The French radio group NRJ, which is also active in Switzerland, increased its profits by 27.1 percent to 93.5 million euros last year. Turnover climbed by 7.4 percent to 352.2 million euros. According to its own figures, the NRJ Group achieved a turnover of 39.6 million euros with radio stations outside France, while net profit amounted to 1.9 million euros, as reported by SDA. The company generated revenues of 204.2 million euros with its French radio stations, while net income amounted to 99.5 million euros. In addition to Switzerland, the Group has stations in Scandinavia, Germany, Austria and Belgium. The Group's radio stations can be heard in a total of 270 European cities.

The Cevi Switzerland poster designed by the Himmelblau advertising agency has been named APG Poster of the Year 2005. 1,800 visitors to the APG website acted as the jury from January 26 to 28, with 19 % of the votes going to the winning poster. The 42 Posters of the Week 2005 were selected and all major Swiss poster campaigns since 2002 can be admired on the APG website. The APG's electronic "memory" already contains over 4000 subjects.

How Swiss companies, associations, authorities and politicians can communicate professionally in the face of crises, scandals and natural disasters will be discussed by executives, communication managers and agency heads at the Swiss Crisis Summit 2006 on Thursday, June 8, 2006, at the University of St.Gallen. The federal government's crisis response in the event of an epidemic, SBB's incident management and Skyguide's crisis organization are just three of the topics that will be discussed in case study presentations at the international symposium."Although there are fewer and fewer 'real' crises in the four German-speaking countries of Europe, the need for professional crisis communication and systematic crisis management is constantly increasing," says Crisis Summit initiator Frank Roselieb, Director of Krisennavigator - Institute for Crisis Research, a spin-off of Kiel University. The speakers at the case study presentations, workshops and discussion panels are accordingly high-caliber. They come from the Federal Chancellery, the Canton of Berne, Swiss Re, UBS, Hotelplan and Novartis, among others.
Journalists are not always squeamish in dealing with heads of authorities, CEOs and other parties involved in crises. "The line between necessary journalistic investigative work and protecting the interests of those affected is sometimes very thin," says crisis summit host Miriam Meckel, Professor of Media and Communication Management at the University of St.Gallen. A panel of experts with leading Swiss journalists will therefore take a critical look at the role of the media in times of crisis. Representatives from Swiss Television, SDA, NZZ, Cash and Blick have confirmed their attendance.
Registrations for the Swiss Crisis Summit 2006 should be made as soon as possible, as the number of places is limited. The international symposium is supported by the Swiss Public Relations Society (SPRG), the Swiss Society for Communication and Media Studies (SGKM) and the German Society for Crisis Management (DGfKM), among others. Media partners are "Schweizer Journalist", "persönlich blau" and "news aktuell schweiz".

On Thursday, Swiss film productions cleaned up at the 22nd International Business Film Days in Vienna: Biel-based Twin Productions won the Grand Prix Victoria for the cinematic portrait of the Lucerne Cantonal Police "Mittendrin", a Prix Victoria in Gold for the DVD "Profis für High Tech" and a Prix Victoria in Silver for an image film produced on behalf of the Bellevue Hotel in Gstaad. The following each took home a silver Prix Victoria: Condor Communications for "An almost perfect plan" commissioned by Chocosuisse, Videcom with "Time & Spirit" for the St. Gallen embroidery company Forster Rohner and the production company Muvi from Flurlingen for "Basler Swisslube". Over 50 participants submitted their media productions for the coveted award for filmmakers in the business sector. The Business Film Days are organized by the Austrian Audiovisual and Film Industry Association.

Sappi launches a new global e-commerce website for its key accounts in Europe. The new site offers paper wholesalers and printers many additional options for real-time order management and access to key information from order to invoice, and is the result of the global standardization of Sappi's SAP/R3-based enterprise resource planning and other sales management and supply chain systems. On this new site, Sappi customers can request quotes, place orders, track orders in real time and print key sales and delivery documents and invoices. They also have access to a wide range of financial and other reports to facilitate day-to-day business and forecasting.
"The new site has been set up to meet the specific needs of our customers and provide them with a competitive advantage," says e-Business Coordinator, Claudia Poeckl. "Our customers need to be able to manage their business with us in a simple and highly efficient way. Approximately 40% of orders are already placed electronically and we are confident that this percentage will increase significantly once the new site is launched."
In the coming months, Sappi customers across Europe, the Middle East and other Sappi regions worldwide will have access to the new site.
Sappi's fine papers include Magno, HannoArt, Next Generation, Presto and Royal graphic papers and the specialty label and packaging papers Algro, Leine and Parade. Customers in over 100 countries worldwide specify these brands for publishing, advertising, label and packaging printing of the highest quality.

In the fourth year of the Best of Corporate Publishing (BCP) competition, 542 publications were submitted. The newly created Print Online Award seems to be particularly popular: More than 300 participants submitted their work in this category in order to win an award for a successful combination of printed magazine and Internet presence. The special "recycled paper" award also seems to have been well received. Around 50 magazines and corporate books were submitted. In April, the BCP jury will initially select a shortlist of 125 publications, from which the winners in the 26 competition categories will be chosen on June 28. Since 2003, the Forum Corporate Publishing (FCP), together with the industry magazines Acquisa, Horizont and w&v, has been awarding the Best of Corporate Publishing to the best corporate publications.

From the beginning of April 2006, Tom Uebersax will be joining the Swiss news magazine Facts as Area Sales Manager for the Zurich / North-Eastern Switzerland region. In recent years, he has worked as an independent advertising consultant and freelancer for advertising and media agencies. Most recently, Uebersax was a partner in an internet/advertising agency.

The 20 Minuten IP-Radio internet radio program has been on air in French-speaking Switzerland for a week now. Like the German-language version, the French-language version is also intended to be perceived as a service of the online portal www.20minutes.ch and as an urban trendsetter, according to a press release. Among other things, the station wants to offer bands and artists a platform that often do not find a place on the classic format stations. The French-speaking Swiss version of IP-Radio is also produced by Uetendorf-based Digital Media Distribution AG.

The "Weather Channel" on SF1 violates legal advertising and sponsorship regulations with advertising messages from tourist destinations. This is the conclusion reached by the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) and, in a decision on Wednesday, demands a correction from the SRG, as reported by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on Friday. Advertising messages from Swiss and Austrian tourist destinations were broadcast at the same time as the weather information. SRG must restore the legal situation by the middle of the year. Bakom will not collect the annual income of CHF 220,000.

At Friday's press conference, Ringier presented its business figures and its eighth annual report for 2005, which was designed by an artist. Richard Price, the artist, has turned typical 1970s Playboy-style jokes into art, according to publisher Michael Ringier. According to the publisher, jokes always say something about society, most of them are embarrassing. With the keyword "innovative", he then hands over to Group CEO Martin Werfeli, who is allowed to use the same opening sentence as last year: "It was once again the best year in Ringier's history. Group profit grew by over 20 percent to CHF 67.1 million, while sales increased by almost 13 percent to CHF 1,256.3 million. Ringier grew strongly abroad in 2005, especially in Eastern and Central Europe. 19 new titles were launched in 8 countries. Ringier successfully entered the free newspaper market in Prague in 2005. In the television sector, China was conquered in 2005: Joya is now also running in the Far East and Betty's Kitchen is running successfully on Dragon TV. Following the launch of a channel in Romania, further expansions are planned in Eastern Europe, and another Eastern European country is on Ringier's agenda for 2006. According to Werfeli, Ringier's strategy of creating so-called "media networks" has proved very successful - the future belongs to them. The concept of the health platform media network proved successful last year. Ringier TV was able to further expand its position as the leading private television producer in Switzerland with revenue growth of 16.8 percent.

The Thalwiler Anzeiger and the Zürichsee-Zeitung are intensifying their cooperation: according to the news agency SDA, the editorial cooperation is to be extended to the technical area in future. This will enable the Thalwiler Anzeiger to expand its editorial capacities and strengthen its position in the reader market. The Zürichsee-Zeitung is published by Zürichsee Presse in Stäfa, the Thalwiler Anzeiger by the H.F. Tellenbach printing company in Thalwil.

The advertising agency Contexta wins the budget of Mövenpick Foods Switzerland in a pitch. According to Mövenpick's marketing managers, the Bern-based agency impressed with several creative approaches that strengthen the brand's premium claim. The mandate primarily includes Mövenpick coffee, the smoked fish range and the various salad dressings. The first measures are to be seen as early as this spring.