In early December, 22 jury members will select the winners of the 2000 Eurobest Awards. This is the second time Switzerland has been represented on the jury. The choice fell on Jeremy Rawle, who has been Creative Director at Euro RSCG Switzerland for about a year. Matthias Luchsinger, CEO of Cinecom, the Swiss Eurobest headquarters, expressed his confidence in Rawle’s suitability as a juror: «Jeremy has a distinctly international background.» Rawle has previously worked for Euro RSCG in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Lesch+Frei becomes an ICOM member. The Zurich-based advertising agency Lesch + Frei is joining the international agency network ICOM. ICOM is a network of nearly 80 owner-managed communications firms in over 50 countries. Its headquarters are in the U.S.; with Lesch+Frei, ICOM is represented in Switzerland for the first time.
My Magazine launches with Swiss involvement. The Leipzig-based publisher My Media is launching «the first glossy magazine dedicated to health» under the name My Magazine. My Magazine is set to be published monthly and will debut with a print run of 380,000 copies. The design is by Zurich-based designer Beda Achermann, who serves as Creative Director of My Magazine. The first issue also features contributions by Swiss artists François Berthoud and Michel Comte. My Magazine is part of a media network that includes TV, radio, call center, and online offerings (www.myweb.de).
«Golden Advertisements» for AY&R and McCann-Erickson, Zurich. The Bavarian Communications Association (BWF) has presented awards for the best advertisements and posters from the 1999/2000 period in German-speaking countries. The winners were selected from 1,379 entries (advertisement category) and 894 entries (poster category) submitted from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Two of the three coveted «Golden Advertiser» awards went to Switzerland: the winners were the Flims-Laax-Falera campaign by Advico Young & Rubicam and the Nico Yearbook campaign by McCann-Erickson, Zurich.
CR Kommunikation and By Heart Against Tobacco. The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) plans to launch a multi-year campaign to warn the Swiss public about the dangers of tobacco use. The campaign, scheduled to begin in the spring of 2001, will be carried out by cR Kommunikation and By Heart in Zurich. cR is focusing on strategy and general communications, while By Heart is responsible for traditional advertising. cR initially intended to handle the campaign on its own but soon realized it needed a strong, innovative, young agency for the implementation, explained cR consultant Stefan Batzli, outlining the rationale for the collaboration. In February, a decision will also be made regarding the design of the campaign’s online module and whether to bring in a web agency. cR and By Heart prevailed in the pitch against Heinrich Werbeberatung from Affoltern am Albis. AY&R and Wirz had already withdrawn from the process prior to the presentation.
TURNING CUSTOMERS INTO GNOMES. Positioned as a toy for big kids, a playful campaign by Lowe|GGK, Zurich, promotes Canon’s line of compact copiers. The devices, dubbed «Copybaby,» are designed for the kind of copying volume typically found at home, in a small office, or at the Ligerz Bowling Club. The campaign visualizes what is probably the most common source of amusement since copiers were invented: the ads feature gnome-like grimaces—caricatures of faces with flattened noses, the kind that result when you have your likeness scanned by a copier. This design harmonizes in a quirky way with the tagline “the personal copier,” which in turn implicitly addresses the size and capacity of the Copybaby line.
Ringier is discontinuing its book publishing division and selling MEX. The Ringier Group will cease its book publishing operations at the end of the year and sell the youth magazine MEX Musenalp Express. Ringier stated that book publishing is not part of its core business. The remaining rights to the book titles are to be sold—with the exception of the Gault Millau restaurant guide, which will continue to be published within the magazine division. In the youth magazine segment, Ringier sees no long-term prospects for success for MEX. According to press spokesman Fridolin Luchsinger, the publisher is currently negotiating with unnamed buyers. «But you know the Swiss youth magazine market,» said Luchsinger, «so the sale will certainly be difficult.» Mextown, MEX’s online platform—which Ringier recently expanded into a three-dimensional virtual community—will not be sold.
Aloha is now C-Matrix Group. The PR agency Aloha Communications has rebranded itself as C-Matrix Group. The new name reflects the company’s new focus on integrated communications.
C-Matrix plans to operate in the areas of corporate communications, marketing, and new media communications, as well as issues management and investor relations. The agency, which is a member of the BPRA and represents the International PR Network in Switzerland, has also moved into new headquarters in Baar.
Pre-Olympic production race. The Zurich/Graubünden region submitted its bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics to the Swiss Olympic Association (SOV) in two transparent binders. The little-known Rothrist-based agency XOPH had to produce the dossiers—totaling around 300 pages—in what might be called the Olympic spirit: The existing Zurich/Graubünden 2010 task force, comprised of government officials from the cantons of Zurich, Schwyz, and Graubünden—as well as Christoffel Brändli, the initiator of the bid—had not commissioned XOPH until just one month before the deadline and had not even provided the texts until barely a week before the bid was due. The logo was designed by Hartmann von Matt.
Editorial

Rumors, Put to the Test
A rumor has been circulating persistently in the media industry for months: the 45 percent stake that A&A Actienbank holds in 20 Minuten (Switzerland) is up for sale, with NZZ and Tamedia—as well as other publishers—reportedly interested. So far, all parties have denied the rumor (see page 49).
But the fact that the rumor no longer causes an outcry shows that commuter newspapers are no longer a red flag in publishing circles. Since they’re already allowed to be printed, why not consider investing in them as well?
Apparently, however, publishers are still hesitant—likely because they have doubts about the profitability of commuter newspapers. According to a second rumor, 20 Minuten is said to have budgeted for an operating deficit of 25 million francs next year. Now, this is not meant to disparage 20 Minuten: if the figure is accurate, it likely applies to Metropol as well.
But is it even realistic? Does it apply to the 2001 calendar year, or to an extended fiscal year starting with the expansion in October? And what counts as upfront investments, and what counts as operating costs?
Let’s do the math. Printing 240 issues per year, each with a circulation of 300,000 copies, costs about 12 million francs; personnel expenses amount to around 8 million (half of that at Metropol); and distribution costs 4 million. Add to that office rent and operating costs, as well as advertising expenses. That comes to about 26 to 28 million Swiss francs for a calendar year. If you add a quarter for October through December 2000, the total comes to 32 to 35 million Swiss francs. That’s a rough estimate.
In short: The budget deficit mentioned is—for the period from October 2000 to December 2001—at least a possibility. This is because the two publications are not (yet) experiencing an advertising boom. The reasons could include their dual presence in the market, their image, the relatively low readership figures per copy, and a concept-driven, rather weak reader loyalty.
Despite all the international and multimedia networking, the break-even point is therefore unlikely to be reached in 2002 as planned. Various Swiss publishers apparently share this view. Markus Knöpfli

What at first glance looks like a printing press error or a sign of burnout in the creative department is actually a trend in current ad design. White ad pages—featuring only a modestly sized logo of a company or brand and leaving the rest of the space to the viewer’s imagination. This is an approach that can undoubtedly only be attempted with well-known brands already familiar to us, and it offers the overstimulated viewer’s eye a welcome respite. The question remains whether this positive feeling benefits the client who commissioned the blank ad or, rather, the ads placed on the following pages. Especially since people are generally much more receptive after a short break. So why not immediately follow a blank page with one that’s a bit more heavily illustrated? Another question that comes to mind regarding these «bare» ads is the way they’re presented to the advertiser—and that simply brings to mind the fairy tale «The Emperor’s New Clothes.» Chandra Kurt Column

People Who Write Blindly and People Who Live for Pictures
By Christoph Dill
Lorem ipsum dolor…or: Apollonius, however, weary from grief, raised his head and said, “Whoever you are, Lord, go, sit down, and feast with my people as if they were your own.” As for me, I am so deeply afflicted by my misfortunes that I desire neither to feast nor even to live. Confused, Athenagoras went from the stern of the ship back to the bow and, reclining, said, “I could not persuade your master to proceed toward the light.” “So what shall I do to dissuade him from his resolve to die? A good idea has come to mind: go, boy, to the brothel at dawn and tell her to send Tharsias to me.” When the boy had gone to the brothel, the madam, upon hearing this, could not refuse him; though against her will, she sent her away. But when Tharsia came to the ship, Athenagoras, seeing her, said to her, “Come here to me, Lady Tharsia; “This is the art of your studies: to comfort the master of this ship and all these people; to urge him, who sits in darkness, to accept consolation; and to entice him to come out into the light—his grieving wife and daughter.” This is the cause of piety, through which the Lord becomes gracious to men. Go, then, to him and persuade him to come out into the light: perhaps, through us, God wishes him to live. For if you can do this, I will redeem you on the Xth day at noon, so that you may devote yourself to your devout virginity; and I will also give you ten sesterces of gold…those were the days when the people of Bildlimen couldn’t help but be completely lost! And today? Function follows form—nothing has changed about their reading neurosis. They still notice good headlines, of course. But not so with the body copy. There, they miss even the most suggestive double entendres; indeed, thanks to their ignorance of inner values, they force people like us to
who comes across as an «aesthetic whore» (lay), we now write “up to standard” so that the period at the end of the last line aligns neatly with the last letter of the second-to-last line of the block of text… when are we going to found the Association of Federally Certified Dummy-Text Writers?
Language Observer

Incorrect Separations 81 through 90
Wrong Separation 81rom
antique
Wrong Separation 82tee
rodent
Wrong Breakup 83very
ear
Incorrect Separation 84abt
friction
Incorrect Separation 85bet
critic
Incorrect Separation 86erd
receding
Incorrect Separation 87land
eating
Incorrect Separation 88tau
broadcaster
Wrong Breakup 89frust
ration
Incorrect Separation 90miss
budget
Beat Gloor, www.textcontrol.ch

The ten-year-old advertising and lettering company Ansatz has opened its twentieth branch in Windisch.According to the motto "simplification and concentration", efficient advertising for small businesses is to be made in the former Chäs-Ueli store - the location of the new offshoot - with immediate effect. (ko)

The Content Summit in Zurich aims to turn the city into the content hub of EuropeBy Clemens HörlerThe first Content Summit will be held at Zurich's "Swissôtel" from November 15 to 17. The event for the European content industry on the Internet is made up of workshops, a trade fair, an awards ceremony, networking events and the Interactive Publishing Conference from which it emerged.
Until recently, traditional media companies were still spilling the beans on the Internet and simply copying their printed content onto the web. Now, they're also making big moves. This includes setting up online editorial teams that produce special content for the web. But the demand for up-to-date content is also growing among companies that have not previously been publishers.
Many branded companies, for example, want to fill their websites with up-to-date content, even if they often don't know exactly what to do with it. But content is a must, because after all, the Internet without content is like a lake without water. And the water in the lake has to be sparkling fresh, i.e. up-to-date, because otherwise no one will bathe in it any more. If possible, it should also be adapted to the individual needs of individual users: Some prefer to swim in deep water, others in shallow water.
The content industry is a32 billion market
The increasing demand for content is currently causing a real content industry to blossom. Analysts estimate the global market for content sales and licensing on the Internet at CHF 32 billion already this year.
Not only media houses and agencies are profiting from the boom, but also new providers in the text, image and multimedia sectors. Around these content producers, who form the core of the content industry, other players have settled: Software companies that produce content management tools, but also content brokers that take care of the onward distribution of content.
Interactive Publishing GmbH and its founder Norbert Specker, who launched the first Interactive Publishing Conference in 1994, have taken this development into account: Interactive Publishing joined forces with other event partners in the industry. The result: the Content Summit, a broadly oriented event centered around the content business, which is intended to go far beyond the Interactive Publishing Conference.
The 7th Interactive Publishing Conference is aimed primarily at strategists, but also TV meets the Web, an event organized by Van Dusseldorp and Partners, Amsterdam, around broadband and interactive TV. Both events will bring together leading strategists and practitioners in the publishing industry from the USA and Europe.
The Masters Series, a series of workshops with American publishing experts, will address more practical questions: How do you make a newsletter, or how much can you charge for content? Other events include the IP Top Awards ceremony on November 16 at Hochspannungslabor in Zurich's Seefeld district and a First Tuesday event for startups and investors on November 15.
Farewell to the previous location "Swissôtel"?
Messe Basel is holding the three-day Content Show for the first time. Among the exhibitors you will find mainly technology companies, content producers and companies that specialize in content distribution. Last but not least, networking is at the heart of all events. To ensure that this is not neglected, participants and exhibitors at the Content Summit are invited to an informal networking event on November 15 at the Stars restaurant in Zurich's main train station.
Specker on the decision to massively expand interactive publishing: "Last year, I already saw that you can no longer do justice to the development of online publishing only from the publisher's perspective. The original question of Interactive Publishing, how publishers can use the Internet, has expanded more and more. This expansion is happening on the terminal side as well as on the content provider side. And this raises a new core question: which content makes sense for which end device in which situation, and is therefore successful?" According to Specker, answers to this question are being sought by a much broader field of companies than was previously addressed by interactive publishing.
Probably for the last time, the Content Summit will be held at the "Swissôtel" this year. Due to the limited space, only 23 exhibitors could be considered for the Content Show. Maria Finders, International Projects Manager of Messe Basel: "For the coming years, we expect a potential of 200 exhibitors." So the organizers can start looking for a new venue.
A brief description of each event can be found on page 22. Further info
and registrations at www.contentsummit.com

Muse & Musse Natalie Jäggi
Which cultural event did you attend last and why this one in particular?
Natalie Jäggi: The banquet for the alpine procession in Châtel St-Denis. Because "les moutards des paccots" only happen once a year.
What are you reading right now and why?
Jäggi: The crime novels of Batya Gur. Because of Inspector Ochajon - that's another man!
Which CD do you currently prefer to listen to?
Jäggi: "Viva la Woman" by Cibo Matto.
Which movie would you most like to see again and why?
Jäggi: "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" by Pedro Almodovar. A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved!
What TV show did you fall asleep during the other night?
Jäggi: Never fall asleep watching TV.
What is your latest discovery on the Internet?
Jäggi: www.blacksocks.ch
Love is ...?
Jäggi: International!

The Zurich-based publisher Huxley.ch has expanded its online magazine into a platform for trendy young urbanitesBy Clemens Hörler Huxley.ch, the online magazine for trendy twens and other postadolescents, is now presenting itself as a "portal for a brave new world. For the time being, it still has a strong focus on the urban life of downtown Switzerland.
"If you're going to do independent entertainment, do it right. If it's going to be cross information, then at least it's going to be brain-full. And if it has to be a product for all those who are 20-somethings like us, the editors, then it has to be one that sets trends and doesn't chase them." The makers of Huxley.ch are not afraid of running their mouths. And just as little of taking big steps. They have proven this with the expansion of their new online magazine into a cheeky portal for the generation "that criticizes without having to wear sandals with wool socks.
In addition to the familiar reading material, Huxley.ch recently added vacation and job offers, an e-mail and free SMS service, a chat room, online radio, a flirt corner and a party calendar. Very popular with visitors is the site "Les Zuriquois" with pictures of the Zurich party scene. After all, the trendy party people prefer to see themselves.
The e-commerce range is not yet too extensive, but the products on offer are not exactly ordinary: for example, "Contact 18," a perfume with special fragrances "designed to increase the attractiveness of the average man to the average woman. Of course, the women also get their appropriate little water.
"When it came to partner offers, we paid very close attention to ensuring that they fit our target group of 20- to 30-year-olds," emphasizes Adrian Hagenbach, a member of Huxley.ch's three-person editorial and publishing management team. For the party calendar, Huxley.ch works together with the Zurich party platform Usgang.ch, in the travel sector with Nettoreisen.ch and for the job offers with Poolside.ch.
The magazine remains at the heart of the business
With the expansion of its business activities, Huxley.ch is generating further revenue opportunities in addition to banner advertising. According to Steven Hargitay, member of the editorial and publishing management, Huxley would like to replace banner advertising as the main source of income in the medium term, for example through sponsoring and merchandising, "always while maintaining editorial independence.
However, the new offerings are by no means intended to be at the expense of the weekly updated online magazine. Named after the British writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), the magazine provides information on a wide range of topics in five sections: from Uriella to the latest desktop computers to autumn depression and its antidote: the top scene meetings.
In addition to the editorial and publishing management, more than twenty freelancers are responsible for the various contents. By the end of the year, the offering is to be expanded considerably. Then the Zurichers even want to look beyond the borders of downtown Switzerland, or more simply Zurich.

Swiss Optimas launches Signity in North America with an awardBy Luca AloisiCreativity, talent and skill were the focus of the first Colored Gemstone Design Award 2000 in New York. Behind the jewelry event was gemstone giant Signity, for which Optimas initiated and has the privilege of developing the glittering marketing platform.
The eleven-year-old Brüttiseller communications group Optimas AG includes AG für Marktbearbeitung. This agency, which is active in classic advertising, DM and telemarketing, received an unusual order from Horgen-based Signity in the fall of 1999.
It was special because Optimas Signity's aim was to increase and expand awareness and image value of both the brand and its products in the distant markets of the USA and Canada. The brief was for a marketing concept based on gemstone exhibitions held annually in a different country.
Expansion and development of a luxury brand in the overseas market
Signity is the world's largest machine-cut gemstone company. The company, headquartered in Horgen, Switzerland, sells genuine and synthetic gemstones as well as pearls to jewelers such as Cartier, Bulgari, and Tiffany, and was formed in June 1999 from the joint venture between Swarogem of Austria, a division of D. Swarovski & Co, and Golay Buchel of Vaud.
Thanks to the smooth transition from the parent companies to the new brand, the important trust capital was maintained without loss. Nevertheless, two questions came up for Signity: Which strategy and which agency to choose for the great potential of the important U.S. market?
Because Signity Distribution manages logistics and marketing centrally, Marketing Manager Bernd Stadlwieser kept an eye out for agencies in the neighborhood when looking for partners for communications. And since Optimas is internationally oriented and offers networked market development tools, he found what he was looking for in Brüttisellen.
For the area of genuine gemstones, the Brüttiseller advertising people developed a Design Award. "With a professional market appearance, the Design Award, it should be possible to refresh the already existing marketing concept," says Optimas consultant Patrik Leuenberger.
A dazzling platform, which was designed to appeal to the primary target group and at the same time to generate great media feedback - the Colored Gemstones Design Award 2000. 526 jewelry professionals took the opportunity to use the platform offered, to be part of it, to win and thus to exploit the whole PR effect for themselves.
Due to the success and the good media and public response, Signity wants to institutionalize the event. Because such events work in two directions. They increase
quality awareness, which radiates onto the brand. And the more anonymous environment of such events reduces threshold fears among normal consumers. The event thus provides an ideal setting for the brand to shine in the brilliance of its gems.
Color therapy as an emotional key to the gemstones
The result meant that the communications budget remained with Optimas for the 2001/2002 edition. "There are even talks at the moment of extending the contest to the whole world, so that we can then present the grand finale - the most beautiful piece of jewelry in the world - at the jewelry and watch fair in Basel in 2002," says Bernd Stadlwieser, looking to the marketing future.
For the time being, the agency has already completed the web upgrade for the next contest and prepared the info packs for the pre-registrations for the contest.
The unifying element of last year's campaign - with 40000 mailings to potential participants - was a graphic implementation based on a woman's face as the key visual, which stood out from the facets of a gemstone.
At all stages, the competition was accompanied by the trade press as well as a professional jury: from the direct approach to potential participants - "Your Chance to Shine" - to the exhibition of the 62 finalists and the election of the most beautiful piece of jewelry - "An Invitation to Colorize Your Life".
For Signity, two contest brochures were created with the same look and feel to connect the gems with emotions and emphasize the affinity to the fashion world: one for the trade show event itself, the other as a sales tool.
However, the finalists also beat a PR prize from the event: in addition to a special trade show last summer at New York's Javits Center, their work will appear on the Signity site on the Internet, along with their reference address.

insernet.ch links 150 providers of online advertisements without being askedBy Markus KnöpfliA business consultant has opened a portal for online classifieds advertisements at www.insernet.ch. The portal is a collection of links to providers of online advertisements. But for the time being, it is merely a collection of links to ad providers. Thus, via insernet.ch, advertisements can also be placed with the individual providers.
"All newspaper ads on www.
insernet.ch" is provocatively written on small stickers that could be found in various places last week. Another Internet pirate ripping off advertisements everywhere like anzeiger.ch (WW 40/00)? This question arises involuntarily.
However, a visit to the website shows: insernet.ch is a portal for online advertisers. Under 20 headings (car, real estate, jobs and more), 150 links are listed, leading to winner.ch (Tamedia), good-day.ch (Anzeiger Luzern), ruebliland.ch (Aargauer Zeitung) and also anzeiger.ch, among others. The picture of a naked lady in the margin seems a touch too salacious here.
But that doesn't seem to be the intention. "insernet.ch is intended to give people who are looking for advertisements an overview of providers," explains operator Karel Svec. Now, he says, people no longer have to scour the entire Internet for online ad providers. Since its three-month existence, he says, the number of visitors has tripled per month practically through word-of-mouth alone. "Currently, we're getting about 1,000 visitors a day," Svec says.
Unfair collection of links, but everything still in the gray area
Admittedly, there are advertising banners on insernet.ch. But Svec does not specify rates. "Prices by arrangement," he says. For the time being, he is less concerned with sales than with establishing his portal. But then insernet.ch will also become interesting for the advertising industry, "because all visitors are potential buyers," says Svec. In addition, specific target groups can be addressed according to categories and reached without wastage.
As good as the idea is, insernet.ch has a flaw: All providers came to the insernet.ch link collection involuntarily. Svec admits frankly that he did not ask anyone. Most providers are not aware of their good fortune, as a small WerbeWoche survey revealed. Marius Hagger, COO at winner.ch, for example, will still have insernet.ch judged legally. "insernet operates in a gray area, but it's less dramatic than with anzeiger.ch," he said. Mark Ehrsam, Product Manager Internet at Gassmann AG (Bieler Tagblatt), has a similar view. Svec's approach is "not fair", but it is also "not so bad, as long as insernet.ch is just a collection of links".
But Svec does not want to leave it at that. His goal is to combine not only the links, but all the advertisements per category. "Now, when searching within a category, you have to click from one provider to another, which is far too time-consuming," he says. For the time being, however, Svec wants to set up a limited company; he is also working on launching insernet in Germany and Austria.

Agefi publisher Alain Fabarez launched Futur(e)s and got into quite a bit of trouble with his introductory advertisementBy Christophe BüchiThe publishing group L'Agefi in Western Switzerland is launching a monthly magazine - specialized entirely in the New Economy. It is called Futur(e)s and also has great typographical ambitions.
The long-awaited and repeatedly announced monthly magazine of the Agefi Group is finally here. It was launched with a remarkably vulgar advertising campaign in France and Switzerland, which promptly caught the eye of French law enforcement officials. A subject in which a man drops his pants and stretches out his plump, naked rear end to passers-by was withheld from the French on the instructions of the authorities. But at least this got the product talked about. And as we all know, that costs nothing...
Strictly speaking, it is actually two magazines, because the new title is published in a French and a Swiss edition. Around 60 percent of the content can be found in both papers. The main part of the production is located in Paris. Four editors of the Lausanne offshoot are mainly occupied with Swissizing the content produced in the French metropolis.
Futur(e)s is the peculiar, half-French, half-English name of the new business magazine, of which one does not quite know whose brainchild it is. So it's not quite clear whether the inclined buyer should ask for a "Fütür" or a "Fjuutscher" or even a "Fjuutschers" at the kiosk. No future...
Futur(istic) becomes fast-food journalism
The first Futur(e)s comprises 178 pages. Many photos, intentionally skewed graphics, LED typography: the magazine wants to break with the past and align itself with modern aesthetics derived from the computer world. The topics are entirely focused on the new economy and, above all, on the new applications in information technology. Goodbye to the old business journalism: No long articles, no business figures and no turnover curves are served.
As a substitute, you get a lot of human touch and a lot of small fodder. The magazine in balance sheet format comes across as quite pleasing, but also somewhat arbitrary. The old-fashioned reader, who also likes to read a bit, has to be patient and turn to page 34 before he finally gets some solid fare between his teeth. And even at the end, his stomach is likely to growl. Fast-food journalism.
Futur(e)s does not want to be a second Bilan
The magazine deliberately wants to overcome the rules of traditional French business journalism, says Danielle Hennard, the 49-year-old editor-in-chief of the Swiss edition. For Agefi publisher Alain Fabarez, it's not even a question of countering the established magazines like Bilan with something of the same kind, but rather of giving the New Economy and the culture associated with it broad space.
Fabarez also doesn't want to simply address the classic audience of the business press, but to reach out further: "We're thinking of the 18-year-old student who doesn't yet know what he wants to do later, but also the 55-year-old executive who wants to keep up to date. The reader we don't get is the white-collar worker who is glued to his armchair."
Futur(e)s made by Agefi is available in France for 20 French francs and in Switzerland for 8.50 Swiss francs. It is published on the first Monday of the month. Fabarez has set itself the goal of acquiring fifty pages of advertising per issue. In France, they want to sell between 70,000 and 100,000 copies; in Switzerland, they would be satisfied with 30,000 copies sold.
The competition in French-speaking Switzerland - above all Bilan from Edipresse and PME Magazine from the HandelsZeitung group - is keeping calm for the time being. Bilan editor-in-chief Alain Jeannet calls Futur(e)s a late remake of Wired: "This graphic is already out of fashion. Futur(e)s won't even sell 10,000 copies. Equating the New Economy only with start-ups is passé. The New Economy, that includes Migros and Swiss Post."
Fabarez is not put off by the friendly words of the competition. He has invested between five and seven million (Swiss) francs in the project. If he were to lose this investment, he could take it in stride. After all, he made a killing on the Agefi Group's IPO. And the shareholders - so far at least - have nothing to complain about. The Agefi share was floated on the stock market in July 1999 at 227.50 francs and has almost tripled in value.
So what's the problem?

Name snatched away before launchThe men's magazine tell. from Geneva-based Audace Publishing, launched on September 14, was already renamed with the second issue in November and is now called untell. At the time, the management of Audace Publishing had probably checked whether the name was already taken, but failed to register tell. as a trademark. A private person in Geneva, who already publishes the not very professionally designed free magazine Happy few for distribution in Geneva hotels, proved to be smarter than the people from tell. A month before the launch of the men's magazine, a certain Madame Ferbach registered the name tell magazines, allegedly unaware that Audace Publishing wanted to publish a magazine of the same name.
The management of Audace Publishing has decided not to go to court in order not to burden the young publishing house unnecessarily with costs, and has chosen the less stressful path of changing its name.
For the makers of tell., the search for a new name was hardly a headache, as untell. was already among the variants discussed at the start of the project, says publishing director Eric Valette. Untell. is intended to position the magazine even better as a unique product on the market. The name change, which is not really visually striking, has hardly been noticed by readers, Valette continues. Moreover, the title alone does not make the magazine's reputation; what is important is the content, editor-in-chief Frédéric Gilbert told WerbeWoche.
Audace Publishing is the second media company in French-speaking Switzerland, after Ringier Romandie, to experience a nasty surprise when naming its new titles. In 1996, Ringier Romandie's women's magazine only made it as far as a zero number under the name Style. The name had already been taken by a German magazine. The publishing management then took two years to christen its product with the unusual name Edelweiss for a French women's magazine. Anita Vaucher

Digital television is experiencing various teething problems around the world: In the U.S., it is making rapid progress, but in Europe and Asia, viewers are far from joining inBy Wolfgang KoschnickThere is virtually no doubt: The future belongs to digital television. But the future is a long time coming. In Europe, progress is so slow that it could give you the creeps. In the USA, in Asia and even in some parts of Africa, things are moving a little more quickly, but almost everywhere there are great difficulties in recruiting larger audiences for the new TV offering.
The Americans can already look back on six years of experience with digital television. In 1994, the Direct Broadcast Satellite System (DBS) got off to a very tentative start. Today, some 14 million Americans are supplied by satellite with the programming offered by the Digital Satellite System (DSS).
250000 more DTV consumers per month in the USA
The current growth rates are tremendous. Every month, another quarter of a million Americans opt for digitally transmitted satellite TV. In the U.S., satellite reception is now de facto synonymous with digital television: Digital television enters homes virtually exclusively via satellite.
In the course of the last few years, there has been a significant shakeout among the five providers, some of which were large and some small, all of which were in fierce competition with each other. They have largely bought each other out. And now there are practically only two competitors left on the market.
The leader was and is DirecTV, based in El Segundo, California. It delivers a basic offering and a range of pay-per-view channels: more than 500 channels in all, from which subscribers are spoiled for choice. The most attractive elements include feature films, sports, music and news. Exclusive program packages with popular sporting events and over fifty channels of pay-per-view movies in particular have catapulted the company to the top in its first few years.
DirecTV is a subsidiary of Hughes Electronics Corporation, which is also involved in the U.S. space program and builds satellites itself. The company has long since transformed itself into a globally operating TV broadcaster. Its main focus is on Latin America and Asia. Through a majority stake in Galaxy Latin America, DirecTV controls the Latin American market with programming in eleven countries (Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala and others).
In the U.S., DirecTV is the market leader with over nine million subscribers and a market share of 65 percent. The pioneering years of digital satellite television in the U.S. were marked by fierce competition between DirecTV and PrimeStar. For a while, the two companies were almost tied in terms of subscribers. But then DirecTV surged ahead of its rival. Finally, in April 1999, it swallowed PrimeStar with its then 2.3 million subscribers. In those days, the entire offering was seamlessly transferred to DirecTV.
Number two for many years, it emerged as a joint venture of several cable companies: Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), Time Warner, Continental Cablevision, Comcast and Cox joined with General Electronics Americom to form PrimeStar Partners, based in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. At its peak, PrimeStar broadcast over 500 channels.
While DirecTV subscribers must purchase the dish antenna and receiver, PrimeStar operated on a rental basis. Equipment rental and subscription costs were added up to a monthly amount, which started at one dollar per day for the smallest program combination. Therein lay the crucial difference: DirecTV competed from the outset as a high-power DBS system, PrimeStar as a medium-power DBS. For DirecTV, you can get by with fairly small satellite dishes. Those for PrimeStar are a bit bigger. In the pioneering phase, when the reception equipment for DirecTV still cost a good $600, PrimeStar profited from this calculation. As the price of the equipment fell, its attractiveness diminished considerably.
The competition has shrunk, but is not sleeping
Based in Littleton, Colorado, Dish Network is part of EchoStar Communications Corporation and now also offers more than 500 channels. After years of crawling, Dish Network has brought it to more than three million subscribers in recent years. It is currently the fastest growing provider of digital satellite television. Today, it has 4.76 million program subscribers. DirecTV's and EchoStar's program offerings differ only marginally from one another, and prices are now also at roughly the same level.
Meaningless today is AlphaStar in Stamford, Connecticut, a subsidiary of Canadian Tee-Comm Electronics in Milton, Ontario, and on the market since July 1996. It offers a choice of 110 channels and still has about 10000 subscribers. AlphaStar uses a satellite owned by the telephone company AT&T and now plays a role virtually only in Canada.
More successful than VCRs and CD players
The programs chosen by most digital TV users are sports broadcasts. Advantage: Even games that are only shown regionally by the normal broadcasting networks can be seen throughout the country. However, this is quite expensive. On average, each DSS customer pays $75 a month to choose from around 500 different offerings.
In the USA, digital television has caught on in no time at all. Just 13 months after its launch in October 1994, DirecTV registered its millionth paying subscriber. Neither VCRs nor CD players have ever gained a foothold in a country so quickly. Today, digital television is available in about one in eight American households.
The acceptance of digital television in the U.S. has been facilitated by the fact that Americans are used to being asked to pay for an expanded television service. Cable television is a costly affair in America, and no American says a word about it anymore. Either you have it and pay for it, or you don't.
Most Americans find it absurd that - as in many European countries - more than thirty television programs are delivered free to their homes: "There is no such thing as a free lunch. If something is offered for free, Americans sense the outbreak of socialism. And they are suspicious of it.
American cable television has lost much of its former appeal in recent years. It often offers only a small number of channels and is extremely susceptible to interference in rural areas. With customer service that is abysmal by American standards, the cable companies themselves have paved the way for satellite providers.
Cable TV still has 65 million customers
For a long time, it looked as if the globally operating media tycoon Rupert Murdoch also wanted to stir up the digital TV market in the USA. A few years ago, he announced that he wanted to offer a digital satellite system with 500 TV channels via EchoStar. He did so at a time when DirecTV had just 200 channels on offer.
To this end, EchoStar and Murdoch's partner group MCI Communications had together bought and reserved more than half of the satellite slots in the USA. But then Murdoch decided to abandon his ambitious satellite plans and sold ASkyB's two satellites to competitor PrimeStar for $1.1 billion.
The operators of terrestrial and cable television had succeeded in rolling thick political stones in the path of EchoStar and Murdoch. The partnership broke down over this. For a while, EchoStar was plunged into serious financial turmoil, but it has since managed to pull itself out of it.
Unlike in Europe and Asia, however, satellite TV does not play a major role in the USA. Around 14 million households are supplied via direct broadcasting satellites. That is just under 15 percent of all U.S. TV households. Cable TV, on the other hand, is still much more important, with more than 65 million customers.
In Canada, our neighbor to the north, digital direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television still plays a much smaller role than in the USA. The market leader is Bell ExpressVu with around 215,000 subscribers. Star Choice follows in second place with 190,000 subscribers.
Murdoch wants to reach two-thirds of the world's population
For global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, the success of a worldwide television network was at stake for a while, with which he wanted to supply two-thirds of the world's population with television programs, and possibly still wants to do so.
His ambitions extend far beyond the American and British markets. His News Corporation is now also a big player in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
Murdoch's Star TV has been operating in Asia for almost ten years, giving it a know-how edge over most of its competitors. In India alone, Star TV reaches over twenty million households; in Pakistan, the figure is three million. Star TV offers ten channels in India and as many as twelve in Pakistan. Yet only two to three of the channels are English-language. Star TV has long known that the global TV business is also done locally.
The total number of subscribers to Star TV, which broadcasts in 53 countries worldwide, is over 300 million households. In China alone, the Chinese-language entertainment channel Phoenix, which is 45 percent owned by Murdoch, has a technical reach of 36 million households.
Today, Star TV dominates the digital TV business throughout Asia and beyond in parts of the Middle East and North Africa. In the People's Republic of China alone, it operates nine channels. In Hong Kong, it even has more than ten channels.
Nevertheless, it can also be found in Taiwan with nine channels, all of which are geared to local viewing needs. Not a single one is some British or American program bouquet that is simply regurgitated in front of Chinese audiences.
There is hardly a country in Asia where Star TV is not represented with its own digital TV offering today: in the Philippines, Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Macao, Korea, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Brunei, Star TV is just as present as in Israel, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, the Maldives or New Caledonia.
In Japan, the gold rush mood has evaporated
Only in Japan has digital television been as successful as it has been in the United States. In 1996, Rupert Murdoch's Star TV was the first provider to go on the air there with relatively modest programming. At its peak, there were six competing providers alone: PerfecTV, an all-Japanese company; DirecTV, the American communications company that operates in Japan with Japanese partners; JSkyB, from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation; Star TV, also from Murdoch's News Corporation; and SkyD, again an all-Japanese company.
In Japan, too, the gold-rush atmosphere of the early pioneering years has long since faded. A major shakeout has drastically reduced the number of providers. Some of the foreign providers have gotten their noses bloody in the xenophobic atmosphere of the Japanese media landscape: first and foremost Rupert Murdoch. When he bought into the TV Asahi channel in 1996, it triggered a real uproar in Japan. Nine months later, he sold his shares again and concentrated all his efforts on pushing the digital satellite TV package JSkyB into the reluctant market.
That, too, failed. And in early 1998, Murdoch sold his satellite channel again to market leader PerfecTV, which renamed itself SkyPerfecTV. The market leader, SkyPerfecTV, is expected to have over two million subscribers this year. The Japanese branch of the Hughes Group, DirecTV Japan, has barely managed to reach under 400,000 subscribers in the three years since its launch in the fall of 1997.
The basis for digital TV is particularly favorable because the Japanese are among the world's busiest TV viewers. On average, they spend more than four hours a day in front of the screen. If it weren't for the Americans, they'd be the world champions in continuous gawking.
In terms of distribution, digital TV providers are concentrating on the almost ten million Japanese satellite households. Fewer than three million households in Japan are wired. 43 million households still receive their TV programming via antenna. Even in Japan, a high-tech country, people often only boil with water.
This also refers to the economic situation of digital satellite television: The two unequally strong competitors, SkyPerfecTV and DirecTV Japan, are still far from being in the black. It would actually have to go with the devil if both were to survive at all in the long term.
All indications are that DirecTV Japan will not be able to hold its own against domestic competition in the longer term and will be swallowed up or creep out of the market sooner rather than later.
Smooth establishment of DTV in African countries
The spread of digital television depends least of all on a country's level of technical development. The media policy constellation is at least as important. For example, digital television services have established themselves relatively smoothly in some African countries such as Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola and Malawi - all of which are not exactly among the top global nations in the entertainment industry. Conversely, in some highly developed industrialized countries, digital television has remained virtually stuck in the tough quagmire of media politics to this day.
37 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Greece and Cyprus can receive around forty television channels via satellite. As early as October 1995, MultiChoice launched DStv in South Africa, a digital program offering that now has around 200,000 subscribers. It almost goes without saying that MultiChoice customers tend to be white and wealthy. The program bouquet is geared accordingly.
Most of the programs are offered in English, three in other European languages as well as in Chinese and Hindi. African languages and dialects do not appear at all on African digital satellite television. Brave new world.
Television of the future

This is the third installment in the series of articles on "Television of the Future. In it, Wolfgang J. Koschnick describes and analyzes the slow spread of digital television in the non-European world. The fourth and final installment examines the situation and the manifold problems of digital television in
Rapid growth

DirecTV PrimeStar EchoStar Total
September 1999 5,923,000 1,800,000 2,972,000 10,695,000
October 1999 6,138,000 1,600,000 3,113,000 10,851,000
November 1999 6 365 000 1 500 000 3 250 000 11 115 000
December 1999 6 679 000 1 400 000 3 420 000 11 499 000
January 2000 6,879,000 1,200,000 3,540,000 11,619,000
February 2000 7 095 000 1 100 000 3 650 000 11 845 000
March 2000 7 360 000 1 000 000 3 865 000 12 225 000
April 2000 7,670,000 800,000 4,005,000 12,475,000
May 2000 7,960,000 600,000 4,155,000 12,715,000
June 2000 8 242 000 435 000 4 310 000 12 987 000
July 2000 8,542,000 280,000 4,460,000 13,282,000
August 2000 8 864 000 110 000 4 612 000 13 586 000
September 2000 9 017 000 - 4 760 000 13 777 000
Source: Koschnick Europe Editorial Office.
Channel name DirecTV PrimeStar* EchoStar

Shareholders GM Hughes Electronics News Corp. (30 %), Dish Network (100 %)
(71.5 %), PanAmSat TCI (14 %),Cox Cable
(28.5 %) Communications (14 %),
Continental Cablevision (14 %);
Time Warner (14 %), Comcast
Cable Communications (14 %)
Start of broadcasting June 1994 April 1996
Number of subscribers** 9 017 000 -- 4 760 000
Number of TV channels over 500 over 500*** 500
* PrimeStar has been a wholly owned subsidiary of DirecTV since April 1999.
** Status September 2000
*** until August 2000
Source: Koschnick editorial office
Channel name SkyPerfecTV DirecTV Japan

Shareholders 28 Japanese companies: Japan Satellite Hughes Communications (35 %), Culture
Systems (13.9 %), Itochu (13.85 %), Convenience Club (35 %), Matsushita (10 %),
Nissho Iwai (13.85 %) , Mitsui (13.85 %), Mitsubishi (5 %), Mitsubishi Electric (5 %),
Sumitomo (13.85 %), Sony (5 %), Space Communications (5 %),
Toyota (5 %), NEC (3 %), NTT (2,4 %), Dai Nippon Printing (5 %).
Sharp (1.5 %), Toshiba (1.5 %),
Matsushita (1.5 %), Yoshimoto Kogyo
(1.5 %) and 15 more
Start of broadcasting October 1996 Autumn 1997
Number of subscribers 1 597 100 386 600
Number of TV channels over 150 over 150
Source: Koschnick editorial office (as of mid-2000)

AY&R wants to position the electricity holding company as a leader in the brandless energy marketThe energy market is in upheaval. Public companies are becoming public limited companies, and the supply market is turning into a demand market. Electricity suppliers have to gain a pole position for the market opening scheduled for 2007. With the formation of the Axpo holding company and an impressive launch campaign, six major electricity utilities and their distribution partners are preparing for tougher electricity market conditions. To this end, Advico Young & Rubicam took its cue from the German trailblazers Yellow and E-On. The agency solution is based on a reduction of complexity and places the brand as a leader with the message: Axpo = Energy or Energy = Axpo. page 10