Just in time for the "Trendboulevard" design fair, swiss-architects.com is launching a new advertising campaign in mid-April: advertisements and banner ads will be used to increase awareness of the site and attract new user groups. With 250,000 professional visitors and 1.2 million page impressions per month, swiss-architects.com is the leading Swiss architecture website. It showcases good, contemporary buildings, but also presents architects, engineers, building materials, design products and financing models. Thanks to networking with other country platforms such as germanarchitects.com and japan-architects.com, the portal also has rapidly growing international visitor numbers and over 25,000 newsletter subscribers.

Every year, Sporthilfe supports 2,500 young Swiss athletes so that they can concentrate on the start of their careers. For its part, Swiss Sports Aid is now being supported by the creatives at Euro RSCG - with a campaign. Two subjects, one focusing on sports spectators and showing what happens when money is donated to Sporthilfe, and the other dramatizing with a wink the situation that could arise if no money is donated, will appear simultaneously on posters in major Swiss cities from mid-April. The motifs appear as consecutive advertisements in various newspapers and magazines.

As of June 1, 2006, Marcus Brown, previously Senior Vice President Business Development Y&R EMEA in London, will replace Göran Larson as CEO of Y&R Business Communications in Geneva. Larson, who has headed Y&R Business Communications in Geneva since 1985, will retire at this time. In his previous role, Brown was largely responsible for the Group's successful new business. Edgar C. Britschgi, CEO of the AY&R Group, will take on the additional responsibility of Chairman of Young & Rubicam Switzerland with immediate effect. Britschgi has successfully returned Advico Y&R Gockhausen to the forefront of creative agencies, according to a press release.

From April, the trade magazine Auto&Technik wants to focus more strongly on students and teachers at technical colleges and is therefore expanding its technology section. Technology and training topics are to be given greater prominence and placed more prominently. According to a press release, the trade magazine wants to meet the increased demand for more comprehensive and competent reporting in the areas of training and technology with these changes.

Visa International has become a partner company of the world football association Fifa. According to a press release, the payment service provider will enjoy global rights to a large number of FIFA activities such as the FIFA World Cup - from marketing to competitions and special events - during the eight-year term of the agreement. Exclusive payment programs for these activities are to be developed jointly. The cooperation builds on marketing programs for similarly large sporting events such as the Olympic Games and the Rugby World Cup.

On Tuesday of last week, the Berner Zeitung (BZ) appeared for the first time without the traditional division into sections and was critically scrutinized by the NZZ. The NZZ was particularly impressed by the first Bund, which reports on everything that happens outside the Espace Mittelland under the title "Heute" - without dividing it into classic sections such as Foreign, Switzerland, Economy, Culture, Miscellaneous. The selection seems chaotic, writes the old aunt, and foreign reporting remains limited to major events. The BZ is thus following "another trend, namely that of turning a daily newspaper into a daily magazine". In such a concept, not only chronicling but also in-depth reporting would only be perceived selectively. This is not least a cost-saving measure on the part of the very cost-conscious publisher. Although the "Berner Zeitung" is now more clearly complementary to the "Bund", it cannot keep up with the other aspirant on the Mittelland: the newspaper association under the leadership of the "Aargauer Zeitung", the NZZ concludes its analysis.

Mona Vetsch's report on the German city of Kassel, which appeared in the Tages-Anzeiger, has caused a stir there. The Kassel daily newspaper "Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine", which suffers from an ageing readership, turned it into a series of articles that dramatized the issue. And it almost became a political issue, as the NZZ reported on Sunday. Mona Vetsch has now received an invitation from the mayor to come to Kassel again, a group of athletes canceled a trip to Zurich, the Swiss Tourism Association intervened by telephone and Zurich Tourism wrote to the Tages-Anzeiger. The latter, in turn, now invites the local editor of the "Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine" to Zurich for a juicy report.

The Viennese author Franz Schuh has been honored with the Davos Media Prize for his journalistic and essayistic work. Armin Egger, CEO and Director of Davos Tourism, presented the prize, which is endowed with CHF 15,000, on Friday evening at the Davos Hotel Belvedere as part of the JuniorCom conference. The author Franz Schuh (*1947) was honored with the Leipzig Book Fair Prize on 16 March. He received the Jean Améry Prize in 2000 and the Austrian State Prize for Cultural Journalism in 1985. Schuh is a freelancer for various radio stations and national newspapers.
 
The Davos Media Prize recognizes outstanding achievements in journalism and supports media professionals in their role as guarantors of diversity of opinion and freedom. Schuh succeeds the "Echo der Zeit" team (2003), publicist Roger de Weck (2004) and TV journalist Petra Gerster (2005). The prize was awarded for the fourth time this year.

Swiss Television goes into retreat with 40 top executives from politics, business, authorities and sport. The aim is to reflect on the mission, strategy and direction of Swiss television, and SF intends to draw up a mission statement after the meeting. This is reported by the Sonntagszeitung. Television Director Ingrid Deltenre's plan, which is to take place from July 6 to 8, has already met with a positive response. Questions such as: What kind of television does Switzerland need? What do viewers, society and politics expect from SF? are at the center of the three-day workshop.

As reported by the SonntagsZeitung, the wholesaler and kiosk operator Valora is to be broken up. The new Chairman of the Board of Directors, Fritz Ammann, wants to concentrate on retail again. Parts of the company or the company as a whole are therefore up for discussion. The sale of the Trade division is in the foreground. Valora's business also includes the Retail and Press Wholesale divisions, which deliver newspapers and magazines to points of sale. As there are no synergies between the divisions, the aim here is to create clarity. Behind the scenes, private equity companies and Bertelsmann are also interested in spinning off the distribution of press products from Valora. Preferably in cooperation with other publishers. Ringier, Valora's largest Swiss publishing customer, would prefer to control the distribution of Blick or Schweizer Illustrierte itself, the SonntagsZeitung reports further. The publisher has terminated the distribution contract with Valora in order to negotiate better conditions.

Wirz Werbung has strengthened its team of consultants with three new members: advertising assistant Cornelia Noti is moving to Wirz after a year at Schenk Müller & Partner. Roland Tanner starts as a junior consultant, having worked at Giger & Partner in recent years. Saskia Wirthner is putting her SAWI knowledge into practice as an intern at Wirz.

Swiss Television (SF) will have to operate with around eleven million francs less annually from 2009. This will lead to a reduction of 50 jobs, as SF announced on Friday. Employees of the TV Production Center Zurich (TPC) are also affected. The job cuts will be achieved through natural fluctuation, retirements and, if necessary, a hiring freeze, according to a communiqué. However, individual redundancies cannot be avoided over the next three years. It is not yet clear which positions will be affected. However, the development of personnel and programming depends on numerous other factors: SRG is affected by the media policy decisions in the new RTVA. For example, the restrictions on commercial income and new tasks such as subtitling, sign language and audio description, which will lead to additional financial expenditure. Added to this are higher costs for sports and film rights, new technology and strategic investments. SRG must also try to assert itself against the competition for expiring sports contracts in the areas of football and ice hockey. The cost-cutting measures also have an impact on the programming strategy. Primarily, investments in programs outside of prime time are to be reduced. Television in French-speaking Switzerland (TSR) is also affected. The new RTVG alone means that it will have to save CHF 8.3 million by January 2007, reports the news agency SDA. This means that around 40 jobs will have to be cut. As with SF, individual redundancies are also to be expected at TSR. Some non-primetime programs are already to be cut this summer. The cost-cutting measures are the result of a decision taken by the SRG Board of Directors in June 2005, which envisages savings of CHF 82 million over the period 2006-2010.