The titles Chuchi and Meyer's as well as the printing plant were sold within a weekBy Daniel Schifferle Bruno Hug and Oliver Prange are the new owners of the weekly magazine Meyer's. Meyer Print und Media AG itself is throwing in the towel after more than a decade of decline. The print shop was sold to its previous division manager Stefan Wenkebach, while the cooking magazine Chuchi went to AZ Medien.
Meyer Print und Media AG no longer exists. The employees were informed on Tuesday evening. All 55 employees - a total of 30 jobs - will be made redundant. All that remains of the more than 75-year-old traditional company is Meyer Druck AG. Its shares were sold to the previous plant manager Stefan Wenkebach in a management buyout. The share takeover took place on May 23. CGS AG, the former IT service provider of Verlag Meyer, also went to Wenkebach.
A buyer was also found for the women's magazine Meyer's at the very last minute. The new owners are the publishers Bruno Hug (Obersee Nachrichten/Persönlich) and Oliver Prange (Persönlich). The bid was only accepted just before the employee information meeting late on Tuesday afternoon.
In the preliminary negotiations, none of the Swiss publishers approached had shown any interest in the magazine and its ageing readership. Hug and Prange want to continue Meyer's without any major changes. Some of the staff laid off by Meyer's will be rehired for the new company.
The sale of the cooking magazine Chuchi to the AZ Media Group was announced just a few days ago. However, the main reason for the demise of Verlag Meyer AG was the decline of the women's magazine. Within the last ten years, its circulation had almost halved from over 180000 to currently 96920 copies. Despite measures to stop the continuing downward trend - including a relaunch.
The problem is well known: It had not been possible to turn the classic "Handarbeitsheftli" into an attractive magazine that would appeal to modern women. Even the radical change of concept in May 2000 to the current, news-oriented magazine was no longer able to save the fashion magazine, which was renamed Meyer's.
Meyer Print und Media AG: A withdrawal in installments
There was also a change in the management of the publishing house in 1996. At that time, the old management team around Ueli Stilli was abruptly replaced. He was replaced by Jürg Meyer, the fourth generation of the Meyer family to work in publishing and printing.
The next change came in August 2000, when Meyer Verlag gave up its Zurich domicile and moved its publishing and editorial offices to the printing plant in Jona SG. At the same time, Jürg Meyer retired from the management team and his functions were taken over by the current Managing Director, Max Frei.
The once very successful Chuchi, the monthly cooking magazine, also had to say goodbye in stages. First, Annemarie Wildeisen, who had raised the magazine for over nine years and left her mark on it, left at the end of 2001. In March 2002, Wildeisen launched the multimedia project Cooking for the AZ Media Group - with a monthly magazine as its centerpiece. Now, with the purchase on June 1, the entire Chuchi subscriber base followed her.
Chuchi: AZ Media Group wins, Duktus AG loses
The bruised man is Hanspeter Eggenberger, former deputy editor-in-chief at 20 Minuten and head of culture at Facts. In August 2001, he was commissioned to relaunch the Chuchi. For this assignment, he founded the company Duktus AG, an agency for media consulting and editorial services. Now Eggenberger has to make the staff he hired redundant after just five issues. "A hard blow in the start-up phase we are now in," says Eggenberger. "Chuchi accounted for more than three quarters of our turnover." Eggenberger also procured the "cooking mailbox" for Meyer's. From August this year, Duktus was also to supply a new cooking series for the women's magazine. This order is now also uncertain.
He only found out about the imminent sale of Chuchi on the Wednesday before Whitsun, says Eggenberger. "If I had known about it earlier, I would have looked for a solution as to how the magazine could have been continued in another way," complains Eggenberger. But there was no longer enough time.
The consequence: Eggenberger has to make six people redundant who shared a good 400 percent of the job. What remains of Duktus AG for the time being is the boss and one part-time position. Eggenberger has started talks this week about possible replacements. "During the relaunch phase of Chuchi, we focused entirely on this job," he said. The only remaining secure assignment: the special lifestyle supplements for Bilanz, of which four to five issues are to be published this year.
Meanwhile, the mood among those made redundant from the Meyer publishing house and Duktus AG is gloomy. In the current economic downturn, it is anything but easy to find good jobs or orders.
Corrigendum
We made a mistake in the May 24, 2002 issue of WerbeWoche (20/02). In the interview on page 29/30, ProSiebenSat-1 CEO Urs Rohner is asked about the marketing of Sat 1 (Switzerland) by RMB Switzerland. The interviewer remarks that RMB Switzerland is threatened with insolvency. According to Matthias Luchsinger, this statement is incorrect. We apologize for this error. The statement mentioned is based on a confusion with RMB Germany, which filed for insolvency at the beginning of May - allegedly because the former parent company RMBI still owed it money. However, RMB Germany has since found a new investor.