The computer and video games industry in Switzerland is growing steadily. In 2005, total retail sales of around CHF 271 million were generated in the overall Swiss market for hardware, software and accessories. This figure does not take into account the related sales of upstream and downstream sectors. Swiss households spent CHF 1.5 billion on home entertainment in 2004. According to Roger Frei, President of the Swiss Interactive Entertainment Association (SIEA), the Swiss market for interactive entertainment will grow by a double-digit percentage in the coming years. Growth in the sector has created around 1000 jobs in Switzerland, both directly and indirectly. In the USA, around 141,000 people are employed full-time in the industry. In 1998, the figure was 50,000, according to a study published at the Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 in Los Angeles.

Michael Hermann, Head of Advertising at "Weltwoche", is leaving the company. Hermann has worked in sales at Jean Frey Verlag for more than four years and wants to take on a new challenge, as the company reports. Until the position is filled, Ms. Christine Lesnik will take over as deputy advertising manager.

Mobility will be a decisive factor for the productivity and efficiency of journalists and FIFA employees during the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Avaya, a provider of communications applications, systems and services, is developing a convergent communications network for the sporting event that will be able to supply around 15,000 media representatives around the world with up-to-date information and photos of the matches in the shortest possible time. Thanks to several wireless local area networks (WLAN), journalists and photographers can move around freely in some stadiums and, thanks to the modular messaging application, access, store and manage calls, e-mails and files from any phone or laptop via a single interface. Avaya already provided the convergent network for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Swissclick iSolutions, provider of online solutions in dialog and performance marketing, is entering into a cooperation with the German online marketer Mediasquares. Through the collaboration with Mediasquares, marketing customers will benefit from advertising opportunities on German platforms such as sport1.de, map24.de, maximonline.de, spieletipps.de and kino.de. According to Nico Podgorny, Head of Business Development at Swissclick iSolutions, a large number of Swiss users obtain information on the aforementioned websites. In the month of April alone, Swiss users generated 10 million impressions.

The B2B offer for cable network operators, which Swisscom launched in spring 2004, has not been as successful as expected. Swisscom managers have therefore decided to discontinue the offer. Swisscom spokesman Sepp Huber confirmed to Werbewoche a corresponding report by the TV magazine TV2. The Swisscom-Broadcast offer has generated little demand but many imitators. Many cable network operators have decided to implement their own DVB-C services (C stands for Cable). The exact date of discontinuation is not yet known. However, Swisscom will continue to adhere to its plans for IPTV (TV via Internet Protocol) and the "BluewinTV" project.

According to the trend study "Advertising Market & Media" by Media Focus, advertising investments in the advertising month of April were 6.2 percent higher than in the previous year. The cumulative figure since the beginning of January also gives the 2006 advertising year good marks: It is 2.9 percent better than 2005. Both the advertising month of April and the cumulative figure since the beginning of January represent best marks since Media Focus began taking measurements, Media Focus announced on Monday evening.
Broken down by media group, cinema performed best in a year-on-year comparison with an increase of 20%. It was followed by daily newspapers with a sensational plus of 17% and poster advertising with a plus of 7%. TV advertising increased by 3 percent. Radio suffered the biggest setback with a drop of 15%, followed by teletext (-8%) and specialist magazines (-3%).
The following key markets increased their advertising investments in April compared to the previous year: energy (+100%), cleaning (+31%), telecommunications (+29%) and clothing (+27%). The key markets of transport (-22%), watches/jewelry (-19%) and consumer electronics and IT (both -12%) invested significantly less than in April 2005.
In the ranking of the largest advertisers, Migros is in first place ahead of Coop, Swisscom, Nestlé and l'Oréal.Media Focus has been measuring and recording gross advertising investment in the traditional advertising media of print (newspapers/magazines), television, radio, posters, cinema, teletext and the Internet in Switzerland since 1990. Media Focus is a joint venture between the two globally active market research companies IHA-GfK AG and
ACNielsen SA/Nielsen Media Research.

SRG radio stations played more Swiss music than planned in 2005. Due to the good results, the target values for 2006 were adjusted upwards. Almost all stations exceeded the target values, as reported by the Mittelland Zeitung. These benchmarks are the result of a dialog between musicians and SRG. However, they are not a requirement, explains Marc Savary from SRG to Newsletter Inside. At 21.2%, DRS1 is only just above the guideline value of 20%. However, DRS3 with 13% (guideline value 12%) and DRS2 with 18% (guideline value 14%) are already significantly above the specified value. Musigwälle 531 even had 34.1% (target value 30%) of Swiss music. On average, the German-language stations achieved a share of 19.8%.

Markus Jörin (36) is joining the publishing division of Basler Zeitung Medien under the overall management of Roland Steffen. Jörin will be responsible for current and new projects as of August 1. He was previously Head of Newspaper Publishing and Head of Marketing Customer Printing at Oltner Tagblatt/Druckerei Dietschi. His previous areas of work included the position for marketing communication at the level of the general management of Swiss Post, Postfinance, as well as marketing tasks at the Aargauer Zeitung. Alexandra Heiniger will also be working in Cross Media in Product Management. Heiniger will take up her position on June 1, 2006. Until now, she has worked as advertising manager (authorized signatory) at Publicitas in Aarau.

The French-speaking Swiss publishing house Edipresse is joining forces with the two German-speaking Swiss publishers Ringier and NZZ in the competition between commercial printers. IRL (Impriméries Réunies Lausanne), the printing plant of the Edipresse Group, has acquired a stake in the printing group Swiss Printers, which was founded by NZZ and Ringier in 2004. This means that the largest group in the Swiss printing industry is now also expanding into French-speaking Switzerland. According to an Edipresse press release, the merger will not result in any job cuts or restructuring at IRL, which has an annual turnover of around CHF 50 million with 230 employees and will join Swiss Printers with retroactive effect from January 1, 2006. Last year, Swiss Printers achieved a turnover of over 300 million francs with 1,200 employees. Ringier Print Holding remains the main shareholder with a stake of 58.8%, while AG für die Neue Zürcher Zeitung now holds 25.2% and Edipresse 16% of the share capital. The deal still has to be approved by the Competition Commission. The Board of Directors, headed by Martin Werfeli, CEO of Ringier, will be supplemented by Michel Berney, Edipresse, and Alfred Hümmerich, NZZ.

The PR and communications agency Burson-Marsteller has won gold at the SABRE Awards (Superior Achievement in Branding and Reputation) with its Executive Leadership Program for SAP. A survey of 4000 executives in 23 countries was used to determine which business trends will emerge over the next five years. The survey and subsequent publication of the results strengthened the public perception of SAP as an agile and future-oriented market player with leadership in the area of business trends, and Burson-Marsteller Europe was awarded a total of five gold awards. In addition to Switzerland, the partner agencies from Italy, Spain and Austria were also among the winners. Burson-Marsteller Europe was also awarded the title of "Best Agency to work for". The SABRE Awards recognize outstanding achievements in the branding and reputation sector. They are awarded annually by "The Holmes Group", which is active in PR research.

According to the Goldbach Electronic Media Index (GEMI) for electronic media, spending on Internet advertising fell by one point to 181 points in April 2006. TV advertising returned to growth with an increase of one index point. The total for electronic media stagnated on the basis of the previous month at 316 points, while the total for all media investments for the month of April recorded a slight increase of one index point to 167 points.
The individual electronic media show the following picture: TV advertising rose by one index point to 323 points. The picture is quite different for radio advertising, which lost 4 index points and fell to 243 points. The Internet was unable to continue its growth and fell by one index point to 181 points. Teletext also lost one index point in April, closing at 151 points.
However, Bluewin's revenue reports have been missing from the online advertising figures since the beginning of this year. If these were integrated, Internet advertising would be significantly higher than in the previous year.

Basel-based communications agency Kreisvier Communications has won the budget for Roche's vocational training program. It prevailed against three competitors in a two-stage competitive presentation. According to the press release, the first work will be presented in the fall of 2006. Roche has been committed to vocational training for 50 years and offers around 100 new apprenticeships in 15 different professions at its Basel site every year.