The revenues declared to the Federal Office of Communications are used to determine levies. The broadcasters therefore have an interest in declaring revenues lower than they actually are. The figures of Radio Energy Zürich, which belongs to the media house Ringier, are striking, as the Sonntagszeitung writes.

The station had reported massively declining advertising revenues to the federal government in recent years - even though revenues in the market had risen at most stations since 2010. According to the 2010 figures, Energy Zurich generated advertising revenue of just over CHF 10 million. Two years later, it was still 4.8 million. Advertising also shrank by 32 percent at Energy Bern, the article says.

The research agency Publicom had also stated in a report that among the declared figures of the broadcasters were also "not very plausible" revenue losses. However, Dani Büchi, managing director of the Energy Group, attaches importance to the statement that the license fees have been declared legally valid by the federal government.

The reason for the deviation was primarily due to the "reorganization of the Energy Group. According to Büchi, there are deviations at almost all radio stations, but they are not noticeable because the structures at the other radio stations have been unchanged for years and the stations do not pursue online and events activities to the same extent, which have nothing to do with the classic radio business.

Insiders counter Büchi: It cannot be that sales are collapsing because of the outsourcing of advertising acquisition - they doubt the self-declaration, according to the Sonntagszeitung.
 

Tamedia had announced last summer that it was buying a majority stake in Ziegler Druck-und Verlags-AG, which publishes the Landbote. By early 2014, the group had acquired 90.5 percent of the shares. It now owns it outright, as Tamedia spokesman Christoph Zimmer confirmed on Saturday in response to a report from the Landbote.

"The individual shareholder had the right to sell his shares on the same terms as the others, and he made use of this," Zimmer told the SDA news agency. For the publisher, this was not mandatory. He had not been pressured into a sale.

The individual shareholder is a descendant and heir of the founding family. After the announcement of the takeover of Ziegler Druck und Verlags, all other heirs had sold their shares to Tamedia. The individual shareholder did not want to see the traditional democratic paper in the clutches of a media giant. It was not known on Saturday why he sold after all. The man could not be reached for comment. (SDA)

The musician travels a lot, both professionally and privately, and is a satisfied regular customer of Travel.ch, according to a press release issued by the agency on Friday. In the advertisements, Sway shows his favorite destinations and reveals his personal travel tips. The campaign also includes radio spots in which the musician rates destinations as a travel tester.

In addition, the Online game "Buzz & Fly" created. Anyone who locates Marc Sway can take part in a prize draw for travel vouchers. Throughout the campaign, the musician will also take over the Facebook newsfeed, where he will provide insights into his travel life and interact with Facebook fans. The campaign is running immediately.

Responsible at Travel.ch: Inka Nobel (CEO), Tanja Pfister (Specialist Content & Campaign Management). Responsible at Kreienbühl and Vogler: Reto Vogler, Oli Kreienbühl, Marco Donada, Fabian Schiltknecht. Photography: Dan Cermak. Image editing: Lorenz Wahl. Production radio spots: Jingle Jungle. Game programming: with links.

Eveline Dudda (54) was the first to step forward last Monday. The freelance journalist is a trained agronomist and has been tilling the otherwise largely uncultivated field of agriculture in the media for years. Carmen Epp (28) will be the next author, as announced in Friday’s press release. The editor at the Urner Wochenblatt comments on professional ethics issues on Twitter and on her blog—and will soon be doing so in *Medienwoche* as well.

Antonio Fumagalli and Nik Niethammer follow the two female journalists. After studying international relations and completing several internships at 20 Minuten Online, Fumagalli began his career in journalism as a reporter. Today, the 29-year-old works as a Federal Parliament correspondent for the Aargauer Zeitung/Die Nordwestschweiz. The fourth author, Nik Niethammer (52), former editor-in-chief of TeleZüri/Tele24, Sat 1, and Schweizer Illustrierte, is also very familiar with the workings of tabloid and visual media.

According to a study by Comparis.ch, only one in ten Swiss people is considering switching to an alternative to the controversial chat service. «Apparently, the effort required to convince friends to switch is too great. Many would rather stick with WhatsApp—data protection or not,» Ralf Beyeler of Comparis.ch is quoted as saying in a press release on Friday. Still, 5 percent of those surveyed have deleted WhatsApp from their smartphones.

However, the reasons people are turning their backs on WhatsApp show that the acquisition by Facebook certainly plays a role. One in two respondents does not want Facebook to have access to their personal WhatsApp data. About 20 percent cited general privacy concerns. Despite the media hype, challengers such as the Swiss app Threema have so far only managed to capture a 4 percent market share.
 

Last year, Serranetga launched the international platform "Better hearing starts with a story" for Connect Hearing. Tell us yours." It started with four TV commercials in which real customers told the story of their hearing loss. Now the branding concept is also being used for the new Group website implemented, according to a statement issued by the agency on Friday.

In addition to general information about the company, visitors will find real stories of people who have been able to enjoy their lives again thanks to hearing counseling. The stories are brought to life through various features, such as matching soundscapes on mouse-over. In addition, the website relies on the so-called Paralax effect: When scrolling, the different levels move at different speeds, which should give the visitor a sense of depth.

Responsible at Sonova: Renato Di Rubbo (Director Marketing), Dario Bernardi (Senior Marketing Manager). Responsible at Serranetga: Pascal Deville, Samuel Textor (Creative Direction), Tino Elsener (Project Management), Philippe Lehmann (Screendesign), Diego Dirren, Erwan Eydt (Programming).

By contrast, the cosmetics market and the financial sector in particular experienced an upturn. The increase of 20 percent is mainly attributable to the major banks UBS (+41.3 percent) and Credit Suisse (+3.1 percent), as the market research institute Media Focus reported to SDA on Friday. In the cosmetics sector, expenditure rose by 5.3 percent (+1.5 million Swiss francs) due to the advertising campaigns during the Winter Olympics. Consumer electronics products were also advertised more (+33.5 percent, +1.4 million francs).

Companies have significantly reduced their advertising expenditure on tobacco products (-66.8%), political campaigns (-46%), beverages (-29.8%) and services (-9.2%). According to Media Focus, the advertising market is also lagging behind for the year as a whole: Advertising expenditure fell to CHF 672.4 billion in the year to February (-0.4%).

You can find the entire Media Focus Trend Report February 2014 in PDF format here.
 

Dani Büchi, managing director of Energy Switzerland, confirmed this to the NZZ on Friday. According to the NZZ, this circumstance is noteworthy because Ringier, like Tamedia before it, was reported a month ago by the journalists' organizations Impressum and Syndicom for failing to record working hours.

However, Büchi denied to the NZZ that the introduction of the working time recording system was a reaction to public pressure. "Work on the recording system has already been underway for about a year." Energy decided to test the recording of actual working hours as part of a certification process.

Ringier spokesman Edi Estermann says the group supports the energy test. "However, this has nothing to do with the clarifications Ringier is currently making." Estermann would not say what has emerged from Ringier's clarifications to date, according to the NZZ. At the end of March, the group plans to discuss the issue together with other publishing houses. Further steps will be decided after the annual meeting with the Zurich Labor Inspectorate next April 9.
 

Porsche can already boast that it is receiving a flood of orders for its new models even before they hit the market. The «Blind Trade» campaign now takes this phenomenon to the extreme: The company has launched a Microsite a platform where you can offer your own car in exchange for a new, as-yet-unknown Porsche model. The offers made by fans are binding.

Porsche is revealing further details about the brand-new model at regular intervals. According to the company’s announcement, however, traders who entered the market very early on have the best chances of success with the Porsche. In addition, the value of the car being offered also influences the chances of success.

In the first hour alone after the campaign launched, 2,000 cars were offered for trade-in. However, as expected, these are mostly old clunkers. For those owners, the trade-in would, of course, be a bargain in any case. Porsche can only hope that a few more attractive offers will come in. Otherwise, one might wonder whether the campaign is missing the mark with its target audience. (sis) 
 

PORSCHE BLIND TRADE from ATTENTION! on Vimeo.

The NZZ Media Group made significantly lower sales and profits in 2013 than in the previous year. Sales fell by 36.5 million to 482.4 million Swiss francs. This corresponds to a decline of 7 percent, as NZZ announced on Friday. The figures also show a downward trend in profit: The operating result before interest and taxes fell by 7.4 milllions to 30.6 million francs. Earned the NZZ Group bottom line last year still 24.9 million francs - a decline of 6 million francs compared to 2012.

Although the digital advertising and reader market achieved an 8 percent increase in sales, this was not enough to compensate for the massive drop in earnings from the print sector. The print advertising market lost CHF 6.8 million , the print reader market CHF 2.5 million. The number of employees was reduced significantly last year, from 1639 to 1514. This corresponds to a reduction of 8 percent of all employees.

NZZ reviews projects in Austria

Despite these unpleasant figures, the NZZ Media Group is sticking to its decision to invest around CHF 10 million in journalism in the coming years. "We are facing up to the changes in the media world with its declining subscription and advertising revenues by going on the offensive," NZZ CEO Veit Dengler is quoted as saying in the statement.

The first step is an expansion into neighboring German-speaking countries, initially into Austria, where NZZ CEO Dengler comes from. The NZZ is convinced that there are enough customers in Austria who would appreciate the offer of liberal quality journalism.

Austrian journalist Michael Fleischhacker, former editor-in-chief of the daily Die Presse, will examine the possibilities in Austria on behalf of the NZZ Media Group. According to the NZZ, there is no concrete project. The media channel has also not yet been defined. (SDA)

Many are unaware of the facts about colorectal cancer: Colorectal cancer is common in people over the age of 50. It is one of the most common cancers in Switzerland. If colorectal cancer is detected early, it is curable in most cases. And: colorectal cancer screening is covered by basic insurance for people aged 50 to 69.

In order to introduce women and men over 50 to the taboo subject in a relaxed way, a spot with humor has now been realized, according to a statement by the agency on Friday. The spot is placed on the website and social media channels of the Cancer League and is part of the 2014 colorectal cancer campaign. In the first ten days, the video has already achieved 100,000 views.

Responsible at Krebsliga Schweiz: Barbara Iseli Sczepanski. Responsible at Maxomedia: Simon Muster (Head of Consulting) Matthias Gerber (Consulting Group Leader), Reto Schild (CD), Thomas Kägi (AD). Collaboration with Solid & Hallerfilm and the director Daniel Leuthold.
 

Star TV has been broadcasting feature films every day since September 2012. On average, viewers spend up to 50 minutes a day on the station during primetime. The market share over 24 hours peaks at up to 4 percent. Among 15 - 49 year olds, the market share peak among women is around 4 percent, among men 6.5 percent.

Founder and CEO Paul Grau: "Our goal was to grow in primetime. Our experience since the relaunch in fall 2012 proves us right. Market shares are rising steadily, and we're on the right track. In 2014, we will broadcast more than 750 feature films, which makes us the feature film station in Switzerland. With the new Internet presence, Star TV is developing into a renowned, cross-media platform with Digital HD Buy connection on the focus TV series. In addition, we are in negotiations about a new movie magazine with new partners and have many more arrows in our quiver."

New Internet presence

Star TV is also investing in a new interactive website. This has various new features: In addition to the feature film program on Star TV, only the latest TV series are offered via Digital HD Buy, the advertising is presented in the same way as the other content and, as an advertising customer, you can now advertise both on TV and on the website as well as in the large movie theaters at the same time.