TV presenter Susanne Kunz is hosting the new "Tapetenwechsel" (Change of scenery) show on Swiss Television (SF). The former presenter of "Eiger, Mönch & Kunz" will help families find a new home, move house or redecorate, reports Blick. The new show will be broadcast on SF2 from September 19.

Hardware Apple has hit the jackpot with the new MacBook. By announcing its strategy last summer to switch its hardware to Intel processors within this year, Apple has signaled its openness to new ideas. This step indicates that the company wants to grow more strongly in its traditional computer segment. Apple CEO Steve Jobs also confirmed this in a recent interview when he said that growth of a further five percent would be "very exciting" for Apple. Apple's announcement at the beginning of April to open up its hardware to Windows XP operating systems (see article below) could prove to be an important move to increase its market share in desktops and laptops. Whether this step was a voluntary one or was taken because hackers managed to make it possible to boot Windows anyway within a relatively short space of time remains a matter of speculation.The little black book is backOne very important product in Apple's portfolio to date has been iBooks. With the successor model, the new MacBook laptops, Apple has once again achieved a great success. Apart from a few minor details, Apple's portable entry-level drug is extremely potent and addictive. The new laptops are compact, have no edges, the surface is smooth and the exterior looks elegant and high-quality.
In addition to the recently introduced MacBook Pro, Apple is offering another option within this consumer series: In addition to two white models with marginal differences in features, buyers can for the first time also opt for a black notebook with even slightly better features.
With the MacBooks, Apple is introducing a new, significantly brighter 13-inch widescreen display. The screen has a glossy, smooth surface, which is now also available as an option for the Pro models. Conversely, innovations introduced with the Pro computers have found their way into the MacBooks. For safety, for example, the Sudden Motion Sensor (moves the heads of the hard disk into a parking position in a fraction of a second if the computer is dropped, for example) or the MagSafe power connection (prevents the laptop from being pulled off the table when charging thanks to a magnetic connection of the power cable). The MacBooks are also equipped with the iSight cameras, which are only around 3 ¥ 3 mm in size and enable video conferences or the recording of film sequences.
Apple is also generous with the interfaces. A digital DVI output enables the connection of additional displays up to 23 inches in size, making the computers ideal as desktop machines. Gigabit Ethernet and Firewire outputs enable fast data traffic in networks or connected devices; Bluetooth and WLAN are standard. The entry-level laptops are also equipped with FrontRow technology, which, together with the remote control supplied, makes it much easier to play multimedia content (music, video, photos, DVD).
Where there is light ... Anyone who exposes the MacBook to changing light conditions or sunlight will get to know the dark side of the bright display. The reflections are significantly stronger than on the predecessor model. The polarizing filter used by Apple may help, but it does not solve the problem completely.
What is an advantage for watching DVD movies is unfortunately a problem if you want to edit documents in portrait format: the 13-inch screen in 16:9 format makes this much more difficult. Unfortunately, the new model does not really allow for other resolutions; there is no real alternative to the excellent 1200 ¥ 800 resolution. The screen diagonal and the limited resolutions are ultimately the most obvious reason to opt for a higher-end MacBook Pro.
The final disadvantage is the lack of a fully-fledged graphics processor. However, this fact is not really noticeable in practice. Photoshop users may be somewhat disappointed here. However, it should be noted that the MacBook Pro line is available for them and that the Adobe applications have not yet been adapted in a native version, i.e. one that is compatible with Intel processors.
The bottom line is that Apple has made a compromise with my favorite, the black MacBook: In any case, I would have liked a black remote control as well as a black power supply unit. Apart from that, the little black one is an ideal and very well-equipped travel companion. The included software also offers real added value. The MacBooks should therefore sell like hot cakes.
Jürgen Franck

Paper At first glance, the major paper groups hardly differ from each other. M-real, the third-largest paper producer in Europe, is focusing on differentiation in order to survive in an increasingly competitive environment (see also article below). Those responsible for the M-real Kirkniemi mill, which specializes in the production of high-quality coated papers for web printing, together with those responsible for marketing in the Publishing Business Unit, recently explained to the trade press which paths the Group is taking in this regard.Committed to the environmentFor example, the continuation of sustainable production is not only an important, but even a central concern for the Finnish paper group. "Paper users increasingly want to know where the paper they use comes from," explained Armi Temmes, Senior Vice President Corporate Public Affairs. Thanks to state-of-the-art tools, M-real can now trace its production very precisely. This is done by using modern GIS systems to log the forests that are part of the Finnish Metsäliitto cooperative (which also owns M-real; see below). The forest areas released by the private owners are harvested with the help of this geographic information system and stored digital maps, which ultimately enables the timber to be traced. 
M-real relies on the use of certified woods in the production of its paper and board grades. In this respect, the paper producer is already very far advanced: While only 7 percent of the world's 3.9 billion hectares of forest are certified, the proportion of wood used from certified forests at M-real is around 63 percent.
Proof of the origin of the woodThe tracking of the paper is finally ensured within a certification system. Although the PEFC (Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification) certification differs in some respects from the more familiar FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) label, it follows the same approach in its basic efforts to ensure continuous traceability of the product chain (chain of custody). This includes, first and foremost, proof of origin and proof of the proportion of certified wood. Customers can find out where the wood ultimately comes from and how it is composed in internationally standardized environmental declarations, known as paper profiles, which the company makes available on its website www.m-real.com.
The importance of the origin of the wood has various reasons for paper mills like M-real: "We can use it to ensure that the wood comes from legal sources, and thus not only support sustainable forestry, but also prove it," explains Martti Savalainen, mill manager at M-real Kirkniemi. In addition, the quality can be determined and ultimately the proportion of certified wood can be calculated.
However, the paper group does not want these voluntary measures to be seen as a marketing gimmick. The Group spokespersons point out that these measures, which are summarized under the term Corporate Responsibility, are lived by the Group and are seen as a response to society's demands.
Services beyond paperIn an effort to offer its customers first-class products, M-real has developed a range of services along the chain from paper to reader that are unique in the paper industry as a whole. M-real's paper management concept ensures optimized paper supply in the reel sector (reel papers are mostly supplied directly by the paper mills). With this, the paper producer takes care of ordering and supplying the paper rolls at the right time and in the right volume, based on the available storage capacity and the customer's paper consumption. "The publishing industry needs to find new ways to reduce overall costs. Our Paper Management helps our customers to do this," said Marjo Halonen, Vice President Marketing Communication, explaining this approach, which largely frees publishers and printers from paper procurement and storage.
The Sample Center, another service provided by the Publishing Business Area, produces unprinted or printed cover sample copies or dummy samples for customers on request and keeps voucher copies of magazines, catalogs, customer magazines, etc. printed on Gallery papers produced at the Kirkniemi mill. These samples are intended to help publishers, printers or agencies in their choice of paper. They also assist M-real's sales staff in advising customers.
M-real also helps its customers to reproduce images professionally. Thus, within a comprehensive consultation with the customer, the company not only tries to sensitize the customer about the danger of color shifts in printing, but also educates its clientele, if necessary, on how best to deal with the "fifth color", the paper, in terms of color management. "We provide our customers with recommendations for the use of color management standard profiles including ICC profiles when using our gallery papers," explains Miika Jokinen, Customer Applications.  
The influence of paperBut M-real is not only concerned with the technical aspects. In order to better align its papers with customer needs, M-real wanted to know how paper affects readers. Since 1998, the company has therefore been conducting a study called "Reader Preference Research" together with the Department of Psychology at the University of Helsinki. The aim was also to find out whether paper can be used in a positive (influencing) way.
The fact that paper plays a role for the reader could have been expected, but the fact that the paper even reflects the high quality of the product shown, of the entire magazine, underlines the importance of the printing stock. "Paper and print quality have a very strong influence on the reader," even Ilka Grabener, Marketing Director M-real Publishing, commented on the results of the study. The extension of the study to other European countries ultimately revealed that whiter papers are better received in Scandinavia, but rather papers with a soft sheen in Spain.
"But the paper," says Grabener, "must above all match the layout and the demands of the client or agency." An art magazine has a different requirement than a customer magazine. The use of a paper also depends on the white space of the layout - and on the goal of the publisher/agency, whether the print product wants to go with the flow or rather stand out. According to the results of the study, readers judge print products more as a whole and tend to perceive paper subconsciously, while experts tend to get lost in the details. For this reason, it is ideal if the paper supplier is also involved in the evaluation of a paper, relaunch or new concept, in addition to the agency and the print shop. The findings of the study should also help M-real's customers to optimize not only the print quality but also the color management of the magazine titles.
From the results, the company has developed a study toolbox that M-real uses for its customer consultations. It contains information on which layout is suitable for which magazine - or even when finishing/varnishing is useful.    
M-realThe paper producer M-real
is part of the Finnish Metsäliitto Group, the 10th largest forest industry group in the world. For its part, the Metsäliitto Group is owned by 130,000 private forest owners who own 12.6 million hectares of forest (annual sales: approximately 8.6 billion euros). In addition to wood supply, wood products and pulp production, Metsäliitto's most important business area is the manufacture of fine paper, board and specialty papers - collectively known as M-real.M-real generates sales of just over 5 billion euros with around 15,000 employees. The M-real Biberist mill in the canton of Solothurn is one of the 29 factories spread across Europe. In addition to paper and board production, M-real is also active in paper trading through the Map Merchant Group company; however, the Map Merchant Group is not active in Switzerland.
 
40 years of M-real KirkniemiLocated not far from Helsinki, the
Kirkniemi, three paper machines produce coated papers for heatset web offset printing. The production capacity of the machines is 730,000 tons per year, making M-real Kirkniemi the mill with by far the largest capacity within M-real. Paper machine 3 - internally called Gallery Queen - started up in 1996 and was the largest paper machine in the world at the time. It produces coated magazine papers at a speed of up to 1500 m/minute. The hall in which the machine is housed is around 500 meters long. Only "Galerie" papers are produced in Kirkniemi, which are available in grammages from 36 to 360 g/m2. The latest addition to the Galerie family, Galerie Fine, is also celebrating an anniversary this year: a decade of Fine.
Jürgen Franck

On Wednesday, the East Switzerland Media Prize was awarded in the Pfalzkeller in St. Gallen. Ralf Ribi from the "St. Galler Tagblatt" won the photo prize for the photo series about the Appenzell custom of smoking. The "Radio Top" presenter Reto Scherrer received the radio prize. Josef Osterwalder took home an award for the best daily text; he had satirically shown what St. Gallen does to get rid of tourists at the opening of the vacation fair. The "St. Galler Tagblatt" editor Andreas Fagetti won the prize for best reportage for his reportage "Father's last hope". The media prize was awarded for the sixth time this year, with the individual categories "Daily Text", "Reportage", "Radio Report" and Press Photography each worth 5000 Swiss francs. This time, 108 works were submitted for the competition, which is supported by journalists from eastern Switzerland, media companies, the business community and public institutions.

Advertising market Gross advertising investment in electronic media stagnated in April 2006 on the basis of the previous month at 316 points. The Goldbach Electronic Media Index (GEMI) even shows a decline of one point to 181 points for the Internet. However, as Bluewin's sales figures are missing, the picture is not entirely accurate. If the Bluewin data were integrated, web advertising would score significantly better. The data for the individual electronic media also show a lack of willingness to invest: only TV advertising rose by one index point to 323 points, thus returning to growth. Radio advertising, on the other hand, lost 4 points and fell to 243. Teletext also lost one index point in April, falling to 151. The GEMI is calculated by advertising marketer Goldbach Media. The index is based on data from Media Focus for advertising investments in Switzerland.

International The battered image of the scandal-ridden US basketball league NBA has been polished up over the past two years, not least thanks to new sponsorship platforms. Negative publicity is nothing new for the players of the US National Basketball Association (NBA). Last season, images of scuffling professional basketball players were all over the TV news, talk and comedy shows. Fallen star shines againOne of the greatest talents, Kobe Bryant, was sued for sexual harassment, and several players had to answer for offenses such as alcohol and drug abuse. But the relationship between the NBA and its sponsors has only been scratched superficially. The Americans like a winner, and in the face of success, scandals are quickly forgotten.
Kobe Bryant in particular, who delivered an outstanding game in January with 81 points, was able to shake off the last doubts about his charisma. After a two-and-a-half-year absence from the screen, his sponsor Nike is once again using him as a popular figure and image bearer on television. "His marketing use is an indication of Kobe's outstanding performance," reads a Nike statement. The company had signed a 12 million dollar contract with Bryant shortly before the sex scandal became public.
The fact that the NBA did not lose more sponsors in the turmoil is mainly due to the non-stop damage limitation efforts of NBA Commissioner David Stern, who has led the league since 1984. Nevertheless, Michael Thibodeau, co-founder of the branding firm Verse Group in New York, recommends that the league strengthen its ties to individual communities and fans. And in his opinion, the sponsors could also do more.
A current point of discussion in the NBA is the possibility of placing sponsor logos on players' jerseys, a strategy that has hardly been taken up in US sport to date. However, if brand names were to appear on players' clothing in the future, this would also be an incentive for the relevant companies to actively participate in so-called "community outreach programs", according to Thibodeau. So far, these projects have mainly been initiated by individual players who, for example, come from underprivileged backgrounds and are committed to improving educational and sporting opportunities in their home towns. "This would be a wonderful opportunity for companies to expand local stadiums and go into schools, for example," says the marketing professional. "So far, advertisers have tended to use sponsorship opportunities opportunistically to embrace the NBA's image of endurance and elegance."
In recent years, NBA teams have increasingly focused on giving their games an event character. "It's all about entertainment. And the NBA does it best of all major league sports," says Kirk Wakefield, Professor of Sports Management at Baylor University in Waco (Texas). It starts with the sports arena, where fans can have fun in advance with interactive games, games for children, restaurants and a club for VIPs.
Interactive entertainment show Once the game has started, nothing is left to chance. "It's choreographed like a movie production," says Wakefield. "Every minute is planned." There are dance interludes that go beyond the usual cheerleading performances, mini-concerts and interviews with film stars that are organized in advance and shown during the commercial breaks of the television broadcasts.
The Utah Jazz marketing team has also come up with a series of games in which fans in the arena interact with the scoreboard via cell phone. There is the "Fastest Fingers Competition" where fans enter certain number combinations into their cell phones and the fastest one wins a prize. They can cast their vote when the animated bear - the team's mascot - performs some stunts on the screen. "We want people to interact and not just passively stand around," says Eric Shultz, marketing vice president for the Utah Jazz. "That's our focus this season."
Interactivity is also flourishing elsewhere. Like all major sports, the NBA has also entered the video game market. The basketball association has launched a series of computer games in collaboration with Electronic Arts. The "NBA Live" franchise is promoted in all games of the US league and has been distributed worldwide since October. Even a series of games that NBA teams will be playing in Europe next fall will be accompanied by the "NBA Europe Live" game. "NBA Europe Live shows how sports teams around the world can work together for the continued growth of their sport," said NBA Commissioner David Stern in a press release. The action in Europe is just one part of the NBA's ongoing efforts to spread the brand worldwide. NBA games are currently televised in almost every country in the world.   
Gerti Schön

Market research 15 international and 6 national sponsors have supported the World Cup with over 700 million euros. However, according to a worldwide survey by Global Market Insite, their investments are not paying off because the recognition rates are poor. Non-sponsors such as Nike or Pepsi were mentioned more frequently by some respondents than the real sponsors. McDonald's, for example, was only recognized as a real World Cup sponsor by one in five people worldwide.

Books Why are sweets found at the bottom of the store shelves? Why did Coca-Cola call Santa Claus? And how can you make money with bits and bites? Frank Koschembar, advertising strategist and father of two children, invites young and old alike to take an entertaining look behind the scenes of the advertising industry and uses many concrete examples to describe how advertising tries to influence children. The small volume was published by Westend Verlag.

Espace Media Groupe wants to meet the increasing demands of multimedia and is renewing its organizational structure. The former Head of IT, Franz Bürgi, will assume the position of CIO (Chief Information Officer) as of June 1, 2006. He will be responsible for the newly created "Business Development and Organization" division and will be involved in Group and divisional strategies. He will also have an influence on the future design of the Internet and mobile offering, the definition of the IT strategy and its implementation in the form of business processes. Bürgi has also been assigned the management of strategic projects. Responsibility for the IT division will pass from Bürgi to Olivier Guyer, the previous Head of Commercial Applications.
Reporting to him is the position of Head of "New Media" at Espace Media Groupe. Michael Kammerbauer will take over this function in the fall of 2006; Franz Bürgi will head the department on an interim basis. Kammerbauer is currently responsible for the online markets of the media house Schwäbischer Verlag.

Last year, things were critical for the weekly WOZ. Thanks to a rigorous savings program, restructuring and donations, the largest independent, left-wing newspaper survived, WOZ announced Wednesday. It reduced its operating expenses by 10 percent in 2005, and at the same time increased its operating income - even without the donations. With a circulation of 14,233 copies and 113,000 readers (according to Wemf), WOZ achieved the highest circulation in its entire history in the crisis year. This is a nice present for the 25th anniversary that WOZ is celebrating this year.
Advertising revenues last year were 7.5 percent up on the previous year - despite the notoriously difficult economic situation. It is also noteworthy that the number of major advertisers increased significantly compared to the previous year. The forecasts for the current year promise further growth here. At the same time, thanks to the survival campaign, the ProWOZ sponsorship association also grew strongly. In total, ProWOZ currently has more than 800 members. The total capital flow from ProWOZ to WOZ reached a good CHF 400,000 last year. With 49 employees sharing 33.7 full positions (last year it was 39.2 positions), WOZ thus generated 2.9 million in subscription revenues, total sales of 3.8 million - and a small profit of 79,000 francs, which compares to a loss of 438,000 francs from the previous year.

Advertising market Advertising investments in April were 6.2 percent higher than in 2005. 2006 is also developing splendidly, exceeding the previous year by 2.9 percent. According to Media Focus, these are record figures. In April, cinema advertising performed best with a plus of 20 percent, closely followed by daily newspapers with a plus of 17 percent. Poster advertising increased by 7 percent and TV advertising by 3 percent. Radio suffered the biggest setback at minus 15%, followed by teletext (-8%) and specialist magazines (-3%).

Media The Basel region and neighboring countries are slowly growing together. New media ideas are in demand. In 2001, after ten years, the Basler Zeitung buried an ambitious experiment with the Basler Agenda. Under the title 3Land, a magazine was initially published on Fridays, later on Thursdays, which mainly dealt with cultural topics and covered the neighboring regions in southern Germany and Alsace. Since then, there has been a lack of a media product that takes account of the tri-national region on the Upper Rhine. "We were probably too early with the idea," says BaZ editor Peter Schenk, who was involved from the very beginning and, looking back, considers 3Land to be a challenging project. After all, it had an editorial team of around seven journalists with a branch office each in Freiburg im Breisgau and Mulhouse in Alsace and a respectable budget. 3Land was always included with the BaZ, but could also be subscribed to separately and attracted the attention of 3,000 to 3,500 readers in the surrounding countries.
What went wrong? On the one hand, the paper did not find enough advertisers, on the other hand, the interests of the populations of the three countries drifted too far apart. The healthcare system, tax system and unemployment insurance are perceived differently on both sides. Language differences, especially with the French neighbor, seem to be a real obstacle, despite the fact that around 30,000 French people commute to the metropolis on the Rhine every day. 
"There have already been numerous attempts," says BaZ publishing director Otto K. Walter, alluding to the discontinued editorial cooperation between Badische Zeitung and BaZ. However, Walter is convinced that borders are playing an increasingly less important role and that the topic of cross-border media could also become commercially interesting. This is because the region is continuing to develop. What began much earlier in the canton of Zurich, for example, with the S-Bahn network, is also taking shape on the Upper Rhine with rail connections and the extension of the streetcar lines to Lörrach, Weil and Alsace, which is currently underway. The region is growing closer together economically and socially.
Trinational media projectsOn the Swiss side, the Regio Basiliensis association, which regularly organizes congresses and dedicated the 2004 congress to media and communication on the Upper Rhine, is leading the way in cooperation efforts on the Upper Rhine. For the first time, a considerable number of cross-border media projects, cooperation and collaboration models were listed. These included colloquia for journalists, tri-national media round tables, regular journalists' meetings, the Dreiland newspaper, online archive exchanges, regular meetings of publishers and editors-in-chief, the founding of a press agency for the Upper Rhine, joint radio and television broadcasts and even cable network links and the streamlining of broadcasting frequencies.
What has remained? Initially, media representatives and politicians met regularly at the round table to discuss media-specific projects. At the suggestion of the Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate, an internet newspaper for the Upper Rhine was also created. "The idea of cooperation has existed since 1963. It is a continuous process and the cross-border identity is growing," says Manuel Friesecke, Deputy Managing Director of Regio Basiliensis. As the region develops, so do the opportunities for media companies, which - Friesecke is convinced - must increasingly focus their projects on the population.
There should be no shortage of topics. For example, editor Nicole Bertherin from Radio X remembers the cross-border launch of the topic of cannabis prevention in collaboration with the canton of Basel. Radio X has a larger project up its sleeve together with the Alsatian alternative station Dreyeckland. The course is to be definitively set next fall for a joint broadcast under the title "Rheinkultur". There is also cooperation in the area of training with local stations close to the border and efforts are being made to establish media partnerships in the context of cross-border events.
The situation is similar for local television. Tele Basel cooperates with Alsatic and TV-Südbaden to produce the monthly magazine "Triregio", which focuses on culture and everyday life in the Upper Rhine region. The exchange of topics is also the rule for current events, such as the recent riots at the Zurich-Basel championship match. There are also plans to link the existing cable networks and feed in joint formats from the three broadcasters. There are also plans to involve a Swiss partner in the monthly TV magazine "Vis à vis", which is produced by FR 3 Alsace and Südwestfunk (SWR) Freiburg and contributes to intercultural understanding with everyday topics.
The experts agree that there is a functioning advertising market in the Triangle region, where new print products are certainly conceivable. "It's a highly competitive market where only a broad-based publication has a chance," says Manuel Friesecke. At Basler Zeitung, plans are moving in the direction of cross-media. "There are a lot of ideas about this, but they are still in the development phase," says Beat Meyer, CEO of BaZ. But times are getting better and better on the Upper Rhine.
René Worni