Column The average reader doesn't really care what percentage of a regional newspaper is owned by whom - as long as it fulfills its unofficial public service function. What has kept the communications world in the Greater Zurich Area busy in recent weeks seems to have left the general public quite cold. Large publishers from the city have acquired stakes in four out of five regional daily newspapers in the canton of Zurich. Only the brave Neue Bülacher Tagblatt, owned by the Graf family, is still independent of "minority shareholdings" by larger publishers.what sense do such minority shareholdings actually make? It's always interesting to see what is written in the documents prepared by lawyers and fiduciaries.
is not said in carefully worded communiqués. In the case of Landbote, for example, one would like to know where the 20 percent of shares that went to Tamedia came from. According to reports, the share capital was distributed among around three dozen individual owners before the trade. Has an important shareholder dropped out completely? In this case, however, the official statement may well be taken at face value: The web printing orders from Tamedia are indeed a strong argument in favor of the deal. Without such reinsurance, the solid Winterthur-based company would hardly have dared to make the major investment that was due - at a time when Ringier and NZZ are making common cause to dominate the web offset market in Switzerland.
The situation is quite different when it comes to NZZ's minority stake of 37.5 percent in Zürcher Oberländer. The remaining 62.5 percent is distributed among around 400 owners. In economic terms, this will sooner or later amount to a de facto takeover. This is because a knowledgeable major shareholder is faced with a patchwork of regionally and/or family-motivated shareholders who may hold a few shares in their newspaper out of loyalty and interest, but are unlikely to be persuaded to make massive new investments. It's hard to predict who will be in charge!
And then there is this clever asset management company Albin, Kistler & Partner (AKP). It will never voluntarily explain whether it has patiently hoarded the ZO shares on its own initiative or on behalf of a third party over the years. It will be remembered that AKP also bought shares in Neue Luzerner Zeitung from 1997 and passed them on to NZZ - allegedly with profit margins of up to five times the purchase price. And wasn't it the same AKP that also sought shares in Dietschi in Olten (Oltner Tagblatt), the Aargauer Zeitung and the Zofinger Tagblatt with aggressive advertising?
At some point, the NZZ or its "Freie Presse Holding" will probably explain to the reading public what it intends to do with its crown of shareholdings. What does the vision look like, for the sake of which it has given up its own management of the advertising business? We are now dealing with the largest regional newspaper group in Switzerland - when minority shareholdings are viewed from the necessary economic perspective. Behind the flagship NZZ is an impressive business.
who made his way: St. Galler Tagblatt, Neue Luzerner Zeitung, Bund, Zürcher Oberländer, Zürcher Unterländer, Zürichsee newspapers ...
The famous synergy effects are particularly exciting. Experience shows that they are regularly overestimated in the editorial field. And another experience should not be concealed either; it puts the public (or published) fuss about changes in ownership into perspective:
Regional daily newspapers are perceived by the majority of their readers less as companies than as quasi-public utilities. As the recent dispute
of the Basler Zeitung with local cultural institutions, this shapes mentalities. As long as a regional daily newspaper fulfills its "public task" well, i.e. with a sense of proportion and respect for minorities, the majority of people don't really care who owns it.
> Karl Lüönd is a journalist and head of the Media Institute of the Swiss Press Association.

Local television TeleBärn celebrates its 10th birthday on March 1. To mark the occasion, the private broadcaster is redesigning its news program.local television On March 1, TeleBärn celebrates its 10th birthday. To mark the occasion, the private broadcaster is redesigning its news program. The design, décor, sequence and content of the news will be renovated on a grand scale, writes TeleBärn in a press release. The editorial team is poring over the new program concept, a Zurich-based company is animating the symbols, a Bernese graphic designer is creating the fade-in concept and an art director from the USA is building the new studio and coordinating the entire project. The current look of the program is five years old.

TV production The largest German sports TV producer, Plazamedia, can continue to produce the Sunday football program "live ran" for Sat 1 Switzerland, meaning that the Munich-based production company is once again preferred to SRG subsidiary tpc, which carried out the contract until February 2004. According to Sat 1 Switzerland, Plazamedia was awarded the contract primarily for cost reasons. However, another evaluation will be carried out in the summer. tpc CEO Roger Sidler said on request that he had hardly expected to be awarded the contract. "We know that prices in Germany are at rock bottom. But we can't and don't want to keep up," he said. This means that tpc is missing out on an order volume of around CHF 1.5 million. (mk)

Paper The first Swiss FSC copy paper - Swiss Business Copy FSC - is now available from Antalis This bright white universal paper is suitable for fast-running copiers and double-sided processing thanks to its optimum running properties. The first FSC-certified copy paper is manufactured in Switzerland by Landqart. Swiss Business Copy FSC has been awarded the FSC seal of approval since December 2004.

Last December, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen (Heidelberg), the world's largest printing press manufacturer, reported on the past year and took a look at its cards. According to Bernhard Schreier, CEO since 1999, 2004 was an important year in the recent history of the recently ailing company. Heidelberg, which was transformed and expanded by predecessor Hartmut Mehdorn in 1996 into a comprehensive solutions provider for the graphic arts industry, had to bid farewell to the new digital and web offset printing segments again in the "drupa year" of 2004.
The transformation into an all-encompassing provider took place at a very unfavorable time and was slowly draining Heidelberg's resources. At the beginning of 2004, the digital printing division finally went to the former joint venture partner Eastman Kodak (today: Kodak Nexpress) and the newspaper and commercial web offset division to the company Goss. While Heidelberg is compensated depending on the sales success of the Nexpress and Digimaster digital printing systems, the company now holds 15 percent of the printing press manufacturer Goss.
In addition, major shareholder RWE sold its shares shortly before drupa. 35 percent of the 50 percent share package was sold directly. Half of this was sold to US investors, followed by investors from the UK and Germany. As a result, drupa became the decisive trade show for Heidelberg. Bernhard Schreier: "For Heidelberg, drupa 2004 was firstly an indicator of how the industry and our competitors were presenting themselves, and secondly how customers were reacting to our realignment. We wanted to know where we stand in the graphic arts industry following the company's reorganization."
Nine months after drupa, it is clear that the reorganization has at least not resulted in any major loss of image or confidence. This is perhaps also due to the company's innovative strength: with 50 new products or innovations in the areas of prepress, printing and postpress, Heidelberg recently set off a small firework display of innovations at drupa. The change of direction on the part of customers was confirmed by incoming orders of more than one billion euros - 20 percent more than in the previous year. This means that the first quarter of the new financial year was successful again after five quarters.
Not out of the woods yetHowever, Schreier knows that the crisis is not over yet: "We have sold many units to China in the past - but this development is difficult to predict for various reasons such as taxes and political decisions." Predictions are difficult for this market, as the key figures often deviate from reality. However, Schreier does not (yet) see countries such as China as an urgent problem: 88 percent of printed matter is produced in industrialized countries, the rest in the "emerging countries" - the "still underdeveloped countries". For this reason alone, Heidelberg must continue to focus on the industrialized countries, added Schreier.
However, China is doubly important for the company - both as a market and as a production location. It therefore wants to start producing in China this year: Smaller products and perhaps also small printing machines. Schreier is not yet sure whether it will be possible to produce high-quality Heidelberg presses outside of the Wiesloch production site to the south of Heidelberg in the foreseeable future.
Customer orientationHeidelberg appointed Jürgen Rautert to the Management Board last summer. Rautert, formerly Head of the Postpress Business Area (print finishing) and now responsible for Technology, wants Heidelberg to be perceived more strongly in the market as a flexible company in terms of mechanical engineering and configurations. As a successful example, he cited the CutStar product, a machine that cuts paper rolls into sheets and feeds them to the press. This enables print shops to use the cheaper roll paper for sheetfed offset presses. Another example is the Speedmaster 102 Duo. Last year, this technology was also made available in medium format with the CD 74 Duo. Both Duos are sheetfed presses with flexo printing units integrated alongside offset.
At the beginning of 2005, an eight-color press with upstream and downstream flexographic printing units and an additional offset printing unit at the end for the matt varnish job went into production. As the longest sheetfed press, the CD 102-LY+8+YLYLY+ 1X3 press with 16 printing units impressively demonstrates what Heidelberg can offer its customers.
"We have specialists to better cover the increasingly complex requirements. Specific requests can now be realized in just a few days instead of several months as before." Machines tailored to customer requirements can be produced from the SM 52 series to the CD 74 Duo and the CD 102.
Service as a growth opportunity Print shops could achieve good margins with such machines, added Rautert. In his opinion, there are of course also applications for this. As an example, he mentioned an "ultra-high-end packaging" for the chocolate manufacturer Lindt. However, he sees potential not only for the western markets, but above all in Asia, where packaging is an important sales argument.
Bernhard Steinel, Head of Global Service for Sheetfed and Prepress Products, gave an overview of what is known as Systemservice. He presented the new, web-based "Remote Platform", with which printers can connect to a regional specialist at the control station at the touch of a button. In this way, the expert obtains help from the Global Expert Network.
For quality assurance, Steinel presented a test form called "Quality Pass", which is based on Fogra requirements and will be available from the second quarter of 2005. The BizModel simulation software is designed to eliminate bottlenecks in production operations.
Jürgen Rautert, responsible for technology.
Bernhard Schreier, CEO and Chairman of the Management Board.
Bernhard Steinel, Head of Service worldwide for sheetfed and prepress products.
Heidelberg strengthens customized mechanical engineering and service.
BizModel creates transparency in operations, helps to optimize production and serves as a tool for investment decisions.
Jürgen Franck

User research The Jobs.ch job portal has subsequently taken part in the MA Comis 2004 survey, giving it access to more detailed information about its users, as determined by the study conducted by Wemf AG für Werbemedienforschung. The MA Comis was published on September 7, 2004. Only the basic data is available to the public. Previous clients of the study include 20 Minuten, Aargauer Zeitung, Bluewin, Jean Frey, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Publicitas.

Special Interest The French-speaking Swiss cinema magazine Live launches the special edition Live Stars, which, unlike Live, which is distributed free of charge, is sold at newsstands, petrol stations and in the 36 cinemas in the Europlex chain. With perfect binding, an elegant layout and a DVD supplement, it is a luxury edition and is aimed at advertising customers in this sector. Live Stars is published in May and December 2005 with a print run of 50,000 copies.

Convergence The newly founded Jean Frey IPTV AG is working together with the St. Gallen company Webcast. "We will produce a large proportion of the videos that IPTV will broadcast on the Internet," Webcast owner Claudio de Cataldo told the St. Galler Tagblatt. Cataldo was unable to give details of the program. He assumes that the first step will be to produce reports. Jean-Frey project manager Peter Weigelt told the Tagblatt that personality shows are also part of the concept. Webcast has already been operating the free video streaming platform InternetTV.ch since April 2004 with its own and third-party productions.

Media planning TV advertising windows can soon be booked online.IP Multimedia (IP), the marketing company of the Goldbach Media Group, is launching an online booking and scheduling tool in 2006 - for the three media types TV, radio and ad screen. "This will be a huge step forward for us, because it will make handling our TV advertising windows as easy as it is for the SF-DRS marketer Publisuisse," says IP Managing Director Michi Frank. The tool will already be available when bookings open in the fall of 2005. Whether IP will then grant media agencies a direct booking discount like Publisuisse is still open, according to Frank. "This no longer met market requirements," says Fredy Grau, responsible for Adscreen at IP. After two and a half years of evaluation, the IP Board of Directors opted for the MediaPro tool from the Amsterdam-based software company Media-Line. The counterpart to Publisuisse's Mediaoptimizer and Publiplan is already in use in the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and Eastern Europe. IP is keeping a low profile on the investment costs.
(mk)

Television Ten trainees have successfully completed the first "Television Journalism" course at SF DRS, all of whom will continue to work as editors at SF DRS. The trainees - four women and six men, six in the "Information" department and four in the "Sport" department - were selected from around 800 applicants. . Since August 2004, they have spent 65 course days in SF DRS's internal training program learning about and applying the television trade. The 13 trainees in the second year began their stage in January

Consumer electronics On March 11, the Japanese games company Nintendo launches its new portable console in Europe, with Jung von Matt/Alster realizing the launch campaign for the Nintendo DS. The Hamburg agency won the pitch against two competitors. The budget is to be 35 million euros. The integrated campaign includes radio and TV commercials, print and online advertising. There will also be PR measures, trade promotions and POS materials. The teaser campaign will start in February with advertisements and TV spots.

Awards The Zurich agency DAI (Design Architecture Identification) has received two internationally renowned design awards, winning first prize in the graphics category at the Merano International Wine Festival for the design of the Canneto winery label. The agency also receives the "Good Design Award 2004" for its furniture line Linea Vertigo, which is produced in collaboration with the northern Italian furniture manufacturer Altek. They are now included in the museum collection of the Athenaeum of Architecture and Design in Chicago.