Within five years, the daily, Sunday and general press titles have lost no less than CHF 540 million of their total advertising revenue. As the chart "Loss of value since 2007 by segment" shows, the daily press accounted for the lion's share of 62.4 percent (around CHF 337 million) - which is hardly surprising given that it still has a market share of over 50 percent. As a result, the market share of the daily press fell by 1.3 points to 57.9%. With a percentage loss of 30.5 percent, this title segment also accounts for the overall loss of 28.9 percent since 2007. However, the financial and business press suffered by far the highest percentage loss at 48.3%. This is also, but not only, due to the discontinuation of Cash (in mid-2007) and Cash Daily (in March 2009). By contrast, the percentage losses of the Sunday press (-26.4%), the general press (-24.0%) and the regional weekly press (-19.9%) were below average.

Highest losses in German-speaking Switzerland

In view of the importance of the daily press and the new launches in the Sunday press, these two title segments in particular will be analyzed in more detail below. The page volumes must be used for this purpose. As the chart "Page losses in the daily press" shows, the greatest percentage losses occurred in German-speaking Switzerland, while they were significantly lower in southern Switzerland. This applies both in comparison with 2007 and the previous year and both for the total volume and for the particularly volatile job advertisements, which are also most affected by online substitution. Since 2007, over 60 percent of the job volume has been lost overall and in German-speaking Switzerland, and over 50 percent in western and southern Switzerland. In terms of total volume, the figure has been over 30 percent overall and in the two larger language regions since 2007, and over 20 percent in southern Switzerland.

The chart "Development of daily press page volume" shows that the losses occurred in two stages. In 2009, over 34,600 pages or 18.9 percent of the total advertising volume were lost. Of these, around 15,000 pages were job advertisements, reducing their volume by 47.3 percent. The daily press then suffered its second decline last year. Compared to 2011, the total volume fell again by 11.7 percent or around 17,000 pages. The volume of jobs fell by almost a quarter or 3,700 pages. This results in a total loss of around 58,000 advertising pages or 31.3 percent since 2007 - practically the same percentage loss as in terms of value (see above). Around a third of this loss is attributable to job advertisements. Their volume has shrunk by no less than 63 percent since 2007.

Tamedia in trouble

A look at the title level reveals a dramatic picture (see charts "Development of advertising volume Big7 German-speaking Switzerland" and "Change in advertising volume Big7 German-speaking Switzerland").

The Tages-Anzeiger alone (including Alpha) has lost no less than two thirds of its advertising volume, or around 8,000 pages, since 2007. Around 42 percent of this was accounted for by job advertisements. This puts it practically on a par with the NZZ (including NZZ Executive), which has "only" lost a good third since 2011. Tamedia's second major regional newspaper in German-speaking Switzerland has also suffered above-average losses. The Berner Zeitung lost almost half of its volume or around 2,300 pages. More than half of this was accounted for by job advertisements. While the BZ was still in fourth place in 2007 with 4825 pages behind Tages-Anzeiger (12,269 pages), NZZ (6704 pages) and 20 Minuten (5065 pages), it slipped to sixth place in 2012 behind St. Galler Tagblatt and Neue Luzerner Zeitung. With regard to the St. Galler Tagblatt, however, it should be noted that in 2007 the page count of the St. Gallen city edition was still reported, whereas in 2012 it was that of the Thurgauer Zeitung with an apparently higher number of advertisements that are only placed in this split edition. This is of course one reason for the below-average loss. However, Nordwestschweiz also suffered an above-average loss of 43.2 percent compared to 2007, while practically all major titles lost roughly the same amount compared to 2011.

Nouvelliste is the new number 1

In Western Switzerland, on the other hand, the trend is far less uniform (see charts "Development of advertising volume Big7 Western Switzerland" and "Change in advertising volume Big7 Western Switzerland "). The steep fall until 2009 and the subsequent short-term rise is mainly due to the discontinuation of Le matin bleu on September 21, 2009. The main beneficiaries of this were 24 heures and Tribune de Genève. However, as the further course of the curve shows, this was only a flash in the pan. Tribune de Genève then plummeted completely and is now in last place together with Le matin. Since 2007, it has lost no less than 1470 pages or 42.6 percent of its advertising volume. Of these, 400 pages (27%) were job advertisements. At 24 heures, 43 percent of the loss of 1305 pages is due to job advertisements. In 2007, the Vaud regional newspaper still had the second most advertising pages with 3,584 pages, just behind Le Temps. Now it has fallen back to fourth place. The relative loss of around 36 percent is exactly the same as for Le Temps, which still had the highest number of advertisements in 2007 with 3623 pages and last year, with 2323 pages, published exactly the same number of advertisement pages as 20 minutes, which has "only" lost 16.4 percent since 2007. The Valais Nouvelliste also lost less than average, with 2720 pages in 2012, clearly the largest advertising section of all the daily newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland. In 2007, however, it was still in fifth place. All titles in French-speaking Switzerland suffered a significant loss from 2011 to 2012, although in percentage terms, Le Temps lost significantly less than the other major titles.

20 Minuti holds a quarter

The development in Ticino is also interesting - especially after the launch of 20 minuti. As the chart "Development of advertising volumes in southern Switzerland" shows, there was an initial slump from 2008 to 2009, similar to that in German-speaking Switzerland. Compared to 2007, the loss was most pronounced at market leader Corriere del Ticino. Since then, it has lost almost 1,800 of its then 4,000 advertising pages. This corresponds to a drop of 45.2 percent. LaRegione and Giornale del Popolo each lost around 40 percent, which is probably roughly equivalent to the loss of Tre Top Ticino. Compared to 2011, La Regione lost more (41.3%) than Corriere (36%) - even though Corriere lost around twice as many pages of its significantly higher advertising volume. Giornale del Popolo was the least affected in both absolute and relative terms. Together, the three titles linked by an advertising combination lost 2,300 advertising pages compared to the previous year. The main reason for this is certainly 20 minuti, which had 1532 advertising pages in its first full year. This results in a market share of 26.3 percent. The new commuter paper thus leaves LaRegione (22.5%) and Giornale (14.1%) behind. Corriere is already visible on the horizon with 37.1 percent. However, it is rather unlikely that it will catch up with or even overtake it. This is because its reach of 24.5% (compared to Corriere's 42.7%) is still too weak, at least for the time being. However, if this is to be increased, the addition of Corriere (now including Giornale) will result in a higher CPM than the combination of all paid daily newspapers in Ticino (see MTJ 4/12, page 54).

Sunday: a quarter gone

There has also been movement in the Sunday newspapers since 2007. On September 16, 2007, the seventh edition of the Mittelland Zeitung (now Nordwestschweiz) was published for the first time under the name "Der Sonntag". And on September 7, 2008, a seventh edition of the Neue Luzerner Zeitung, Zentralschweiz am Sonntag, was launched for the first time. Despite these additional offerings, the advertising volume of all titles shrank by a total of 1996 pages or 26 percent (all figures excluding job advertisements). If the two new titles are excluded, there was a loss of 2670 pages or 36.1 percent. The losses of Le Matin Dimanche (-32.2%) and Il Cafè della Domenica (-30.4%) were only slightly lower. In German-speaking Switzerland, the new launches of Sonntag and Zentralschweiz am Sonntag practically coincided with the fall in advertising volume from 2008 to 2009 (see above). Between 2007 and 2009, the three titles with regional distribution lost around a third of their advertising volume or 1,853 pages. Since then, the situation has remained relatively calm. Only 207 additional pages have been lost. As the chart "Development of Sunday advertising volume in German-speaking Switzerland" shows, the Sonntags Zeitung has fallen from first to third place since 2007. It has lost more than half of its advertising volume in this period. The new market leader since 2008 is SonntagsBlick - despite losing over a third of its advertising volume. NZZ am Sonntag has lost the least at 31.4 percent (see chart "Changes in Sunday advertising volume in German-speaking Switzerland").

NZZ Group leads on Sunday

As a result of these different developments and the new regional titles, the market share of SonntagsZeitung fell from 33.2 to 20.5 percent and that of SonntagsBlick from 31.9 to 27.0 percent. NZZ am Sonntag suffered the least damage, falling from 25.4 to 22.9 percent. Together with its own Zentralschweiz am Sonntag, the NZZ Group even holds a third of the Sunday market (see chart "Sunday market shares"). And with the launch of Ostschweiz am Sonntag on March 3, this supremacy will increase further. At 10.5 percent, the decline for Zentralschweiz am Sonntag compared to the first full year (2009) is limited. Südostschweiz is still at the bottom of the table in the "second league". However, it is the only title to record more advertisements in 2012 than in 2007, although the trend has been slightly downwards again since 2010. This also applies to Sonntag, which has already lost 30 percent of its advertising volume compared to the first full year (2008). This raises the question of which of the two partners of the new "Schweiz am Sonntag" is the smaller one. Compared to its weak reach of just 2.4 percent, the title from Chur has an above-average number of advertising pages. It will be interesting to see how the announced merger of Sonntag and Südostschweiz am Sonntag will affect the advertising volume of the new Schweiz am Sonntag. More on this merger can be found in the next Advertising Week. <

Within five years, the daily, Sunday and general press titles have lost no less than CHF 540 million of their total advertising revenue. As the chart "Loss of value since 2007 by segment" shows, the daily press accounted for the lion's share of 62.4 percent (around CHF 337 million) - which is hardly surprising given that it still has a market share of over 50 percent. As a result, the market share of the daily press fell by 1.3 points to 57.9%. With a percentage loss of 30.5 percent, this title segment also accounts for the overall loss of 28.9 percent since 2007. However, the financial and business press suffered by far the highest percentage loss at 48.3%. This is also, but not only, due to the discontinuation of Cash (in mid-2007) and Cash Daily (in March 2009). By contrast, the percentage losses of the Sunday press (-26.4%), the general press (-24.0%) and the regional weekly press (-19.9%) were below average.

Highest losses in German-speaking Switzerland

In view of the importance of the daily press and the new launches in the Sunday press, these two title segments in particular will be analyzed in more detail below. The page volumes must be used for this purpose. As the chart "Page losses in the daily press" shows, the greatest percentage losses occurred in German-speaking Switzerland, while they were significantly lower in southern Switzerland. This applies both in comparison with 2007 and the previous year and both for the total volume and for the particularly volatile job advertisements, which are also most affected by online substitution. Since 2007, over 60 percent of the job volume has been lost overall and in German-speaking Switzerland, and over 50 percent in western and southern Switzerland. In terms of total volume, the figure has been over 30 percent overall and in the two larger language regions since 2007, and over 20 percent in southern Switzerland.

The chart "Development of daily press page volume" shows that the losses occurred in two stages. In 2009, over 34,600 pages or 18.9 percent of the total advertising volume were lost. Of these, around 15,000 pages were job advertisements, reducing their volume by 47.3 percent. The daily press then suffered its second decline last year. Compared to 2011, the total volume fell again by 11.7 percent or around 17,000 pages. The volume of jobs fell by almost a quarter or 3,700 pages. This results in a total loss of around 58,000 advertising pages or 31.3 percent since 2007 - practically the same percentage loss as in terms of value (see above). Around a third of this loss is attributable to job advertisements. Their volume has shrunk by no less than 63 percent since 2007.

Tamedia in trouble

A look at the title level reveals a dramatic picture (see charts "Development of advertising volume Big7 German-speaking Switzerland" and "Change in advertising volume Big7 German-speaking Switzerland").

The Tages-Anzeiger alone (including Alpha) has lost no less than two thirds of its advertising volume, or around 8,000 pages, since 2007. Around 42 percent of this was accounted for by job advertisements. This puts it practically on a par with the NZZ (including NZZ Executive), which has "only" lost a good third since 2011. Tamedia's second major regional newspaper in German-speaking Switzerland has also suffered above-average losses. The Berner Zeitung lost almost half of its volume or around 2,300 pages. More than half of this was accounted for by job advertisements. While the BZ was still in fourth place in 2007 with 4825 pages behind Tages-Anzeiger (12,269 pages), NZZ (6704 pages) and 20 Minuten (5065 pages), it slipped to sixth place in 2012 behind St. Galler Tagblatt and Neue Luzerner Zeitung. With regard to the St. Galler Tagblatt, however, it should be noted that in 2007 the page count of the St. Gallen city edition was still reported, whereas in 2012 it was that of the Thurgauer Zeitung with an apparently higher number of advertisements that are only placed in this split edition. This is of course one reason for the below-average loss. However, Nordwestschweiz also suffered an above-average loss of 43.2 percent compared to 2007, while practically all major titles lost roughly the same amount compared to 2011.

Nouvelliste is the new number 1

In Western Switzerland, on the other hand, the trend is far less uniform (see charts "Development of advertising volume Big7 Western Switzerland" and "Change in advertising volume Big7 Western Switzerland "). The steep fall until 2009 and the subsequent short-term rise is mainly due to the discontinuation of Le matin bleu on September 21, 2009. The main beneficiaries of this were 24 heures and Tribune de Genève. However, as the further course of the curve shows, this was only a flash in the pan. Tribune de Genève then plummeted completely and is now in last place together with Le matin. Since 2007, it has lost no less than 1470 pages or 42.6 percent of its advertising volume. Of these, 400 pages (27%) were job advertisements. At 24 heures, 43 percent of the loss of 1305 pages is due to job advertisements. In 2007, the Vaud regional newspaper still had the second most advertising pages with 3,584 pages, just behind Le Temps. Now it has fallen back to fourth place. The relative loss of around 36 percent is exactly the same as for Le Temps, which still had the highest number of advertisements in 2007 with 3623 pages and last year, with 2323 pages, published exactly the same number of advertisement pages as 20 minutes, which has "only" lost 16.4 percent since 2007. The Valais Nouvelliste also lost less than average, with 2720 pages in 2012, clearly the largest advertising section of all the daily newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland. In 2007, however, it was still in fifth place. All titles in French-speaking Switzerland suffered a significant loss from 2011 to 2012, although in percentage terms, Le Temps lost significantly less than the other major titles.

20 Minuti holds a quarter

The development in Ticino is also interesting - especially after the launch of 20 minuti. As the chart "Development of advertising volumes in southern Switzerland" shows, there was an initial slump from 2008 to 2009, similar to that in German-speaking Switzerland. Compared to 2007, the loss was most pronounced at market leader Corriere del Ticino. Since then, it has lost almost 1,800 of its then 4,000 advertising pages. This corresponds to a drop of 45.2 percent. LaRegione and Giornale del Popolo each lost around 40 percent, which is probably roughly equivalent to the loss of Tre Top Ticino. Compared to 2011, La Regione lost more (41.3%) than Corriere (36%) - even though Corriere lost around twice as many pages of its significantly higher advertising volume. Giornale del Popolo was the least affected in both absolute and relative terms. Together, the three titles linked by an advertising combination lost 2,300 advertising pages compared to the previous year. The main reason for this is certainly 20 minuti, which had 1532 advertising pages in its first full year. This results in a market share of 26.3 percent. The new commuter paper thus leaves LaRegione (22.5%) and Giornale (14.1%) behind. Corriere is already visible on the horizon with 37.1 percent. However, it is rather unlikely that it will catch up with or even overtake it. This is because its reach of 24.5% (compared to Corriere's 42.7%) is still too weak, at least for the time being. However, if this is to be increased, the addition of Corriere (now including Giornale) will result in a higher CPM than the combination of all paid daily newspapers in Ticino (see MTJ 4/12, page 54).

Sunday: a quarter gone

There has also been movement in the Sunday newspapers since 2007. On September 16, 2007, the seventh edition of the Mittelland Zeitung (now Nordwestschweiz) was published for the first time under the name "Der Sonntag". And on September 7, 2008, a seventh edition of the Neue Luzerner Zeitung, Zentralschweiz am Sonntag, was launched for the first time. Despite these additional offerings, the advertising volume of all titles shrank by a total of 1996 pages or 26 percent (all figures excluding job advertisements). If the two new titles are excluded, there was a loss of 2670 pages or 36.1 percent. The losses of Le Matin Dimanche (-32.2%) and Il Cafè della Domenica (-30.4%) were only slightly lower. In German-speaking Switzerland, the new launches of Sonntag and Zentralschweiz am Sonntag practically coincided with the fall in advertising volume from 2008 to 2009 (see above). Between 2007 and 2009, the three titles with regional distribution lost around a third of their advertising volume or 1,853 pages. Since then, the situation has remained relatively calm. Only 207 additional pages have been lost. As the chart "Development of Sunday advertising volume in German-speaking Switzerland" shows, the Sonntags Zeitung has fallen from first to third place since 2007. It has lost more than half of its advertising volume in this period. The new market leader since 2008 is SonntagsBlick - despite losing over a third of its advertising volume. NZZ am Sonntag has lost the least at 31.4 percent (see chart "Changes in Sunday advertising volume in German-speaking Switzerland").

NZZ Group leads on Sunday

As a result of these different developments and the new regional titles, the market share of SonntagsZeitung fell from 33.2 to 20.5 percent and that of SonntagsBlick from 31.9 to 27.0 percent. NZZ am Sonntag suffered the least damage, falling from 25.4 to 22.9 percent. Together with its own Zentralschweiz am Sonntag, the NZZ Group even holds a third of the Sunday market (see chart "Sunday market shares"). And with the launch of Ostschweiz am Sonntag on March 3, this supremacy will increase further. At 10.5 percent, the decline for Zentralschweiz am Sonntag compared to the first full year (2009) is limited. Südostschweiz is still at the bottom of the table in the "second league". However, it is the only title to record more advertisements in 2012 than in 2007, although the trend has been slightly downwards again since 2010. This also applies to Sonntag, which has already lost 30 percent of its advertising volume compared to the first full year (2008). This raises the question of which of the two partners of the new "Schweiz am Sonntag" is the smaller one. Compared to its weak reach of just 2.4 percent, the title from Chur has an above-average number of advertising pages. It will be interesting to see how the announced merger of Sonntag and Südostschweiz am Sonntag will affect the advertising volume of the new Schweiz am Sonntag. More on this merger can be found in the next Advertising Week. <