The publishing house in French-speaking Switzerland continues to rely on printed mediaBy Anita VaucherThe publishing house Edipresse in French-speaking Switzerland can again present a pleasing business result this year. However, this family-owned company is not getting cocky. It intends to meet the challenges of the future with flexibility and new concepts.
In an economic climate characterized by economic growth, the Media Group of Western Switzerland once again posted improved results for the 2000 financial year. Sales rose from CHF 678 million to CHF 730 million (plus 7.7 percent). The advertising business in particular contributed to this good result. Advertising volume expanded by 12.3 percent, rising from
308 million (1999) to 346 million Swiss francs (2000).
Le Matin Dimanche - with the largest circulation of the Edipresse titles - has not felt the new competition from dimanche.ch in terms of advertising volume. The net profit amounts to 40.2 million Swiss francs,
which represents an increase of 9 percent over the previous year. Cash flow amounted to 83 million Swiss francs in 2000 compared to 76 million in 1999.
The Group invested a total of CHF 22.4 million in new projects last year (compared with CHF 9 million in the previous year).
Edipresse continues to waive
on TV projects
For the publishing house in French-speaking Switzerland, the printed medium will continue to have priority. The electronic media would only ever be the extended arm, announced le grand patron Pierre Lamunière at the media conference. The publisher also had no intention of participating in TV projects, he added.
Although 52.2 percent of publishing sales for 2000 were realized abroad, Lamunière said the Swiss market still has first priority in strategic considerations. After all, the high quality and the publishing culture in this market made for success abroad, he went on to say.
Edipresse is still interested in emerging markets, especially in the eastern states, because there is no need for costly investments here and there is great market potential. Since March of this year, Edipresse has also been present on the Russian market with the magazine Viva. In addition, the publisher could one day also flirt with South America and Asia, explains Lamunière.
In connection with the growth strategy, Lamunière proudly compares Edipresse and the other publishing houses: Out of ten newly launched products, one to two would normally be successful over a period of three years. At Edipresse, the figure is six to ten.
New concepts and flexibility for successful survival
Lamunière sees the internationalization of large publishing groups and the associated saturation of the markets, as well as the development of free newspapers and the foreseeable economic slump for the second half of 2001, as major challenges for the publishing industry in the near future. For the long-term survival of a publishing house, he considers it indispensable to develop new concepts, as the life cycle of a product is becoming shorter and shorter. In addition, when investing in products during an economic slump, the strongest titles must be considered - and last but not least, rigorous cost control must be managed.
Edipresse Group in figures (monetary values in thousands of Swiss francs) 2000 1999 %

Sales 729 710 677 716 + 7.7
Operating result before
Depreciation and amortization 98 111 93 403 + 5.0
Cash flow 83,211 76,288 + 9.1
Net income 40,161 36,842 + 9.0
Investments 63,558 55,248 + 15.0

Muse & MusseOli Kreienbühl
What was the last cultural event you attended?
Oli Kreienbühl: Sigmar Polke at the Kunsthaus Zürich. I like everything with a grid anyway.
What are you reading right now?
Kreienbühl: The "Chess Novella" by Stefan Zweig. Exciting because of the development from passion to obsession.
Which CD do you currently prefer to listen to?
Kreienbühl: Hösli & Riccardo, "Blue".
Which movie would you most like to see again?
Kreienbühl: "Vertigo". Because of the fascinatingly slow pace of the film, the attention to detail and the complexity.
What TV show did you fall asleep during the other night?
Kreienbühl: "TV Total" gets tiresome in the long run.
What is your latest discovery on the Internet?
Kreienbühl: www.kak.ru
What could you never do without?
Kreienbühl: On communication.
What do you do in a free minute?
Kreienbühl: Are there any free minutes at all without advertising?
Love is...?
Kreienbühl: ...red.

Jürg Neuenschwander is the founder and owner of the Zurich Seefeld-based agency Laika.The company, which consists of three employees, offers services in the field of graphics and project management. Sacha Singh is the graphic designer responsible for the design, implementation and adaptation of advertising and promotional materials. Jürg Neuenschwander, together with Philipp Fürst, is in charge of project, production and event management. Before starting his own business, the agency manager worked as a production manager for various advertising agencies in Zurich. Now he has been managing Grafic Media Factory and Broking AG, Laika for short, since the beginning of the year. The agency serves direct clients such as Calida, Bank Sal. Oppenheim, the engineering firm TBF+Partner and BDO Visura, which operates in the fiduciary and consulting sector. The client portfolio also includes advertising agencies such as Matter & Partner and Hesskiss. According to Neuenschwander, the agency is expected to grow to five employees by the end of the year. (dz)

»I noticed, but hey, look at you! Luckily, there’s Persil…« the neat housewife in the laundry detergent commercial used to say to her nature-loving son. The son has grown up since then, and his love for all things natural hasn’t waned—after all, today’s laundry detergents can handle any kind of dirt. And in this age of equality, the daughter would rather roll around in the dirt than do housework. After all, »clean” is out—at least for the fashion houses Dior and Sisley. In their latest outdoor campaigns, the female and male models first have to roll around in the dirt until their look is ready for the runway. While Dior opts for greasy, oily mechanic’s grime, Sisley sends its models into the damp undergrowth. Conclusion: Thank goodness for clothes, Pariser, Persil, Duschdas—and no more “Expedition Robinson.” Chandra Kurt
Column

An Unjust World
By Peter Lesch
These days, you can’t make a living writing columns in Switzerland. That’s why most columnists are either dead or have regular, middle-class jobs. Only Walter Bosch, as a columnist, can afford a stake in Star-TV, run a business in Silicon Valley, and still sell advertising space on the rear windows of cars.
While the business journalist is always provided with the latest luxury cars by the auto industry, the columnist is still working his way through the last 19 payments on his used Skoda. He must also be wondering about his colleague from the “Foreign Lands—Foreign Customs” section, who, when he flies, does so only in first class and at the invitation of the local tourism office, while the columnist squeezes himself into an economy-class seat for 14 hours at his own risk.
He should also take a cue from his colleague, the culture editor, who—with the support of the editor at the publishing house whose new release he has just reviewed in the paper —is downing a Cheval Blanc ’82, while the columnist dutifully stands in line in the cafeteria for a lukewarm two-pack of Worrenberger. Not to mention the colleague who covers culinary topics. The columnist only ever sees him when he pops into the newsroom between two golf weekends to send off the invitation to the Pommery-sponsored elephant polo tournament in Kuala Lumpur.
These examples serve as a wake-up call for the columnist to think about his retirement planning. After all, anyone who isn’t a target for bribery has no value whatsoever in the media landscape. And that has a serious impact on his fee. Therefore, in the future, even the lines in this poorly paid column will be for sale to all business circles. Offers should be directed to: Peter. [email protected].
Peter Lesch is the owner of Lesch+Frei, Zurich. Language Observer. Spralchemie II – How much longer will we remain liquid?
Ownership creates ties. A house cannot be moved, which is why it is called real estate. In the past, money also remained in one place because it was tied to its physical form: coins, gold bars, and gemstones. A thousand years ago, money was still a form of real estate. When a rich man transported his treasures, he moved so slowly that robbers simply had to knock him off his horse, and his riches would roll right out of his pockets.
In the Middle Ages, money was solid and heavy. It was only with industrialization and capitalism that it acquired its sometimes unbearable lightness. Karl Marx wrote in *Capital*, in essence: Money has its own laws. Even if we believe we control it, it controls us, for its laws are irrefutable. Like a stream that finds its way down into the valley, money, too, takes the path of least resistance; it follows the force of gravity. Money is intelligent; its components are aware of one another. They move toward one another, so money flows to money and ends up where the return is highest—and taxation is lowest.
Does money serve human nature, or is it a physical law? Concepts such as the money cycle or the question of whether one is “liquid” reveal the aggregate state of money. It is liquid—and often slips through our fingers.
But something is changing: Suddenly, money comes out of the wall; it’s on a card and yet it isn’t really there; it travels at the speed of light through fiber-optic cables; it no longer flows—it flies; it becomes ethereal; it becomes virtual; it transitions into a gaseous state; it evaporates.
Take MP3s, for example: The downside of online shopping is that the ordered goods usually cannot be delivered over the Internet. It will still take a while for vegetables to reach this point, but for music, it’s already the norm: distribution without a physical medium. What the so-called music industry is struggling with is the fact that music is no longer tied to a physical medium—that it has returned to what it has always been: intangible. The music executives didn’t count on music.
But if something intangible is already free, should it be paid for with tangible assets like money? Apparently so. After all, with the invention of the credit card, money itself has become intangible, and in the future, digital goods will be exchanged primarily for other digital goods—if only for the sake of convenience.
From the solid to the liquid to the gaseous state: When the temperature rises in the laboratory, the atoms begin to move more quickly, and a substance heats up. This can cause a change in the state of matter: Water becomes liquid at 0 °C and gaseous at 100 °C. Aluminum melts at 660 °C and vaporizes at 2470 °C.
Does money behave like a chemical element? Does it begin to move faster as the number of market participants grows, causing its operating temperature to rise? Will we soon be asking, “Is it moving?” instead of “Are you liquid?” Does money rule the world? Are we attributing too much significance to it when we say that the heating up of the financial cycle is causing the world to spin faster and faster?
Beat Gloor, www.textcontrol.ch

The Museum für Kommunikation in Berlin is showing an exhibition on WunderbareWerbeWeltenMakers, Brands and Mechanisms" is the subtitle to the exhibition "WunderbareWerbeWelten". The show at Berlin's Museum für Kommunikation is open until August 26.Advertising as commerce, art or ideological instrument: less historical than at the Musée de la publicité in Paris (WW 15/01), but more socially analytical, the history of advertising is documented in Berlin. Based on a concept by Helmut M. Bien and Angelika Kroll-Marth, the museum at Leipziger Strasse 16 presents a multi-layered and thus also didactic exhibition.
"The juxtaposition of the world of goods and the true world
has lost its explosiveness," as well as "The mobile possibilities of our lives and the global horizon have not only provided advertising with more and more play material, but have also opened up new options for its addressees," is how Joachim Kallinich, the director of the Museum of Communication in Berlin, summarizes the most important moods of his exhibition.
For the exhibition there are also
a well made catalog
In addition to the history of ADC Germany, advertising in the post-war period or - reviewed for the first time - advertising in the GDR, the topics of marketing, advertising impact, advertising media, advertising worlds or advertising cult are also on display.
The thesis: "Today, advertising has taken over the function that art used to have: conveying aesthetic content into everyday life," for example, is put up for discussion. Other topics revolve around the areas of events, licenses, sponsoring, marketing, and "Advertising success thanks to deviation from the norm.
All these ideas, visualized in the exhibition with many objects and film clips, are presented simultaneously in a book. The 200-page exhibition catalog is not only illustrated with many important and rare documents.
The texts also include prominent voices of experts with highly topical thoughts, for example on everyday agency life at Scholz & Friends, the RTL story or analyses of the "medium as a brand" to the text "Schumi auf Tempo" or otherwise "celebrities in advertising".
The "WunderbareWerbeWelten" catalog is available under ISBN 3-926318-93-7. Further information can be found at www.museumsstiftung.de. Andreas Panzeri

Marc Görtz, Managing Director Sat 1 Switzerland, wants to raise the bar for TV formatsThe demise of "täglich ran" on Sat 1's programming window has once again shown how difficult it is to attract audiences with Swiss formats. That's why Marc Görtz, Managing Director, wants to set much stricter standards for new in-house productions in the future (see also page 21).Marc Görtz, what are the reasons for the failure of "täglich ran"?
Marc Görtz: The show had too few viewers. It wasn't due to our impatience: Since the show started 14 months ago, "täglich ran" has been optimized again and again. We've made qualitative improvements, we've shifted the timing, we've extended the show. But viewer numbers have developed far too slowly. At some point, we simply had to say: viewers don't want to watch a Swiss sports news show on Sat 1.
How have market shares developed since the show was launched in early March 2000?
Görtz: We ended up with a market share of 2.4 percent among 14- to 49-year-olds, barely more than when we launched the show 14 months ago. But last December, we set the goal of achieving at least a 5 percent market share in the target group by June.
Sounds dramatic, though, when there hasn't been a trace of forward movement.
Görtz: There was already a slight upward trend, as evidenced by the absolute audience figures: From March to July 2000, we had 22,000 viewers in the 3+ target group, from August to December around 30,000, and from January to April 2001, it went up again slightly to 32,000. These are increases, but of course at a much too low level. Within a year, we should have reached at least 80,000 viewers.
What lessons do you draw from this latest flop in Swiss private TV history?
Görtz: To call the cancellation a flop for private TV is wrong. It's normal for any broadcaster, whether private or public, to cancel programs that don't achieve their goals. The example of "täglich ran" simply shows how enormously difficult it is to draw audiences away from SF DRS with Swiss programs. This difficulty has nothing to do with quality. In this respect, "täglich ran" was a top program; you can't do sports news any better. But viewing habits are enormously rigid. We underestimated that. All the other private TV providers in Switzerland have also had to make this bitter experience.
What are the figures for the other Swiss Sat 1 formats?
Görtz: There are definitely bright spots. Of the three other shows, two are successful: "1x tägl." gives us a lot of pleasure and is developing splendidly. The market share is already at 7 percent - we started with 2 percent. "1x tägl." will soon reach 100,000 viewers on a regular basis. However, that still takes some time. But because this show is clearly on an upward trend, it will be given that time. We are very satisfied with "live ran" on Sundays. We can report super numbers there and are growing steadily, from game to game. It shows: Swiss live sports works even when you bring it on a foreign channel.
One time sports shows work, another time they don't. Can you explain that?
Görtz: The sports news have
in contrast to live sports, has an insanely difficult time. A painful experience, not only for us, but also for our German partners. For years, Sat1 Germany experimented with its "täglich ran" and tried out all kinds of things. They shifted the time slot back and forth, made the show longer and shorter, and finally integrated it into the news. Today, "täglich ran" is no longer a stand-alone program, but the sports extension of the 6:30 p.m. newscast, so to speak. Obviously, the audience doesn't want sports news broadcasts. We have to accept that.
But "Sport aktuell" on SF DRS also brings sports news and still attracts many more viewers than the cancelled "täglich ran".
Görtz: Their numbers aren't exactly intoxicating either. "Sport aktuell" does, however, benefit from the advantage that the show doesn't air until 10:20 p.m. and can pick up various live events that took place the same evening. That brings in their audience.
The closure of the Swiss program window between 7.55 and 8.15 p.m. also signals resignation. Are you now definitely withdrawing from this slot?
Görtz: For the moment, sure. But it remains to be seen whether this will mean we'll stop broadcasting other sports programs. We had made "täglich ran" primarily to support "live ran" on Sundays. Nothing has changed in this strategy. But if we were to decide to do that, it would certainly not be a daily show, but perhaps a
give weekly broadcast.
But the end of "täglich ran" probably put a damper on experimentation. Can we still expect new in-house productions from Sat1 Switzerland in the future?
Görtz: Of course. We have discontinued one of four broadcasts. That doesn't mean the optimization is complete. But it's clear that new programs will only be added if they can be refinanced in the short term.
How much of a deficit has "ran daily" caused so far?
Görtz: I don't want to say anything about that.
But the show is probably stuck in the deep red.
Görtz: Yes, that's the case. Because producing a show like that is insanely expensive. We employed eleven people for the editorial department alone. Accordingly, we suffered massive losses, which have now forced us to act.
"Die Quiz Show," taken over one-for-one from Sat1, is now supposed to do the trick. What improvements in viewer numbers do you expect?
Görtz: "Die Quiz Show" is doing extremely well in Germany. It has a market share of around 18 percent. We're certainly not going to get that much in Switzerland, but with between 4 and
I expect a market share of 5 percent for us, too. Interview: Daniel Schifferle

Sat 1's Swiss program window withdraws from the 8 p.m. slotBy Daniel SchifferleFor 14 months, "täglich ran" pedaled in vain for viewers. Now another competition along the lines of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" is replacing the unsuccessful Swiss soccer mix. Sat 1 Schweiz's in-house productions thus shrink to three; two of them are on the upswing.
Swiss sports fans didn't like the daily menu on Sat 1: "täglich ran" had its last kickoff on April 18. In its place, Sat 1's normal programming has been shown again since April 19. Instead of a sports-themed mix from Switzerland, there's now the competition "Die Quiz Show," which works similarly to "Wer wird Millionär?" and is already a hit with audiences in Germany.
But "täglich ran" was not given up lightly. It wasn't until the end of August 2000 that Sat 1 Switzerland developed and expanded the show. Its duration was almost doubled, and the time slot was moved up five minutes to 7:55 p.m., with the aim of picking up the zappers after the SF-DRS "Tagesschau. At the same time, it entered into a sponsorship with Blick and subsequently had a daily paper presence. But these efforts achieved little. In the end, "täglich ran" had a market share of 2.4 percent, barely more than when the show was launched 14 months ago (see also interview with Marc Görtz, Managing Director of Sat 1 Switzerland, on page 5).
"live ran" and "1x daily"
are on an upward trend
No comparable worries plague "live ran," the Sunday Swiss soccer window on Sat 1. Unlike "täglich ran," viewer figures for the live matches shown there are on a steady upward trend (see chart). And things are also moving forward with "1x tägl," which was also a problem child before its expansion at the end of August last year. As of the end of August 2000
the previous monothematic short program was expanded into a 25-minute doctor-practice docu-soap and moved up to 6:30 pm.
The changes have gone down well with audiences, as evidenced by the steadily rising audience figures: While the market share in the first half of the year after the launch of "1x tägl." was still a weak 1.4 percent, it went up to an average of 4 percent between August and December 2000, and even to 6.5 percent in the first four months of 2001.
In contrast, the movie guide "The Movie Club" is still in the experimental phase. At the end of August, it had taken the plunge. But even the new concept of doubling the broadcast time to ten minutes and expanding to five broadcasts per week has now been thrown overboard again due to a lack of audience.
Since last week, the broadcast of the program has been reduced again to three times a week and is now hosted by Midi Gottet from the Zurich "Trio Eden". The show has now been moved in the direction of comedy. And instead of a mass audience, young viewers who are into weird stuff are targeted. Whether the new concept will work better remains to be seen, because "The Movie Club" is now back at square one in terms of building up its audience.

What the French-speaking Swiss have been learning for a long time, the German-speaking Swiss can now also learnPolycom is the name of the latest training center in Biel for the first holistic communications training in Switzerland. The course was developed in close cooperation with the Sawi and the Spri as well as various companies and leads to the qualification "Junior Consultant in Communication" after three years of practice-oriented training. The training is aimed at young people who want to maintain an overview in the complex and global network of communication. It is divided into several modules with integrated practical work and includes subjects such as marketing, personality development, general education, business administration, classic and new communication areas, as well as internships outside of school. The first course starts in Biel on October 29 this year. Candidates between the ages of 19 and 25 who can present a Matura certificate or equivalent school education will be accepted.
Polycom is not new to Switzerland; the course has already been offered in Lausanne for five years. Polycom Lausanne was also the starting point for the training courses now newly launched in German. Polycom in Biel is run by Philipp R. Gatschet, who has run his own agency for 20 years and worked at Sawi for many years as a lecturer and course leader. "Our aim is to train young professionals so that they know how to use the instruments of communication in a holistic way and how to handle them correctly," says Gatschet. (dz)

FurthermoreAfter Alfredo Briccola left the advertising agency Metzger Lehner Briccola (MLB) at the end of March, its management team was strengthened on April 1 by Ercole Troisi as Creative Director. Troisi most recently worked as CD for Lowe Lintas GGK. Andreas Meier has been tapped as head of client services and deputy managing director. He is expected to relieve Ted Metzger. Meier joins MLB from Wirz Werbeberatung, where he was a member of the executive team.
As of April 1, Christoph Marty, previously Head of Marketing, has been appointed the new Publishing Director of Tamedia's Facts weekly magazine. He succeeds René Gehrig. In the future, Gehrig intends to concentrate entirely on his activities as a member of the Executive Board in the area of publishing marketing.
As of May 1, Jeannine Dietrich joins the annabelle and annabelle création advertising team. Previously, she was a customer consultant at Archithema Verlag.
The Board of Directors of Paron AG in Basel has entrusted Renato Schena with the management of the company as of May 1. He replaces Thomas Woldert, who is leaving the company by mutual agreement. Schena will retain his previous position as managing director of Star Plakat in Zurich.
Since mid-April, the agency zahnzimmermannfankhauser has a new copywriter and concept developer in Ueli Haller. Haller was previously a copywriter for Lowe Lintas GGK in Zurich.
Pete Watman has been the new Creative Director at Lintas Lowe GGK since the beginning of April. Previously, the Australian worked as a copywriter at Euro RSCG, Zurich, where he helped shape the Orange campaign, among others.

On April 13, the European split edition of the American Industry Standard was discontinued due to a lack of prospects in the advertiser market.But the Industry Standard, which is majority-owned by IDG, was also the model and parent paper for the local Internet Standard, which is a 100 percent subsidiary of IDG based in Boston. Does this withdrawal from the old continent also signal the end of the Swiss new-economy newspaper? Gebhard Osterwalder, General Manager of IDG Switzerland/Austria, denies this and points out that IDG wants to continue to promote the existing editions in Switzerland, Sweden, Poland and Norway in Europe. The concept of a Europe-wide split edition of the Industry Standard was wrong in its approach.
At present, he is optimistic about the future of the Internet Standard. In the advertising market, Osterwalder notes a turnaround. After a weak March, orders for May and June had developed encouragingly.
However, following a subscriber survey, Internet Standard has prescribed a sharpening of its positioning in the direction of leaders and decision-makers in companies. The specified direction has already been implemented editorially. (dse)

(Values = "Supporters" index of the ad versus the average of all ads in the industry; 1.00 = average = 100%)Best of Print AdvertisingThe Ad Hits 2000 from the Advertising Index of the market research institute Demoscope.
In cooperation with the market research institute Demoscope, Publimedia presents the readers of WerbeWoche five times a year with an excerpt from the
Results from the Advertising Index (AX Print). This index (see box) is a module of the Market Radar and measures the popularity of advertising subjects. In the top two rows are those subjects that achieved the greatest acceptance in the relevant psychographic target group (see wind rose). The three subjects that
in the entire sample, i.e. in all four target groups, performed best in the past year are shown under the heading "Top three".
Watches Longines Dolce Vita (Capt Communication) 1.4

Car Mercedes S-Class (Studer & Wohlgemuth) 1.6
Drinks Swiss Milk- Bremen Town Musicians 1.9
producers SMP (Advico Young & Rubicam)
Cigarettes Marlboro Lights (Leo Burnett) 2.0
Body Care Guerlin Mahara (-) 1.6
Advertising Index

For the Advertising Index ad tests, a representative sample of around 800 people is surveyed in eight waves. The respondents first complete a psychological test (50-item test) and then leaf through a magazine with 45 ads. As with reading a magazine, the respondent is free to spend as much time as he or she likes on each ad in the test. Before turning the page, she rates the ad on a scale of 5 ("appeals to me a lot") to 1 ("doesn't appeal to me at all"). Supporters" are people who are "very" or "fairly" appealed to by an ad. The acceptance of advertising determined in this way correlates strongly with other functions of advertising impact and is therefore suitable for benchmarking.
For the segmentation of the sample according to target groups, Market Radar uses a psychographic test, the so-called 50-item test. With the help of this test, the value orientations of the respondent are determined and assigned to one of the psychogram fields (see wind rose). The value orientations range from South (conservative) to North (progressive) and from West (outward-looking, materialistic) to East (inward-looking, idealistic).
Further information on the Advertising Index and the Market Radar is available from Demoscope. Planning support with the Advertising Index, the Radar and new
with the Print Advertising Monitor (PAM), Publimedia.

In future, the publishing house Fischer Media AG will concentrate on the printing sector.NewsFischer Media AG sells magazines
Most of the publishing products are sold. Fischer Media produces a wide range of publications in the nature, leisure and service sectors. "We are too small to finance all these projects," explained Chairman of the Board of Directors Hans-Rudolf Wiederkehr. A solution has been found for all products or is at least within reach. The SBB magazine Via will be published by Vogt-Schild in future. There are interested parties for the bicycle magazine Move and for the book publisher. The magazine Astrea, previously published jointly by Fischer Media and the Swiss Pharmacists' Association in the Pharmedia joint venture, will be taken over by the Pharmacists' Association alone in future. The publication Schweizer Garten will go to Fischer AG für Data und Print. The future of the staff is still unclear. According to Wiederkehr, some employees have resigned and others are moving to the new publishers. Eleven Pharmedia employees have been given notice. It remains to be seen whether they will be taken on by the pharmacists' association. Fischer Media AG is owned by Fischer Management AG, based in Münsingen. Fischer AG für Data und Print is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fischer Management AG.
Edipresse ventures into audio/videoEdipresse wants to penetrate the audio/video sector. The first step is to integrate films and sounds into the Edicom Internet platform. The development of TV programs could follow later. Tibère Adler, Director of Edipresse On Line, told SDA that the Lausanne-based publisher is not making a major move into the television business. "But we believe that this is a necessary development to complement our products," he confirmed media reports. The first contributions could be broadcast at the beginning of 2002. "These will only be simple productions that we will broadcast via Edicom's channel," Adler explained. In a second step, Edipresse is also considering marketing specialized TV programs. "We could, for example, broadcast a weekly 15-minute program on the subject of health via a local television station in collaboration with Optima magazine, which we publish," said Adler. In February, an attempt to enter the television business via a partnership with Star TV failed.
TV channels back on the Balcab network after protestsAfter massive protests, five television channels are back on the Basel cable network. The network operator Balcab had taken the channels N3, M6, ERT, RTS and CNBC off the network in February to make room for the digital channel package SwissFun. Balcab admitted that switching off the channels had led to complaints. "Technical measures taken at short notice" have now made it possible to switch them back on as of April 23. SwissFun can now be expanded without having to make way for other channels. The launch of the digital channel has met with consumer approval.
Newspaper titles have shrunk by almost a quarterThe number of newspaper titles in Switzerland has fallen by almost a quarter in the last 20 years. In addition, more and more papers are splitting their editorial pages, which is having a negative impact on the diversity of the press. These are the findings of a study by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). For the first time, the FSO has investigated how the change in the newspaper landscape between 1980 and 1999 has affected the diversity of the press. According to the BfS, mergers, closures and concentrations have shaped the picture since the economic slump of the 1990s. From 1990 to 1999 alone, the number of titles published at least once a week fell by 22 percent and the number of publishing units by 29 percent. In the last 20 years, the number of newspaper titles has fallen from 266 to 201. Between 1995 and 1998 alone, the cut-throat competition led to an 18 percent loss of titles. According to the BfS study, the situation appears to have stabilized again since 1998. A summary as a PDF file is available at www.statistik.admin.ch