The Berlin publishing house Axel Springer wants to cut 266 jobs in administration. This means that almost one in four jobs in central departments will be cut. According to SDA, around half of the employees affected are to leave the company through early retirement schemes or staff turnover. According to a company spokeswoman, Springer's aim is to keep the number of jobs in the Group as constant as possible and to create jobs in so-called "market-oriented" areas. Currently, around twelve percent of employees work in administration; in future this figure should be less than ten.
In 2005, the publishing house, which publishes the daily newspapers Die Welt and Bild, among others, increased its profit by around half to 231 million euros.

The Swiss real estate online portal Immoclick.ch is working with Easyroommate.com. The New York-based company arranges shared apartments in the United States. By cooperating with Immoclick.ch, EasyRoommate.com wants to strengthen its commitment in Europe and especially in Switzerland. For Immoclick.ch, the cooperation means expanding its product portfolio to another segment. It will also provide a comprehensive offering for a wide audience. In future, over 100,000 shared apartments in the USA, Europe and Switzerland will be available.

The global fast food giant McDonalds is working on its image. Or rather, it wants to get rid of one: Its McJob image. The term "McJob" was coined in the mid-1980s to describe low wages and a lack of opportunities for advancement. Since April, McDonalds has been making every effort to get away from this image again.currently urgently sought in the UK: Older employees, preferably from the 50 plus generation. A broad-based advertising campaign is designed to attract this coveted resource. The face of the campaign is a 65-year-old judo coach named Fred, who is actually also employed by McDonalds.
The campaign will be launched this week in British daily newspapers, with parallel advertising via the Internet and in British McDonalds stores. The fast-food company is thus jumping on the politically correct bandwagon: The British government passes a law against age discrimination this year

On Tuesday, the Competition Commission (ComCo) opened the consultation on further amendments to competition law. The revision concerns the notice on vertical agreements. This takes account of the revision of antitrust law and the so-called SME notice. The amendments also aim to harmonize with EU competition law.
According to the revised Cartel Act, the elimination of effective competition law is presumed if resale prices are fixed (resale price maintenance) or parallel imports are prevented, the Competition Commission announced on Tuesday. The consultation period runs until October 31, 2006. Information on the consultation is available at
www.weko.ch available.

The Zurich advertising agency Hesskiss gives the FCZ Academy a big appearance. The task was to provide communication support for the forward-looking project of the current Swiss champions. The main tool was an information brochure with the look of a slate school blackboard. The Fcz-academy.ch website was also designed in the same look. This will be launched in the next few days.

The Biel-based Internet agency Orange 8 interactive has taken over the Swiss broadband magazine Bkanal.ch - as part of its new majority shareholding in the Aargau-based publishing house Breso AG. Bkanal.ch has been in operation since August last year and produces broadband applications for customers. According to the agency, the five employees will be integrated into the creative unit of Orange 8.
Orange 8 decided to take this step because broadband applications are becoming increasingly important on the Internet. Companies are increasingly focusing on the audiovisual communication of products and facts and data-intensive multimedia applications offer interesting storytelling opportunities. The Nike site Jogabonito.ch, which used Brazilian football stars to promote creative and fair football matches during the FIFA World Cup, is cited as an example.

Peter Ruch (photo) will become the new Editor-in-Chief of Automobil Revue on January 1, 2007. He succeeds Max Nötzli, who will continue to be available to the magazine as Senior Editor and author. The 40-year-old Ruch has been responsible for production and editing at Automobil Revue (AR) since February of this year. He previously worked for Auto Illustrierte, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Finanz und Wirtschaft, among others. As before, Martin Schatzmann will be deputy editor-in-chief of AR.

The 3+ presenter casting has been completed. The new private broadcaster has cast the 60 best candidates a second time from around 1000 originally registered. Six candidates were chosen by the new private channel as the next generation of presenters. However, the faces of the chosen candidates are not completely unknown: Vania Spescha has been presenting on various radio stations for seven years and is now a permanent member of the Radio Energy Zurich team.
Natascha Verardo has been a VJ on Tele Ostschweiz for a year now. Matthias Hämmerly is the morning voice on the private radio station Radio Rabe. André Holderegger is a squash pro and occasionally presents at various events.Gabriel Gee-Jay Jenny is one of the first figureheads of the Swiss music channel VIVA. Nicolas Kull attended drama school and earns his living as a bartender and model. "All six people who have been cast will get a job as a presenter on 3+. This could be the case in the next few weeks or months," Claudia Wintsch, Head of Media at 3+, told Werbewoche. Which format is suitable for the new presenters will be decided internally. "As soon as a suitable position has been found, the respective person will be trained internally for the selected presenter job," said Wintsch. On his website Gee-Jay.com, however, Gabriel Gee-Jay already reveals that he has been asked by 3+ whether he could imagine working as an outside presenter.before the cast members are used as presenters, they will already be seen on screen: On Friday, September 15, 3+ will broadcast the first show of "I think I'm a star!" at 8:00 p.m. for the completed presenter casting.

Editor-in-chief Wolfram Weimer has once again filed a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court. He is complaining about the disproportionate seizure of data following the search of the political magazine's offices.
According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the complaint is specifically directed against the seizure of the data copy of a hard disk. The second complaint concerns a partial aspect of the overall proceedings. It is possible that the two complaints will be combined. The Senate plans to hear the case on September 22.

Weimer's lawyers argued that the investigators should have examined the copy before the seizure and on site in order to take only the data that was necessary for their proceedings. The seizure of all data stored on the editorial computer was disproportionate and endangered the freedom of the press.

The first complaint filed was generally directed against the decision of the Local Court and the Regional Court of Potsdam on the admissibility of the search of the Cicero editorial offices and the seizure of editorial material.

In August 2006, Swiss television SF achieved an average market share of 31.5 percent for the whole day. This is 2.2 percent less than in the same month last year. According to a press release issued by the broadcaster, this decline was due in particular to the severe weather conditions in August 2005. In addition, SF zwei was able to benefit from various sports broadcasts in August 2005 (including the national soccer team and the Champions League qualifiers of Basel and Thun). SF zwei's ratings also declined. Compared to the same period last year, the market share fell by 1.4 percent. However, the development of the early evening program on SF 1 was pleasing, increasing by 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous year.
From January to August 2006, Swiss television increased by 1.9% compared to the 2005 annual average. While the market share last year was 33.4 percent, this year 35.2 percent was achieved in the same period. SF was up in all time periods. The biggest increase was in the evening before (up 5.8 percentage points on the 2006 annual average).

The Swiss media company Ringier is the new media partner of the Kindercity edutainment center based in Volketswil. Ringier and Kindercity will support each other in the areas of marketing, promotion and events, according to a press release. Among other things, Ringier will be given opportunities to present its products on site and will be present at all Kindercity appearances, primarily in the area of event support. In return, Kindercity's printed matter will be produced by Ringier Print Adligenswil and the printing plants of Swiss Printers. The agreement is effective immediately and has been agreed for three years, with an option to extend. According to Kindercity, a collaboration in this three-year form with a family project for children is also new for Ringier, as up to now it has mainly accompanied individual events or seasonal events in the form of a media partnership.
In addition to the main sponsors Axpo, Coop, Railaway, SBB, Skoda and Swisscom, Kindercity has gained a new strong partner in Ringier. Kindercity is an educational leisure center for families and children and welcomes around 250,000 visitors every year.

The 24-year-old Bernese graphic designer Melanie Brandel now works at In Flagranti for PostLogistics, Gebäudeversicherung Bern (GVB) and Spitalzentrum, among others. She completed an apprenticeship as a graphic designer at Contexta and has already been to Cannes: in 2004 she was the only young Swiss creative to attend the Cannes Lions Academy.