Vistas under new roof

Sanatrend integrates the magazine into its range of magazinesChange of hands at the free health magazine Vista: at the beginning of 2002, it moved from Birsig Verlag to Sanatrend, a publishing house that publishes specialist and customer magazines focusing on health topics. Daniel Spaeni, Sanatrend's majority owner, is also taking over Voilà and Salute, Vista's French- and Italian-language sister publications, but is discontinuing them for the time being.Vista, which is aimed at readers aged 35 and over, is undergoing a "cautious" change in layout and concept. It is to be integrated into the Sanatrend range. This consists of three specialist magazines for drugstores, pharmacies and dentists. Sanatrend also carries the pharmacist customer magazines Feelgood's Mail and Diabetes Mail. Vista will also be converted into a better advertising platform for specialist retailers and will have a stronger focus on the topics of self-medication, conventional medicine and health policy. The circulation will have to be slimmed down from the previous 1.3 million to one million copies. "We are limiting ourselves to the regions with the highest purchasing power," says Spaeni. In future, Vista will also be available in doctors' surgeries and hospitals.
Sanatrend also lowered the advertising rate by around 20 percent to CHF 2,700 per four-color ad page. In future, combinations with other Sanatrend products will also be possible.
The next issue of Vista will be in the letterboxes of households in German-speaking Switzerland in April. The magazine will only be published three times this year, but five issues could be distributed again next year. Spaeni is also planning to reissue Voilà and Salute in 2003.
Vista was founded by Kurt Kast in 1997. When Kast retired last year, his partner Michel Schär decided to sell the title. Birsig Verlag is currently inactive. Markus Knöpfli