Opportunity or danger?

For years, publishers have been critical of every step SRG has taken to expand its online portals. It is unacceptable that the large fee-financed competitor in this up-and-coming market should cut them off. However, such concerns are not shared by online advertising marketers - instead, they see new opportunities, not least for publishers. "Publimedia has a positive attitude towards new, high-reach portals," says CEO Andreas Gedenk and concludes: "After all, an increase in inventory should also have a stimulating effect on the market. Competition stimulates the market, which creates new challenges for planning and therefore makes this discipline more attractive." For advertisers, advertising placements on sf.tv would be "very exciting", says Simon Morton, CEO of online advertising broker Admazing. This would of course be in the area of online video advertising, but also for thematically coordinated placements in the environment of the individual programs. Such additional, high-quality placement opportunities would be "particularly welcome" because "demand is also rising continuously in the booming online market". With the large international websites and networks, there is a large oversupply of traffic overall, which is why a further strengthening of the domestic offer would "certainly be welcome". Online advertising on the SRF sites could probably also attract advertising customers to online advertising who were previously little or not at all active in this medium, which would be good for the market as a whole. And for Michael Baum, Managing Director of Stailamedia AG, "an opening is definitely to be welcomed", as it would underline the mega-trend around online moving image advertising.

It seemed almost clear a year ago that such new opportunities would open up for online advertising. At the time, the Federal Council was "generally in favor" of SRG being able to place advertising in its online offering in the future. As this could lead to a new competitive situation between SRG and the print media, the national government called on SRG "to approach publishers and work with them to find a solution that allows all parties to operate in the online sector under appropriate framework conditions".

It is unclear how quickly and in what direction the new media minister, Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard, intends to move forward on this issue, especially as her media policy has barely taken shape in the first six months of her term in DETEC. According to Urs F. Meyer, Managing Director of the Swiss Media Publishers' Association, there were three discussions up until January of this year, each of which was attended by Jean-Bernard Münch, Chairman of the SRG Board of Directors, and SRG Director General Roger de Weck, as well as a committee of varying composition from the Publishers' Association. As the publishers had commissioned an expert opinion from law professor Urs Saxer, which is now available, the talks were interrupted in the spring and are to be resumed at the beginning of July. The publishers prepared for this at a retreat before Whitsun, and Meyer is confident that they will have agreed on a joint approach by the end of the year. Because there are "points where we can find common ground". A 50:50 model for a joint offer would be "ok", and there are "possible models" that need to be worked out now. However, Meyer also points out that publishers have "lost faith in fair cooperation", particularly due to examples such as AG für Werbefernsehen and Teletext. This is because both companies, in which publishers were originally involved, are now controlled by SRG.

SRG is also hopeful. "It will be tough negotiations," says SRG company spokesperson Daniel Steiner, but adds that they are confident of being able to "find a good Swiss compromise by the end of the year".

And SRG President Jean-Bernard Münch said at a conference at the end of May: "We would like to form a joint platform for Switzerland." The Federal Council also seems to be thinking along these lines. In a response to a parliamentary motion at the beginning of June, the national government stated: "This is not just about cooperation models in the advertising sector. Cooperation and synergies are conceivable between SRG and publishers that go beyond this and ultimately strengthen Switzerland as a media location overall." In view of this initial situation, it remains to be seen where the journey will take us and how SRG's online offerings will be set up and produced in future. Depending on the outcome of the talks, anything is possible: from informal agreements on the exchange of content to a jointly operated monster website (which is not unproblematic under antitrust law) or new collaborations in associated areas. Christoph J. Walther

The object of dispute

In view of the debate about online advertising at SRG, it is worth taking a closer look at the subject of the dispute, the online editorial offices at Swiss radio and television SRF. The currently separate online presences of radio (drs.ch) and television (sf.tv) are to be merged into a new news platform in mid-2012 as part of the convergence project. At the end of May, Christian Schmid was appointed Head of the newly created News Online division at SRF. He is due to take up his post on October 1 and is still responsible for the development and expansion of the new online editorial team of Axel Springer Switzerland's business media. At SRF, however, he will not act as a further editor-in-chief, but will report to both the editor-in-chief for TV, Diego Yanez, and the editor-in-chief for radio, Lis Borner. It has already been decided that the future online editorial team will be based in Zurich Leutschenbach. However, Andrea Hemmi, Head of Corporate Communications at SRF, said that everything else is currently open and being worked out.

First and foremost, this includes the question of the number of positions and how they are filled. Today, there are around 50 full-time editorial positions and around 30 full-time technical positions to manage the entire SRF websites drs.ch, sf.tv and srf.ch. In addition, other journalists in the various radio and television editorial offices also work for the online offerings by processing information from their broadcasting vehicles for online use. Due to these dual roles, the number of these positions is difficult to quantify, says Hemmi. With more than 80 online positions, SRF is superior to the publishers. At Tamedia, there are around 40 full-time positions in the news network (excluding regional editorial offices), and at 20 Minuten, where the online editorial office is currently being expanded, around 60 full-time positions can be estimated. Less than 10 positions are used for technology and production. (A comparison of Ringier and NZZ is difficult, as many processes at Blick are combined in the newsroom and new structures are being set up at the NZZ Group).

SRF's editorial teams currently employ around 30 people in the pure news area, almost a third of them in Bern at the radio station and two thirds at the Tagesschau online editorial team in Zurich. The Teletext editorial team is also integrated here. The news online area is staffed around the clock, with one person on editorial standby at night. Up to now, they have not worked together even during major events. For the first time, they now want to pull together in certain areas, such as dossiers on parliamentarians, in view of the federal elections.

SRF's online offerings are very popular. In 2010, drs.ch recorded 1.6 million monthly visits (+33% compared to the previous year) and sf.tv 12.5 million monthly visits (+52% compared to the previous year). Audio and video offerings are increasingly in demand, either as live streams or for time-shifted use. In radio, for example, the number of live streams rose by almost 130% between the first quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 to 1.6 million uses per month. For television, the increase is 150 percent with 0.5 million uses per month in the first quarter of 2011. The figures for video-on-demand use are significantly higher: in the first quarter of 2011, videos were clicked almost 9 million times on the sf.tv website for time-shifted viewing, which corresponds to an increase of 50.9 percent. SRF is reaching a much younger audience via the Internet. While last year the average age of the radio audience was 50 and that of the TV audience 55, web users are on average 38 years younger than the SRF radio and television audience, i.e. around 15 years younger. The internet offering is therefore "absolutely crucial" if SRF wants to reach a younger audience.