Business model of the year

Modesty is a virtue - and the new Swiss TV stations hope to get further than their predecessors with it: unlike Tele 24 and TV 3, they are not taking on the advertising market leader SRG, but are looking for alternative niches. U1 TV Station, a Swiss-German broadcaster with Austrian backers, only wants to generate a third of its revenue from traditional advertising. According to project manager Peter Kölbel, the majority of the budget is to be covered by "special forms and content utilization". The marketing agency Unimark was planning two infomercial programs on U1 that would have combined show elements with product placement and teleshopping. However, the exercise was called off in December because U1 did not meet Unimark's "requirements for TV programs". U1's other mainstay remains telephony: viewers are to actively participate in game shows via chargeable numbers. The Zurich local station ZüriPlus is also banking on this. However, managing director Peter Steinmann has come up with another innovative source of income: ZüriPlus pays TV production companies to broadcast their formats. On the one hand, the station acts as a showcase for the producers, while on the other hand they collect the sponsorship fees for their programs directly. In this way, ZüriPlus aims to cover its costs from the outset. Peter Kölbel, project manager of U1 TV Station.
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