Women's magazines Ringier has bought the luxury magazine Bolero. It is to work together with Edelweiss. A merger is already on the distant horizon, and Bolero has found its ideal partner in Ringier. So says Sithara Atasoy, editor-in-chief of the luxury magazine and until recently also its co-owner. In the summer, the Bolero magazine publisher started looking for a buyer. "After eight years as an independent small publisher, we wanted to go one step further," explains Atasoy. Of the possible scenarios of investing ourselves, selling part or all of the company, we opted for the latter. The shareholders - including Goldbach Media boss Beat Curti and TV favorite Kurt Aeschbacher - would have had money available. Nevertheless, independence would still have meant restrictions. "Ringier offers us more opportunities in marketing and retail sales," says Atasoy. "Previously, for example, we could hardly do any advertising. We had to do everything with our own hands."
A look at the current Wemf statistics shows that Bolero could use some help: in 2002, the magazine lost 17 percent of its circulation. Of 40000 printed copies, 22473 are still being sold. The magazine is also feeling the effects of subdued consumer sentiment - especially in Germany and Italy, where important advertising customers from the luxury goods industry are based. According to Atasoy, Bolero will be around ten percent under budget by the end of the year.
Expansion of the line extensions
But it is not only the difficult economic situation that has led Bolero to look for a bride and ultimately to marry the Ringier Group. Ambition also plays a role. "We want to strengthen and expand Bolero," emphasizes the Editor-in-Chief. In the current year, the publishing house has implemented a series of line extensions: Bolero Men for the target group of fashion-conscious men, Blush as a magazine for aesthetics and Sign for living and design. These titles are currently published as special issues - but the publisher was already flirting with a regular publication rhythm when they were launched. A plan that was difficult to realize with the available funds.
Optimal addition for Ringier
It remains to be seen how much "budget money" Ringier will use to finance Bolero's expansion. Group spokeswoman Eva Keller is keeping her cards close to her chest. Ringier stands behind the line extensions of Bolero and the publisher's other activities, she says. Everything else is currently being clarified, including synergies between Bolero and Ringier's women's magazine Edelweiss (see box). All possibilities are being examined, says Keller. The aim is to achieve "very close cooperation", for example in the editorial area. However, she did not rule out a merger of the two titles. In any case, Bolero, which focuses on fashion and lifestyle, is an ideal complement to the more broadly themed Edelweiss. "We are ideal partners," says Keller.
Sithara Atasoy was unable to comment on a merger of Bolero and Edelweiss. Edelweiss is aimed at a different audience. Bolero will be expanded in its own (luxury) segment, in which Ringier has not been active to date. "I think Ringier is looking forward to our know-how," said the editor-in-chief.
Questionable profitability
However, media specialists are skeptical as to whether Ringier will really run both titles in parallel. "I think it will end in a merger," says Peter Döbeli from Konnex. Even if the publications are different, two separate magazines would probably not be profitable. In the event of a merger, Döbeli sees Bolero in the stronger position in terms of content.
For Urs Schneider from Mediaschneider, however, the small number of female readers is Bolero's handicap. "The title has simply not been able to establish itself on the market so far." For Schneider, there is still room for women's magazines in German-speaking Switzerland on the magazine market. However, the publisher could not produce the same magazine twice, as this would not be economically justifiable. "A merger of Edelweiss and Bolero must happen," Schneider is convinced.
Edelweiss and Bolero will work closely together, but the synergy potential has not yet been defined: Bolero will come into the hands of Ringier at the end of the year.
Slowly growing EdelweissIn French-speaking Switzerland, Ringier launched the women's magazine Edelweiss in October 1998. The magazine was able to establish itself alongside the Edipresse title
Femina and the Femme profile launched at the same time. Ringier therefore ventured across the language border this February with Edelweiss. The Swiss-German edition is produced in close cooperation with the editorial team in French-speaking Switzerland, and a large proportion of the articles are translated from French. The initial print run amounted to 70,000 copies. According to Ringier spokeswoman Eva Keller, Edelweiss is developing well. Advertising sales are above plan and good results have also been achieved in the reader market. "But we are not yet where we want to be," says Keller. (sm)
Stefano Monachesi

The new Swiss low-cost airline Helvetic has commissioned Prime Communications with the conception and realization of its entire communication. The mandate of the Zurich agency covers all communicative areas from the development of the visual appearance and the basics of corporate identity to corporate publishing, including the website. Helvetic will commence flight operations in winter. Each flight costs a flat rate of 99 euros plus airport taxes.

McCann-Erickson has to hand over the Classic Coca-Cola account in the UK to the London-based agency Mother. According to the British industry service Campaign, the change of agency was already apparent at the beginning of the year when Coca-Cola asked Mother for proposals for a refresh of the Coke advertising.

Head of foreign affairs Armin Guhl is leaving Weltwoche at the end of the year, confirmed Weltwoche editor-in-chief Roger Köppel.personnel carousel Head of production Esther Schmid and editor Marianne Fehr have also resigned. It has been known since the summer that US correspondent Martin Kilian will be leaving the magazine at the end of the year. "Write 'doom and gloom at Weltwoche'", commented Köppel, "or also point out the new additions!" Thomas Widmer joins from Facts as culture editor, while Franziska Müller has previously written freelance for Weltwoche and Das Magazin.

Football The concept of fair play has long since become a global motto at Fifa, which should also be respected off the pitch, as evidenced by Fifa's latest fair play campaign, which focuses on star footballer Ronaldo - for once as a character in the official Fifa Playstation game and for a poster. The latest FIFA campaign was designed and realized in Switzerland by Catsky&Partner. The motif shows how even a world star can be a role model for young people and that fair play starts with video games. The poster was printed in an edition of 6000 copies, sent to Fifa offices around the world and is to be hung up around football stadiums and in Fifa press centers.

The publishing house Agefi Groupe, publisher of the business newspaper L'Agefi, made a loss of 420000 francs in the first half of the year.media houses Turnover fell by 28 percent to 6.9 million francs compared to the same period last year. Advertising revenue in particular slumped (by 32 percent to 4.5 million francs), while subscription and newsstand sales suffered less (-7.4%). Agefi is cautiously optimistic for the second half of the year.

Radio spots The deadline for entries for the Golden Ear radio spot award expires on Friday, and although over 100 spots have been submitted, only half of the hoped-for participation has been achieved. "Most submissions are only made at the end," says co-organizer Frank Bienenfeld. He is pleased with the 40 or so entries from French-speaking Switzerland.

Trade journals From the beginning of 2004, Jean Frey Fachmedien will take over advertising sales for the magazine Context, which is published by the Swiss Commercial Association (KV) and was previously managed by Kretz AG. Gaetano Nino Foschi, who will be joining the company at the beginning of December, will be responsible for this area at Jean Frey. Context is published fortnightly with a circulation of around 53,000 copies.

Under the name "Results - Erhart Dialog", Jürg Erhart has founded a factory for dialog marketing solutions in the B2B and B2C sectors. Erhart previously built up the Marti Direct agency as Managing Director. Results is based in Zurich-Wipkingen. Urs Obrist, formerly creative director of WBO Dialog, serves as creative consultant for the agency. ...Allgemeine Plakatgesellschaft (APG) establishes a new sales organization for transit advertising called APGTraffic. The twenty-strong team, which will operate in addition to APG's existing sales organization, will be headed by Hans Peter Mueller. ...
The General Assembly of the former Radio Edelweiss Nostalgie Betriebs AG approved the change of name to Radio Basel 1 AG Liestal. Hans Rudolf Gysin was elected as a new member of the Board of Directors. Gysin is an FDP National Councilor and Director of the Baselland Chamber of Commerce. Among other things, he already sits on the Board of Directors of the Birkhäuser + GBC AG printing company, which, like Radio Basel 1, belongs to the Basel Media Group....
Internet service provider Youngculture has strengthened its board of directors. Kurt Rüegg has been a member of the supervisory board since August. Rüegg is Head Corporate Finance and partner of the financial consulting firm Swiss Capital Group. ...
Roland Brandstätt will become Marketing Director at food manufacturer Kellogg's in Bremen at the beginning of October. In this role, he will be responsible for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Brandstätt succeeds Christian Conrad, who left Kellogg's in July....
Journalist Peter Stücheli-Herlach is leaving the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) to join the Zurich University of Applied Sciences Winterthur.
There, he will take over as head of the postgraduate course in political communication at the Institute for Applied Media Studies and the Research Center for Cultural Management, as the NZZ writes. Stücheli was previously deputy head of the City and Canton of Zurich and Zurich Culture department.

The adjustments to advertising prices in the Swiss press will be moderate this year, with many titles seeing a zero increase, said Publimedia CEO Daniel Strobel at the 10th Publimedia Forum. If price increases are made, they will be justified by increases in readership or additional circulation. The average price increase is likely to be around one percent. After Strobel, Michael Brennan from the Newspaper Society in London spoke about the contribution of the local and regional press to advertising efficiency and media specialist Urs Schneider about the demands on the media's transportation and communication services. The presentations, a list of participants, photos and further information on the Publimedia Forum are available for download at www.publimedia.ch/ forum.

Beatrice Kniel has been working in her new job as Head of Sales at Publisuisse since October 1. "No, no," the 46-year-old resolutely rejects. "I didn't plan a career, everything just happened by itself." Beatrice Kniel has been head of the sales department at SRG's own marketing company Publisuisse since the beginning of the month. A company whose payroll has only had her name on it for 18 months.
A rapid rise that she owes to an assessment attributed to her: she is considered a "deal-oriented person and communicative personality". She enjoys negotiating because she recognizes "a playful element" in haggling over francs and seconds. Provided, of course, that she is successful. "I enjoy it when I can bring a negotiation to a positive conclusion," she reveals. A quality that she intends to put to profitable use as the successor to Martin Schneider, who has been appointed to the Publisuisse top position.
In March 2002, she joined the advertising time marketer of public television and radio as head of the sponsorship unit. This has been officially permitted at SRG for ten years. And since January 2002, SRG's own radio stations have also had their sponsorship managed by Publisuisse. When Kniel moved into her office on Giacomettistrasse in Bern, she had to design and develop almost all of the radio sponsorship tools herself. In her own estimation, she succeeded with fortitude. In the first year alone, she "significantly exceeded" her sales budget target. What's more. Kniel proved that Publisuisse is capable of more than just selling spot minutes on television: "We can also do other things, namely offer our customers integrated solutions, which requires close cooperation with the programs."
Television continues to acquire its own sponsors. Only the Ticino channel has also been managed by Publisuisse since the beginning of this year. "Our contacts are good, thanks to the sale of TV advertising," says Kniel, who naturally hopes that the principles of co-financing TV programs will also be reconsidered at Leutschenbach one day. Any bets that she already has ready-made concepts in the drawer?
For now, however, there is a lot to tackle. As the new Head of TV Advertising Sales, she will also continue to head up sponsorship. In total, she manages a team of 37 employees - no easy task either. But she has taken precautions and trained for such management tasks at the Management Center St.Gallen. And because all theory is gray, she describes leadership as "also a matter of experience".
Beatrice Kniel entered the media business as a career changer. As a single mother of a son at the time, she quickly came into contact with the professional world and took up her first management position at Verbandstoff-Fabrik Zürich as Head of Internal Services. It was in their marketing department that she entered the world of communication.
In 1989, Beatrice Kniel joined Diego Bally as an advertising assistant and then became a consultant at the Sulzer Sutter advertising agency. Other jobs included marketing and sales manager at Voice Publishing AG and marketing communications manager for the Blick Group. She came to Ringier through a headhunter who had apparently managed to whet her appetite for the media industry. "Very exciting," said the communications specialist - and has stuck with this attitude.
Will continue to offer sponsorship: Beatrice Kniel, Martin Schneider's successor at Publisuisse.
Andreas Panzeri

Column The basic problem with journalism today is not the liars, but the bores. And clinical clones like the Wolffers executor NZZ am Sonntag. A plea for less ethics and more aesthetics.
Yes, Mbwana, with the Wolffers case another high point was reached in the creeping decline of the media, the blablabla...
This is how the obituaries read when another one of us is caught and liquidated: This time it was the editor-in-chief of the Jewish newspaper Aufbau, the New York-Swiss Lorenz Wolffers. He wrote an essay on September 11 in the SonntagsBlick under the name of a celebrity writer and invented an interview for the NZZ am Sonntag. His predecessors: Jayson Blair in the New York Times, Michael Born with his information programs on "10 to 10" and Tom Kummer, who invented Hollywood stars better than they invented themselves.
Those caught die an instant professional death - with an obituary written by themselves. The only thing they have left are their memoirs: Michael Born wrote them, Jayson Blair is working on a screenplay, and the cleverest of them all, Tom Kummer, had already published his confessions as a novel in advance.
For everyone else, the hour of indignation and ethics has come. The media concerned are horrified, apologize and consider "legal action". The competition writes (gleefully) essays about the degeneration of journalism: about quality-damaging speed, forced sensationalism, neglected fact checks and dwindling credibility.
What is particularly suspicious about the ritual is the knee-jerk head-down call with which fakers are condemned. In the dozens of articles that appeared about Tom Kummer and his "borderline" journalism, not a single one spoke out in his favor. Kummer had put such beautiful sentences like "My character is like a really bad neighborhood in Los Angeles - my mind says I shouldn't go there" into the mouths of stupid Hollywood stars. And thus pleasantly improved reality. And as far as Lorenz Wolffers is concerned, he hasn't made the world much worse by writing another Nine-Eleven essay.
The really disturbing thing about exposed colleagues is another, often suppressed fact: we are in the fiction business. Even if the facts are true. Any reasonably talented journalist knows how to use dramaturgy, adjectives, quotes, etc. to spin stories one way or the other.
If Socrates had been a journalist, his credo would have been: "I know that I half know." None of us are experts on even one of his articles. Journalists are children
in the dark. Sure, facts are a wonderful source of inspiration. But what is more important is what we make of them. Our job is not to seek the truth, but to tell stories.
Nevertheless, liars are a serious problem in our profession. No, not the interview and essay fakers. But those who spread a far more perfidious untruth: that the world is a boring place, full of routine, without alternatives, surprises and imagination. They are the gangsters who write communiqués in indirect speech, editorials without research and reports without curiosity. And then, of course, the gang bosses: "What is robbing a bank compared to founding a bank?" asked Bert Brecht seriously. The same applies: What is the falsification of an NZZ am Sonntag article against the publication of the NZZ am Sonntag? Is it not a mere commercial clone of the SonntagsZeitung? A weekly crime with no respect for the reader, no line and no idea of its own?
It is not the sensationalists but the bores who damage journalistic credibility. Not the few fakers, but the army of the deaf and blind. What we need are honest liars who can tell stories - an aesthetic, not an ethic of journalism.
> Constantin Seibt is editor for politics and economics at WochenZeitung (WoZ).