Books, leaves and bananas
Column: The mother of all battles was the Tages-Anzeiger’s takeover of 20 Minuten. Now Zurich is taking over Bern. In Switzerland, the press war is in full swing.
Column The mother of all battles was the takeover of 20 Minuten by the Tages-Anzeiger. Now Zurich is conquering Bern. The press war is in full swing in Switzerland, where he used to sell bananas and now sells books, explained Basel bookseller Philippe Karger. The NZZ's business editorial team hailed the finally free book market and portrayed the colorful bird, who says of himself, "I am primarily an entrepreneur and not a bookseller. Karger and the NZZ explained that the small players in the industry were by no means in danger now that fixed prices had been abolished. They would just have to do a better job of marketing. Just like him. Karger learned with the fruit: because Coop and Migros had the cheaper bananas, Karger always strove to have the best coconuts. Today, his range also includes skeletons for school and white doctors' coats - which is a good thing. No one should take this entrepreneurial freedom away from him. They were too high here in Germany - just like other prices. But the fact that they are being used to combat Switzerland as a price island is strange - especially in view of our country's special cultural situation and its diversity. The measure is also not an adaptation to Europe, on the contrary: it makes us even more of an exception. Neither France nor Germany have free book prices. And fixed prices are not a thorn in the side of the strict anti-trust commission in Brussels. Only here in Germany has the Competition Commission taken out its courage on an economically rather insignificant sector. And it did so with the blessing of the Federal Council, which rejected the "request for clemency" more quickly than would have been necessary.
The cultural policy justification was hair-raising: Just as many books are produced in French-speaking Switzerland - which has long been without fixed prices - as in German-speaking Switzerland. The rapid demise of bookshops between Sion and Geneva, Neuchâtel and Lausanne could have prompted our government to be a little more lenient. Anyone who does not recognize the dangers here in view of the concentration on the wholesale chains is blind.
And our media minister is at least naive. "No danger" was his comment when the Tages-Anzeiger swallowed up the Berner-Zeitung. Diversity is guaranteed by other media and concentration is a prerequisite for journalistic quality. Well then! But the media industry has always been able to count on more leniency. Why has nobody in this country seriously considered banning fixed prices for magazines and newspapers? Why is the NZZ sold at the same price in the farthest Engadine village as at the newsstand next to the print shop?
What did not bother Moritz Leuenberger was described by BaZ publisher Matthias Hagemann as a magnitude twelve earthquake. Mergeritis had once started in Basel with the merger of Basler Nachrichten and National-Zeitung. In St. Gallen and Lucerne, the analogous processes got underway. Where this was refused, the newspapers went it alone - like La Suisse in Geneva. After the Zurich invasion of the capital, the artificial Bernese model is also obsolete. Paradoxically, Basel, where it all began, remains the last bastion of resistance. But the vision of a joint newspaper on the Limmat, Aare and Rhine does not seem all that absurd.
Zurich's hegemony puts an end to the federalism of newspapers. The Kulturkampf and the time when publishers were also editors-in-chief and National Councillors are over. And the Cold War is over. Whether the current concentration is better remains to be seen.
However, it is ultimately just an aftershock. The domestic monopoly position that the Tages-Anzeiger is building up has more to do with the free newspapers - which threatened it and Blick the most. They provoked the earthquake in the press landscape. General Kall reacted militarily: his campaign against 20 Minuten - the paper had to capitulate and was taken over - remains the founding event of our journalistic present. The big bang of the new newspaper scene.
The Tages-Anzeiger led and won the mother of all battles. The victory made it neither better nor more innovative. But it has made it more self-confident and aggressive. After the latest victory in the campaign of conquest, Martin Kall has named one priority in his vague strategy of possible synergies: Free newspaper. When the competition launches its planned new free newspaper with postal delivery in the fall, this can only mean free delivery on Sundays for Kall.
Jürg Altwegg is a correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine in Geneva.
The cultural policy justification was hair-raising: Just as many books are produced in French-speaking Switzerland - which has long been without fixed prices - as in German-speaking Switzerland. The rapid demise of bookshops between Sion and Geneva, Neuchâtel and Lausanne could have prompted our government to be a little more lenient. Anyone who does not recognize the dangers here in view of the concentration on the wholesale chains is blind.
And our media minister is at least naive. "No danger" was his comment when the Tages-Anzeiger swallowed up the Berner-Zeitung. Diversity is guaranteed by other media and concentration is a prerequisite for journalistic quality. Well then! But the media industry has always been able to count on more leniency. Why has nobody in this country seriously considered banning fixed prices for magazines and newspapers? Why is the NZZ sold at the same price in the farthest Engadine village as at the newsstand next to the print shop?
What did not bother Moritz Leuenberger was described by BaZ publisher Matthias Hagemann as a magnitude twelve earthquake. Mergeritis had once started in Basel with the merger of Basler Nachrichten and National-Zeitung. In St. Gallen and Lucerne, the analogous processes got underway. Where this was refused, the newspapers went it alone - like La Suisse in Geneva. After the Zurich invasion of the capital, the artificial Bernese model is also obsolete. Paradoxically, Basel, where it all began, remains the last bastion of resistance. But the vision of a joint newspaper on the Limmat, Aare and Rhine does not seem all that absurd.
Zurich's hegemony puts an end to the federalism of newspapers. The Kulturkampf and the time when publishers were also editors-in-chief and National Councillors are over. And the Cold War is over. Whether the current concentration is better remains to be seen.
However, it is ultimately just an aftershock. The domestic monopoly position that the Tages-Anzeiger is building up has more to do with the free newspapers - which threatened it and Blick the most. They provoked the earthquake in the press landscape. General Kall reacted militarily: his campaign against 20 Minuten - the paper had to capitulate and was taken over - remains the founding event of our journalistic present. The big bang of the new newspaper scene.
The Tages-Anzeiger led and won the mother of all battles. The victory made it neither better nor more innovative. But it has made it more self-confident and aggressive. After the latest victory in the campaign of conquest, Martin Kall has named one priority in his vague strategy of possible synergies: Free newspaper. When the competition launches its planned new free newspaper with postal delivery in the fall, this can only mean free delivery on Sundays for Kall.
Jürg Altwegg is a correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine in Geneva.
