Man without blinkers
Mike Gut is the new Managing Director of ProSieben (Switzerland) and Sat.1 (Switzerland). He plans to launch another new window program in April.
Mike Gut is the new Managing Director of ProSieben (Switzerland) and Sat.1 (Switzerland). He not only has three business cards - one for SevenOne Media, one for Sat.1 (Switzerland) and one for ProSieben (Switzerland). He also has various talents. Mike Gut lives in a constantly changing tension between his parallel jobs as a journalist and manager. He is therefore unable to say which of his cards is the best. However, one of the most interesting trump cards in his career is certainly the chance to turn ProSieben's Swiss advertising window into a real channel with an independent and Swiss program. With the new television law in Switzerland, this will no longer require a license application from April. These plans by SevenOne Media (Switzerland) have predestined Mike Gut to succeed Christian Gartmann as manager of the two channels Sat.1 and ProSieben. Someone has to be a journalist and manager at the same time if they want to recognize and play the right aces in the poker game for the audience.
Gut learned his media trade at Radio Z. "From trainee to management", he worked at the station for a total of 13 years from January 1990, the first 10 years as a journalist. Gut was an editor, presented morning shows, was head of duty and finally became head of sports. He then switched from programming to marketing. He thought about the offer for three days. "Do I miss the microphone?" However, he soon discovered that he "enjoyed media management even more". For three years and until shortly before the sale to the Energy Group, Mike Gut was Head of Marketing and a member of the Executive Board.
During his time as head of sports, he was the first person in Switzerland to introduce the resale of journalistic content. At major events such as the Olympics in Nagano and Atlanta, Radio Z financed its reporter's expenses by reselling the reports to twelve different private radio stations.
As Head of Marketing, Gut not only acquired sponsors for new programs. He was also able to become entrepreneurially active in the areas of personnel, finance and technology. After the repositioning as Hitradio Z, he oversaw the construction of a new studio in 2002, "the most modern in Europe at the time". He enjoyed pushing through the political and technical aspects of a 42-meter-high broadcasting tower in the Glattal valley. Mike Gut is described by colleagues as a "doer in the media". "Negotiating with lots of people and getting a result in the end" is what he sees as his greatest satisfaction at work.
Manager and presenter. To enable him to pursue his goals in a well-founded manner, Gut reduced his radio workload to 40 percent at short notice and completed a degree in business administration at a university of applied sciences. He also still teaches media studies at a higher technical college, the International School of Tourism in Zurich, "on the side".
The new CEO of ProSieben and Sat.1 (Switzerland) has "always known" that he wanted to work in the media one day. And in electronic media. As a teenager, "where listening to music plays an important role anyway", he was fascinated by the emergence of Radio 24 at secondary school. A group of his classmates even dreamed of having their own radio station. "We regularly played mind games and fantasized about concepts." The four of them weren't just dreamers. Today, one of them is editor-in-chief of Radio Zürisee, another is a reporter for "Tagesschau" and the third is head of publishing at the Olten Tagblatt.
And Mike Gut actually submitted his own license application to Bakom after leaving Radio Energy - shortly before this rebranding. He worked on the concept for a Zurich youth radio station for around nine months, looked for investors for his "Radio Max" and found them. However, the award of the license is still pending. As is well known, the first contract was awarded to DJ Radio. Giuseppe Scaglione's Radio 105 then lodged an appeal. This week, Scaglione and Mike Gut have now joined forces to submit a revised application. "We are two people who speak the same language when it comes to radio." If a license is granted, Gut would be involved in this radio station as a private individual.
In his TV jobs at SevenOne Media, Gut enjoys being able to come up with new concepts. Finding timeslots for the new window, creating price lists, talking to customers and producers, putting different elements together so that in the end "something is created that everyone likes - but not at the expense of others," says the managing director of two windows.
In terms of content, he wants to "make a strong contribution" - one reason why he was offered this job. As a program window is financed by sponsorship, "the sponsors want to have a say, and the producer is under pressure because he is financially dependent". In this area of tension, manager Gut wants to use his journalistic background to supervise and provide conceptual support for new programs.
For Gut, a job in television is not entirely new. He was already involved in Züri 1 in 1993, a project that briefly flickered across the screen even before Tele Züri. At that time, Züri Woche, IP Multimedia and Eden TV, among others, created a joint collection of programs on the Rediffusion test channel. In addition to a partner election and an animal program, Mike Gut also hosted a talk show in a cab and "Werbewoche-TV".
In his private life, the hyperactive media maker likes to live in the peaceful countryside of Au on Lake Zurich as an alternative world. In his free time, he loves cooking, and after a passion for snowboarding, he has now rediscovered skiing because of his eight-year-old daughter.
Andreas Panzeri
Gut learned his media trade at Radio Z. "From trainee to management", he worked at the station for a total of 13 years from January 1990, the first 10 years as a journalist. Gut was an editor, presented morning shows, was head of duty and finally became head of sports. He then switched from programming to marketing. He thought about the offer for three days. "Do I miss the microphone?" However, he soon discovered that he "enjoyed media management even more". For three years and until shortly before the sale to the Energy Group, Mike Gut was Head of Marketing and a member of the Executive Board.
During his time as head of sports, he was the first person in Switzerland to introduce the resale of journalistic content. At major events such as the Olympics in Nagano and Atlanta, Radio Z financed its reporter's expenses by reselling the reports to twelve different private radio stations.
As Head of Marketing, Gut not only acquired sponsors for new programs. He was also able to become entrepreneurially active in the areas of personnel, finance and technology. After the repositioning as Hitradio Z, he oversaw the construction of a new studio in 2002, "the most modern in Europe at the time". He enjoyed pushing through the political and technical aspects of a 42-meter-high broadcasting tower in the Glattal valley. Mike Gut is described by colleagues as a "doer in the media". "Negotiating with lots of people and getting a result in the end" is what he sees as his greatest satisfaction at work.
Manager and presenter. To enable him to pursue his goals in a well-founded manner, Gut reduced his radio workload to 40 percent at short notice and completed a degree in business administration at a university of applied sciences. He also still teaches media studies at a higher technical college, the International School of Tourism in Zurich, "on the side".
The new CEO of ProSieben and Sat.1 (Switzerland) has "always known" that he wanted to work in the media one day. And in electronic media. As a teenager, "where listening to music plays an important role anyway", he was fascinated by the emergence of Radio 24 at secondary school. A group of his classmates even dreamed of having their own radio station. "We regularly played mind games and fantasized about concepts." The four of them weren't just dreamers. Today, one of them is editor-in-chief of Radio Zürisee, another is a reporter for "Tagesschau" and the third is head of publishing at the Olten Tagblatt.
And Mike Gut actually submitted his own license application to Bakom after leaving Radio Energy - shortly before this rebranding. He worked on the concept for a Zurich youth radio station for around nine months, looked for investors for his "Radio Max" and found them. However, the award of the license is still pending. As is well known, the first contract was awarded to DJ Radio. Giuseppe Scaglione's Radio 105 then lodged an appeal. This week, Scaglione and Mike Gut have now joined forces to submit a revised application. "We are two people who speak the same language when it comes to radio." If a license is granted, Gut would be involved in this radio station as a private individual.
In his TV jobs at SevenOne Media, Gut enjoys being able to come up with new concepts. Finding timeslots for the new window, creating price lists, talking to customers and producers, putting different elements together so that in the end "something is created that everyone likes - but not at the expense of others," says the managing director of two windows.
In terms of content, he wants to "make a strong contribution" - one reason why he was offered this job. As a program window is financed by sponsorship, "the sponsors want to have a say, and the producer is under pressure because he is financially dependent". In this area of tension, manager Gut wants to use his journalistic background to supervise and provide conceptual support for new programs.
For Gut, a job in television is not entirely new. He was already involved in Züri 1 in 1993, a project that briefly flickered across the screen even before Tele Züri. At that time, Züri Woche, IP Multimedia and Eden TV, among others, created a joint collection of programs on the Rediffusion test channel. In addition to a partner election and an animal program, Mike Gut also hosted a talk show in a cab and "Werbewoche-TV".
In his private life, the hyperactive media maker likes to live in the peaceful countryside of Au on Lake Zurich as an alternative world. In his free time, he loves cooking, and after a passion for snowboarding, he has now rediscovered skiing because of his eight-year-old daughter.
Andreas Panzeri
