that will allow tvguide.com to show short clips from the respective shows online. "We're not just telling people what to watch, but where to find it," says Rick Cusick, Vice President of TV Guide Digital, "and we're doing it all through our technology."
Despite the current renaissance, TV Guide has had to fight through many a dry spell in recent years. The magazine experienced its heyday in the 1970s with the establishment of dozens of new cable and satellite channels. The publisher published over 250 regional editions at the time and achieved its highest circulation in 1974 with 19 million copies.
In recent years, the company has lost a lot of ground and undergone a complete restructuring. Last fall, the magazine was reduced to a circulation of just 3.2 million copies. The remaining 140 regional editions focus on two catchment areas, the east and west coasts. The format was changed from the handy digest size to magazine format. "It's no longer just about the program listings, but we offer a variety of content about stars and productions presented across different platforms," says Bo Park, spokesperson for TV Guide.
At the same time as scaling back the print edition, TV Guide launched a firework display of alternative information platforms. The company has a dominant position in the so-called "Interactive Programming Guides" (IGPs). It initially developed its own Interactive Program Guide (IPG) for digital cable, which can currently be viewed by 14 million people via major cable and satellite providers such as Comcast, Charter, DirecTV and Echostar.
 
With the second-generation IPG called "i-Guide", customers can also navigate through all digital services at home, including all TV programs, HDTV, video on demand and digital video recorders. The trend continues with a new IPG for cell phones, which TV Guide has just launched and which will also allow users to program their video recorder remotely in the near future.
Stronger competitorsTMS Entertainment, a new company of the Tribune newspaper publishing house in Chicago, has emerged as a competitor to TV Guide in recent years. TMS produces several weekly supplements with regional TV listings for over 400 newspaper companies. The main product, the TV supplement "TV Select", is distributed by around 100 newspapers. Jay Fehnel, Vice President of TMS Entertainment Products: "Every market is unique. We tailor our products to the needs of each individual market."
TMS is achieving significant growth rates for its print products, which also has to do with the withdrawal of TV Guide from the print sector. TMS has also expanded its Internet activities enormously in recent years: The company owns the website zap2it.com, which was an early competitor to tvguide.com with expanded content and background information. tvguide.com was fee-based for a while, which helped make zap2it.com a success. Over 400 other websites, mostly from newspapers, now use zap2it.com content, which brought them a whopping 3.6 million unique visitors in July 2006. TV Guide only recorded 2.7 million.
However, the two market leaders have the greatest competition online, as portals such as MSN, AOL and Yahoo also offer TV listings and celebrity news. MSN is currently the online market leader with 9.6 million unique visitors. The big challenge, however, will be how to structure the growing market of Internet television, IPTV, with its dozens of genres in a meaningful way and keep users up to date with the latest news.
 
"Searching for rich media, i.e. video and the like, is a huge mess because nobody knows exactly how to do it," says Van Baker, Vice President of Gartner Research. "That's the big challenge because, unlike text, video can't be indexed reliably."
 
Gerti Schön
 

Automobil Ruf Lanz establishes the Korean car brand Hyundai as a German quality brand. 
Car advertising in the opposite lane: now that not only the design of the various brands is almost indistinguishable and consequently the advertising for new models is like one egg to another, Ruf Lanz has now cracked open such an egg and looked for the inner values of a brand for Hyundai. This yellow - or Asian - egg has now grown into a campaign that once again makes car advertising a lot of fun to drive. "Most car manufacturers are content to depict their models and use headlines that seem to come straight out of the wind tunnel: stripped of all rough edges. This is a great opportunity for Hyundai to stand out with a smart strategy and amazing implementation," says Markus Ruf.
The budget was won in the summer following an agency presentation. The South Korean brand Hyundai is the first car for the agency, which had previously operated in public. Two workshops were held with the client to tackle the problem and set the strategic guidelines.
A new wave of car imports from China will soon roll over us. As low-cost models, these cars will once again set new price standards. Hyundai is aware of the impending competition and therefore wants to position itself differently in good time. The expected European market entry of Chinese cars in the next few years suggests that Hyundai should no longer just position itself as a "low-cost car". The strategy is: "Hyundai is a self-confident, high-quality car brand at a very good price", as Managing Director Adam White puts it.
This new brand positioning confirms existing Hyundai drivers in their purchasing decision. At the same time, it is intended to appeal to new groups of buyers. Market research shows that although Hyundai tends to be bought by conservative people with lower incomes, the brand is also popular with the progressive middle and higher income groups. This is confirmed, for example, by the New Car Buyer Survey 2006 and the Brand Media Monitor. Every buyer likes to be reassured that they have bought a good car. In the case of Hyundai, this is now also confirmed by various studies.
Until now, Hyundai has been perceived almost exclusively as a "cheap car". However, the brand has image deficits in terms of quality, safety and design. Although it is also convincing in this respect: Hyundai took third place in the renowned J.D. Power quality study 2006. Directly behind two luxury brands. Conclusion: While Hyundai has so far enjoyed a reputation as an inexpensive car, a new lance is now to be broken in the direction of quality.
These considerations led to the idea: The German among the Asians. A pointedly differentiating brand statement that means nothing other than: Hyundai offers top quality at a very good price. Because quality is suggestively associated with German vehicles in all surveys. With a wink, the campaign plays on the newly discovered similarities between German and Korean quality.
True-to-style German-KoreansKoreans pose around the Hyundai vehicles like genuine Germans. Once as an exemplary large family with a German shepherd dog. Once as hunters in perfect German hunting uniforms. And just in time for the opening of the Oktoberfest in Munich as an original traditional costume band. When realizing the photos, attention was paid to "absolute stylistic authenticity". So the dog in the first subject is of course a purebred German shepherd, just as the hunters will later be purebred Bavarian hounds.
In a first step, the campaign works on the brand level. Here, the Hyundai Santa Fe takes center stage in double-page and half-page advertisements. Because 4 x 4 and sport utility vehicles are in vogue. The Ruf Lanz agency has also just ordered such a model.
At the tactical level, the special Hyundai Getz Alaska and Hyundai Tucson Alaska models are being advertised. At the representative level, around 140 Hyundai dealers in Switzerland can download various small advertisements via the Internet.
Hyundai attaches great importance to local roots in its advertising. That is why the entire campaign is not an adapted European pudding, but was designed exclusively for Switzerland by Ruf Lanz. The concept will continue to offer rewarding opportunities for declination in the future. The Germans in Mallorca will be hard to avoid.
This is accompanied by various radio spots that are currently going viral online. Koreans with a good knowledge of the German language - but with the charm of the Asian accent - read German poems such as "Die Glocke" by Schiller, a scene from "Faust" by Goethe, the hymn to the oak tree, the song of the Lorelei, the lyrics of the German national anthem or the original swearing-in formula of the German Federal President. After a few sentences, a claim is superimposed over the "corruption": "The German among the Asians ..."
Of course, as a result of the story, some of the German educational material in these radio commercials "had to be bypassed in a big way", Markus Ruf concedes. However, the agency is happy that the client not only allowed such cheeky ideas, but also recognizes their added value for the brand image. The first dealers already want to spray the motifs on their delivery vans.
Ruf Lanz now not only has the streetcars and buses of the city of Zurich in its portfolio, but also private cars. Naturally, this requires an increase in personnel. Not least because of the Hyundai budget, the creative agency, which was only founded in 2001, will grow from 10 to 16 people over the next few weeks. In October, the agency therefore plans to move to larger premises on Zurich's Löwenplatz. As the name suggests, the creatives not only want to create more space for employees behind the globe, but also more space for lions...
Andreas Panzeri

ÖV LangGysiKnoll has put funny animated advertising for the Bern night bus online. 
Viral spots now also in Bern: Bernmobil's Moonliner night bus operates 18 routes covering over 120 municipalities in the cantons of Bern, Solothurn and Fribourg. It offers a growing number of young passengers a convenient and often the only way to get home late at night after going out in the cities. The bus is used by around 140,000 passengers a year, and since the beginning of 2005 LangGysiKnoll has been motivating occasional and non-customers to use this service with a witty, striking illustration campaign. It shows real-life, daunting scenarios from an evening program - resolved with the baseline "Moonliner. We'll get you out of there". Posters, adverts and streetcar hangers are complemented by cheeky radio spots on the subject, intoned by Bernese dialect rapper El Nino.
LGK has now added another dimension to the campaign with an animated film produced in-house - realized by graphic design youngsters Dominic Beyeler and Mathias Zimmermann as part of their apprenticeship. The spot's protagonist is an animated version of El Nino, who experiences the horror of the radio spot first-hand. Only the Moonliner is able to save him from the ugly groupie girl familiar from the basic campaign.
The film submitted for the EDI 2006 Viral Award will be distributed via e-mail, iTunes podcast, blog featuring and links on various websites. Thanks to generous sponsorship, it can also be seen in cinemas in Bern this September.
 
Andreas Panzeri

Corporate publishing in-house or outsourcing? This is not a new question, but it should no longer be asked in this way. Instead, the aim should be to find an outsourcing solution in which the internal resources can be optimally integrated. more and more customer magazines are being produced by corporate publishing agencies. In contrast, the willingness to outsource employee magazines and annual reports is significantly lower. For these products, the prevailing opinion is still that it is not worth bringing in external specialists to communicate internal company information. This is often justified by the fact that outsiders do not know enough about the internal information and that working with external specialists is therefore too complicated. In many companies, the demands on the professionalism of employee information are also much more modest. The fact that employee magazines are often produced in-house is also due to the budget situation. There is still a strong tendency to cut costs when it comes to internal communication measures. Saving is simply equated with "do it yourself!". However, it is doubtful whether the in-house production of an employee magazine is actually cheaper. If the working hours of the employees involved in the project are included in a full cost calculation, and if the time used to revise the articles is included, the supposed savings potential melts away like snow in the spring sun.
First the goal, then the wayWhich is better: in-house or outsourcing? Budget and capacity criteria are not the only decisive factors in answering this question. Above all, it is important to answer the questions of what you want to achieve with the publication, what the readers' expectations are and to what level the journal or magazine should be raised. As a rule, the latter is always set very high: "professional", "convincing", "better than the others" are the predominant criteria here.
To achieve this goal, however, the company usually lacks sufficiently skilled and experienced employees. They also lack the necessary distance to be able to report on internal company events, projects and developments according to journalistic criteria.
Fill key positions correctlyOutsourcing is often equated with the complete outsourcing of a CP project. In reality, however, there are numerous nuances to outsourcing. For example, it is common to bring in specialists who are responsible for the graphic design of the magazine. Or journalists are commissioned with individual topics on a selective basis. But who assumes overall journalistic responsibility and who is responsible for the project as project manager? Answering these questions sets the course for the success or failure of a publication.
In companies that have a special communications department, it is quite possible that employees have sufficient journalistic experience to take over the editorial management of a publication. However, the lack of critical distance to the subject area and the proximity to superiors or colleagues can prove to be a disadvantage.
 
This is where the involvement of an external, journalistically experienced coach can provide valuable input. The coach takes part in the topic planning and author briefing, edits the texts if necessary and ensures that the journalistic and conceptual requirements are met. Thanks to his "independence", it is easier for the coach to make sensitive decisions, for example by revising a superior's article from a journalistic point of view.
Another key area in corporate publishing is project management, which coordinates all production processes from planning to delivery of the publication. It is always surprising that this function is neglected in resource planning. As a result, project management for corporate publications is sometimes delegated to employees who do not have the necessary specialist knowledge. There are specialist courses and relevant literature on the subject of corporate publishing. However, this cannot make up for the lack of know-how overnight.
The use of an online editing system opens up new perspectives in outsourcing. The fact that the people involved in the project (from different locations) have access to the text content and can follow the graphic design at the same time creates a good link between internal expertise and professional implementation.
The system allows an external coach to be used either as a project manager, editorial employee or consultant. The company has an overview of the individual project steps at all times. Together with the partner agency, the project managers in the company can divide up the tasks, taking into account the skills and capacities of all those involved.
Even if all project work is fully outsourced, the client can obtain an overview of the status of the work at any time. In other words, the online editorial system enables flexible outsourcing that incorporates the strengths of all those involved and offers absolute transparency about the progress of the project.
Workshop "Project management "The CP agency Medianovis
has been working with an online editorial system since the beginning of the year. The possibilities and advantages of this system will be presented at a workshop in Kilchberg: Tuesday, September 26, 2006, 3 to 5 p.m. (followed by an aperitif). Participation is free of charge; limited number of participants. Further information and registration on the Internet at  
Daniel Steim, member of the management of the CP agency Medianovis AG in Zurich-Kilchberg.

Study Customer magazines could be used to a much greater extent to establish new customer contacts using suitable response elements. This is the conclusion of the study "Dialogue behavior in corporate publishing". At the same time, the study also describes ways in which response can be effectively channeled and evaluated and shows 14 examples of successful dialog strategies. The study examined the dialog behavior of 196 leading German-language customer magazines. The study can be obtained free of charge from Forum Corporate Publishing ([email protected]).

Advertising market With regard to the Publimedia Forum, the Swiss Advertisers Association (SWA) is raising its voice - "on behalf of its members, who finance a good 70 percent of Swiss advertising revenue", according to a communiqué.  
Specifically, SWA Director Jürg Siegrist is calling for "all publishers" to finally introduce the new rate model. This is "simpler and clearer" as it "replaces the outdated system of calculating individual colors with uniform rates for color advertisements". According to SWA, the higher rates for job and financial advertisements compared to other advertising are also a thing of the past. Siegrist is pointing the finger at the print media: the advertising industry may be dependent on the print media, but "newspapers live mainly from advertisers' insertions".
 
Markus Knöpfli 

In a competitive presentation for Denner's pork belly, the Zurich-based communications agency came out on top against the competition. In addition to the great understanding of the retail trade, the strategy and implementation were decisive for the award. Both familiar and new approaches were chosen. ViznerBorel, previously entrusted with the Denner image and wine campaign, is now also responsible for the commercial pork belly advertising. The first results will be seen by the beginning of 2007 at the latest.

The Thurgauer Zeitung and the St. Galler Tagblatt are merging their local editorial teams and thus retreating to their home regions. In a press release on Wednesday, the two companies confirm the rumors from two weeks ago (see ). From January 2007, there will only be one local editorial office each in Kreuzlingen, Amriswil, Weinfelden and Bischofszell. In future, the Tagblatt will receive editorial content from the Thurgauer Zeitung covering the districts of Weinfelden and Kreuzlingen. In return, the Tagblatt will provide its cooperation partner with news from the Arbon and Amriswil districts.
Swap deal between the two newspapers Among other things, this means the end of the St. Galler Tagblatt editorial offices in Kreuzlingen and Weinfelden. For its part, the Thurgauer Zeitung is stopping its own reporting in the municipalities of Amriswil and the district of Arbon. For the district of Bischofszell (excluding Amriswil), the two papers will form a joint editorial team. According to a press release, the cooperation will allow the exchange of editorial content. In addition, the two daily newspapers can now concentrate on their core areas. However, cantonal topics and those of supra-regional interest will continue to be covered separately by the two newspapers.

Merger destroys jobs Two jobs at the Thurgauer Zeitung are affected by the collaboration. According to the press release, a solution is being sought internally for those affected. Jobs will also be lost at the St. Galler Tagblatt. It is not yet clear how many, according to the news agency.
When the cooperation plans became known two weeks ago, the cantonal government and the Grand Council expressed concerns. They feared that the division would create a "must moat". As the SDA now reports, these fears have been allayed somewhat. However, according to the Director of Economic Affairs, there is concern that the collaboration is a first step towards a single newspaper.
 
Comedia criticizes cooperation In a statement, the media trade union Comedia also criticized the cooperation between the two Thurgau newspapers. It is questionable that the market is to be practically eliminated. "The fact that the NZZ Group in particular, whose flagship pays homage to the market in flaming pleas, is in fact entering into an agreement with its direct competitor Tamedia on the geographical division of markets is very surprising," writes Comedia. In retrospect, it almost seems like a mockery that Tamedia emphasized when it took over the Thurgauer Zeitung a year ago that the deal would preserve "the long-term independence of the Thurgauer Zeitung and media diversity in the canton of Thurgau".

Following the launch of the regional editions on 6 November, the Tages-Anzeiger is reorganizing its central editorial services. With the introduction of a new producer system, 24 jobs will be cut.  
The new producer system has already been introduced in the regional edition for the left bank of Lake Zurich (see
). Now the other editorial offices are following suit, as the Tages-Anzeiger (TA) announced in a press release on Wednesday. The optimization of the editorial software has made production workflows more efficient. In future, layouters will design the pages directly with the producers.  
This reorganization is part of the reallocation and partial financing of the 70 newly created positions in the new regional sections of the daily newspaper announced in March (see
). The changes have initial consequences in terms of personnel: 12 jobs will be cut by the end of March 2007, initially in the areas of layout and documentation. The documentation department will be completely closed by this time, as the constant expansion of the electronic archives has led to a lack of capacity utilization. A further 12 jobs will be cut by mid-2007, affecting the layout and proofreading departments. According to TA, a social plan is in place for the employees. This involves additional benefits such as extended notice periods or payments based on the number of years of service for employees over 50, as company spokeswoman Eva Pavlovic told SDA.  
Comedia outraged In its communiqué, the media trade union Comedia expressed its indignation at the job cuts. Only three weeks ago, Tamedia announced a record profit of CHF 75.7 million for the first half of 2006. Comedia also fears a decline in journalistic quality, as the new producer system will lead to more work for journalists. At the same time, their time for their original editorial tasks will be restricted.

As the new CD at Sulzer, Sutter, Jens Telgenkämper wants to combine his German experience in integrated advertising with a Swiss sense of creativity and style. 
For Jens Telgenkämper, the "recession hysteria" in Germany had increasingly led to an overheated "stinginess is cool" mentality. "The advertising messages ebbed and flowed into flat price and promotional offers, the creative swell was modest. Art work and image ideas were underutilized and underappreciated. That's why I deliberately moved from Munich to Switzerland." The agency Sulzer, Sutter in Zurich was unknown to the Munich native. His wife stumbled across their website on the Internet, and they both found it "very likeable and not so capricious".
Together with Sulzer, Sutter, the former Head of Creation at BBDO InterOne Munich now wants to "bring together the best of both worlds and formulate new, unmistakable impulses and signals" in a classic agency. New media such as iPod, UTMS, PDA and other future developments are opening up ever better and more direct channels to the consumer.
Telgenkämper came into advertising as a career changer. He began by studying economics in Essen, specializing in marketing and psychology. Then he was tempted by a journalistic internship at the Bild newspaper, where he ended up staying longer than planned. From this "very intensive and informative time", he particularly remembers an interview with the still fresh-faced Harald Schmidt. "He first turned me down five times, then stood me up twice, gave me a migraine once and then, as a small consolation, gave me a very nice headline." But "the tough stories and ratings boosters" were also part of the job, so that Telgenkämper finally experienced tabloid journalism as more than just a dream job.
True to the unbeatable Bild motto - if you have something important to say, don't make long words - he moved overnight from the editorial desk to the creative department at BDO Munich. His most important clients at the time were Smart, Geo and National Geographic.
Two years of "hard school" later and in the middle of the dot-com wave, Jens Telgenkämper set up his own business together with his former CD and a consultant and founded the agency 3/10 thesen. "At the time, three people had ten plausible theories on how advertising should work." The agency was "a bit crazy", as they say in Munich. Nevertheless, the start-up developed "very successfully". For clients such as Siemens, Sun Microsystems, Feinschmecker and Yahoo, the wild 3/10s also carried out their first guerrilla campaigns in addition to classic communication. Even then, the initial questions were always: What is the idea? Is the idea strong? Does the idea have sex?
After two years, 3/10 thesen was already employing seven people in 1998. Then the dot-com bubble ran out of steam. The agency's lights went out. The young entrepreneur mutated back into a freelance CD and finally became Head of Creation at BBDO InterOne in 2001.
"An interesting model," says Telgenkämper. In Munich, five different individual BBDO agencies have merged to form a large agency with 350 employees. The most diverse specialists under one roof - this allowed for very short distances. "The integrated concept was implemented very directly, without bends and chicanes." As the main customer, BMW accounted for 80 percent of sales. This also included Mini and BMW Financial Services.
During this time, Telgenkämper also tried "to take a less traditional approach, even if we did do traditional advertising". For example, a large TV gala was launched for BMW and a short film award and a BMW music magazine were established. In a similarly unconventional way, the agency had the planes for the low-cost airline BA sprayed in a "rather biting" aggressive green. So is snappy advertising his style?
"Advertising should not be boring. Advertising should still - or again - be seen as a living branch of the art world. Not as an annoying weed, but rather as an exotic, entertaining cross between a crop plant and a genetically modified orchid," he explains.
To be able to deliver good ideas every day, Telgenkämper gets new impetus "preferably through creative breaks". At Sulzer, Sutter in Zurich's Seefeld district, this can be a short walk by the lake. But he also enjoys taking the S-Bahn and seeing "the people we are advertising for". Bertolt Brecht said of this inspiration "to look the people in the mouth". Anyone who sits at a computer for eleven hours and looks for other ideas in the media "unfortunately no longer notices what's going on". He calls it the instantaneous water heater principle: "In the end, something lukewarm comes out, something that has been chewed over a thousand times, something against which the taste buds immediately rebel."
Telgenkämper has also won at the New York Festival with his integrated ideas. However, he has never worked specifically for competitions. Ultimately, he hopes that his decision to move to Zurich will give him more time for customers, whom he wants to serve in a more intimate and sustainable way.
At Sulzer, Sutter, the new CD can contribute his ideas for Parisienne, Fifa or American Express, for example. He also wants to invest a lot of time in new business. The former top athlete benefits from the fact that he can still rely on his strength and ability to concentrate when things get tough.
The former 400 and 800 meter runner continues to keep fit by jogging. He also wants to become more active again in his private writing training. He is planning a book on the history of international athletics. Of course, there has to be a chapter about Zurich. This thought makes him nostalgic. "It's a shame that the Letzigrund Stadium has just been demolished, I would have loved to run on holy ground again - but without a stopwatch - the time would probably be cruel ..."

Andreas Panzeri

Water More than 1.1 billion people worldwide suffer from a lack of drinking water. Without help, millions of them would have to die from diseases caused by polluted water or poor hygiene. The Swiss development organization Helvetas is therefore committed to the construction of wells and drinking water systems in the 3rd world and is again calling for donations for its water projects this fall. SFLB has created advertisements with a symbolic character for this purpose. They show water tubes stuck in the parched earth: "Help us bring back drinking water." The ads appear in major newspapers and magazines in German-speaking Switzerland.

Sonntagspresse After almost six months, the seventh edition of Südostschweiz is doing well. However, the publishers behind it are struggling with the idea. 
On May 7, Südostschweiz publisher Hanspeter Lebrument launched his Sunday newspaper project in order to share in the success of the Sunday business, which had previously been divided between the three major Zurich publishers Ringier, Tamedia and NZZ. But it was to be something independent, not simply a fourth Sunday newspaper, but the logical extension of the daily press into Sunday, a seventh edition of Südostschweiz. Lebrument came too late with the new child to be considered in the national advertising campaigns. But this has not turned out to be a disadvantage, as Südostschweiz editor-in-chief and co-owner Andrea Masüger explains. "The advertising customers can observe the product at their leisure and see that it is not a one-day wonder." According to Masüger, the response to the seventh Südostschweiz so far has been positive, both from advertisers and readers. He knows from some readers that they no longer buy any other Sunday newspaper at the kiosk. They obviously appreciate the fact that they now get a newspaper on Sunday that is not as thick as the Sunday papers of the three big Zurich publishing houses.
In Chur, clear differentiation from Switzerland's largest media center is important at every opportunity anyway. The eclat at the launch last May is still vividly remembered, when the delivery and distribution organization (Zuvo) tried to thwart the distribution of the new paper with a super-provisional injunction. Without success. Publisher Lebrument barked that they didn't want to be banned from making newspapers in Graubünden.
More variety of topics The Sunday newspaper concept initially works with the core titles of Südostschweiz, i.e. the Graubünden, Glarus, Gaster and See regions. It also includes the Bündner Tagblatt, whose editorial team contributes a regular column. Initial fears that the Sunday edition could cannibalize the Monday content have not been confirmed. "The Monday edition is just as thick as it used to be."
 
Editor-in-chief Masüger, on the other hand, speaks of a shift in content, as the seventh edition is not a Sunday-only newspaper. This leads to a kind of hybrid form of daily and Sunday newspaper. On the one hand, Saturdays generate too little material for Sunday alone.
 
On the other hand, not all stories have to be published during the week and can easily be placed on Sunday. "This has awakened the creative forces in the editorial offices and ultimately leads to a greater variety of topics," says Masüger. A process that has played itself out relatively organically. Nevertheless, Christian Buxhofer, editor-in-chief of the Bündner Tagblatt, estimates that the Sunday edition seems to anticipate some of the Monday topics in his paper. "We have to be considerate of Sunday on Monday."
The acid test is yet to comeOn the advertising side, Südostschweiz am Sonntag has been doing well so far. The opposite would have been surprising, as the Sonntagspresse, along with the free press, is considered the sole winner in the still marauding and only partially recovering newspaper industry. "We had a slight slump in advertising in the summer, but in general we got off to a good start," confirms Masüger. He speaks of four to seven pages of advertisements every day. Many advertisers also focused exclusively on the new and inexpensive Sunday advertising offer.
 
However, after the delayed start in May, the acid test is still to come when it comes to getting a slice of the cake in the national advertising campaigns this late fall. Nevertheless, Andrea Masüger has already concluded that the concept, for which the makers of Südostschweiz want to give themselves three years to get it into the black, has paid off.
Small publishers on the defensiveThe so-called affiliated publishers of Südostschweiz view the youngest child from Chur with a little more distance. They include a number of publishing houses that have joined the Südostschweiz umbrella concept and focus primarily on their regional and local expertise. These are Werdenberger and Obertoggenburger, March Anzeiger, Höfner Volksblatt, Bote der Urschweiz, Sarganserländer, Rheintalische Volkszeitung, Liechtensteiner Vaterland and Liechtensteiner Volksblatt.
 
They meet regularly once a month as part of the "Südostschweiz management organization" to discuss upcoming problems and exchange experiences. No, a seventh edition is not yet a compelling issue for any of the publishers. "Some of our publishers are rather critical about whether a Sunday newspaper could be successful," says Reinhard Walser, member of the Board of Directors of the Vaduz media house and also head of the management organization.
 
The first problem for publishers whose publications have small print runs is distribution. "If you don't have early delivery like Südostschweiz in Chur, you can forget it," says Walser. Interest in participating in the Sunday newspaper model is currently practically zero. Not even a date has been set for talks. "For us small newspapers, we would supply the jacket section, but I can't imagine having our own Sunday editorial team," says Daniel Ettlinger, publishing director of the Werdenberger and Obertoggenburger. For Ettlinger, the topic is therefore not a current issue.
 
Hugo Triner, publisher of the Boten der Urschweiz, also waves it off. "A seventh edition is not an option for us in the short term." The advertising effectiveness of the regional press is generally underestimated, while that of the Sunday press is overestimated. Nevertheless, Triner wants to review the project in the coming year. Apparently opinions are also divided as to whether or not the Sonntagsblatt from Chur should now be seen as competition. After barely six months, there are still no figures to prove this.
"The affiliated publishers are of course free to decide whether they want to participate in the Sunday edition or not," says Andrea Masüger. It remains to be seen whether the Sunday press will become more widespread in south-eastern Switzerland as a result.
Reading Sunday soon in Aargau tooRecently, Peter Wanner declared,
The publisher of the Aargauer Zeitung has confirmed that it is serious about launching a Sunday title. "We are currently in the decision-making phase as to whether we want to go ahead with the project," confirms publishing director Ueli Eckstein. It should be clear by the beginning of December whether the idea should be put into practice and a seventh edition of the Aargauer Zeitung launched. Naturally, the focus is on whether this seventh edition should also be supported by the newspapers participating in the Mittelland Zeitung.
Eckstein anticipates a circulation of 200,000 copies, which roughly corresponds to that of the Mittelland Zeitung. He also hopes that the extension will also be popular with readers at newsstands. According to Wemf, the Sunday press has reached its zenith. Eckstein comments: "But it is the only one that has been able to maintain its figures."
René Worni