Marketing obituaries remain free of charge in the Solothurner Tagblatt. Anyone wishing to place an obituary in the five splits of the Berner Zeitung (BZ) will pay one to two centimes more per millimeter according to the new rate documentation. The only strange thing is that there is no rate for obituaries in the Solothurner Tagblatt split. The price is available "on request", it simply says. But insiders know what's behind it: the ST is probably the only Swiss newspaper to publish obituaries free of charge, even in 2008. "The ST continues to offer obituaries free of charge because they are valued reading material," confirms Christopher Wehrli, spokesman for the Espace Media Groupe.This form of marketing has a long tradition at the ST and is now in its seventh year. The reason: the number of local obituaries is considered an indicator of how well a title is established. And the ST has been laboriously trying to establish itself in WG 32 since 2001 - against the Solothurner Zeitung. Wehrli says that the number of obituaries has increased with the launch of the ST large edition last year, but without giving specific figures. (mk)

Advertising market The Solothurner Tagblatt
(ST), the latest split edition of the Berner Zeitung, publishes local
obituaries free of charge again this year. This can be seen from the
tariff documentation 2006. The competitor publication of the
Solothurner Zeitung is now in its fifth year of accepting free death notices.
This was not always the case: at the very beginning in October 2001, they were also
at the
ST for a fee, but nobody wanted to place any at the time. The
The number of local obituaries in a title, however, applies in the
publishing industry as a yardstick for the anchoring of a title.
The fact that the offer is still free of charge shows that anchoring seems to be
is not looking rosy. Another indication: the print run of the
BZ splits remains unchanged at 10,000 copies, while the
However, the reach of the overall title in the ST scattering area (districts
Solothurn, Lebern, Wasseramt, Bucheggberg) of 25 percent before a
year to 23 percent. The ST is no longer the only
Titles with free death notices: Since last fall, the
Thurgau split of the St. Galler Tagblatt newspaper. (mk)