Is AZ Medien putting up a front against P?
Advertising Brokerage: Despite the P lease, AZ Medien is founding two companies for advertising sales. However, this move is not directed against P, according to statements on the matter in Aarau.
Advertising brokerage Despite P lease, AZ Medien founds two companies for advertising acquisition. The AZ Medien Group has founded its own company for the "procurement of advertisements for newspapers and magazines". The new company is called Media Factory AG and has been in existence since March 14, 2007. The Factory's board of directors is made up of people who are already well-known within the AZ Medien Group, such as Jürg Schärer, Chairman of the Board of AZ Medien, publisher Peter Wanner, Ueli Eckstein, COO and Head of Print Media, and Christoph Marty, Head of Crossmedia/Key Account. Roger Knabenhans, who evaluated and built up the online classifieds market for the AZ Medien Group, serves as the company's managing director.
A bundle of questionsSo far, so good - but what does AZ Medien want with its own advertising agent? After all, it already has an advertising department for its magazines, and it ceded newspaper management to Publicitas just two years ago.
But the processes are not enough in Rüebliland: AZ Medien AG has also renamed its company Neue Medien AG, which was previously responsible for selling radio and TV advertising, AZ Crossmedia AG. "Sale and brokerage of advertising and advertising space" is now stated as the statutory purpose in the commercial register.
But what is the point of all this? Is publisher Peter Wanner dissatisfied with P, similar to Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM), which - also on a P lease - founded two acquisition companies of its own some time ago, Key Media and BZM Werbe AG?
Key Media has been active as an intermediary, cross-media provider and media agency since 2005. And BZM Werbe AG markets the Basler Zeitung and its large circulation in the Basel region. This is because P is apparently not trusted to be able to put equal effort into the BaZ and the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung (also under P management), which belongs to the Mittelland Zeitung.
So did they choose a similar path in Aarau? There are some indications that this is the case. But the AZ Media Group is cautious. Christoph Marty, a member of the board of directors of the new Media Factory, confirms that the company was founded and its purpose changed, but he does not want to explain the matter further and rejects any comparison with BZM. "Our project is not aimed in the same direction at all. Key Media is not a model of business conduct for us to build on," he says.
Markus Knöpfli
A bundle of questionsSo far, so good - but what does AZ Medien want with its own advertising agent? After all, it already has an advertising department for its magazines, and it ceded newspaper management to Publicitas just two years ago.
But the processes are not enough in Rüebliland: AZ Medien AG has also renamed its company Neue Medien AG, which was previously responsible for selling radio and TV advertising, AZ Crossmedia AG. "Sale and brokerage of advertising and advertising space" is now stated as the statutory purpose in the commercial register.
But what is the point of all this? Is publisher Peter Wanner dissatisfied with P, similar to Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM), which - also on a P lease - founded two acquisition companies of its own some time ago, Key Media and BZM Werbe AG?
Key Media has been active as an intermediary, cross-media provider and media agency since 2005. And BZM Werbe AG markets the Basler Zeitung and its large circulation in the Basel region. This is because P is apparently not trusted to be able to put equal effort into the BaZ and the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung (also under P management), which belongs to the Mittelland Zeitung.
So did they choose a similar path in Aarau? There are some indications that this is the case. But the AZ Media Group is cautious. Christoph Marty, a member of the board of directors of the new Media Factory, confirms that the company was founded and its purpose changed, but he does not want to explain the matter further and rejects any comparison with BZM. "Our project is not aimed in the same direction at all. Key Media is not a model of business conduct for us to build on," he says.
Markus Knöpfli
