News: Basler Zeitung confirms sales negotiations

On Monday, Basler Zeitung Medien confirmed a report in the Sonntagszeitung newspaper about the sale of its 25 percent stake in the commuter paper News. BZM is negotiating with Tamedia, but nothing has been decided yet, BZM CEO Beat Meyer told the news agency SDA. However, the sale at the end of June is "a rumor". In the event of a sale, however, "Tamedia would certainly be the addressee". It remains to be seen whether, where and how Tamedia, as 75 percent owner, will then continue News on its own.

Stop losses
News is loss-making, Meyer continued. His company adds two to three million every year. BZM wants to "plug loss holes". The media company had already sold the local radio station Basel 1 in May and also reduced the BaZ editorial team by a fifth in January and put the online editorial team and the free newspaper Baslerstab on the back burner in March.
Eleven months ago, BZM reported Group sales of CHF 281.6 million for the 2007/08 financial year, which corresponded to an increase of 0.6 percent. However, profit fell by 13.6 percent to CHF 7 million. Sales at BaZ and Baslerstab were down. Current figures have not yet been published.

Tamedia will probably continue to run News anyway
According to a media spokesperson for Tamedia, a BZM withdrawal would "not automatically" mean the end for News. The Tagesanzeiger and the Berner Zeitung would then have to rethink the situation. The flexible concept would also allow News to penetrate new regions. In addition, a BZM exit would not only mean a loss of income but also a loss of expenses, for example for distribution. The fact that News is not yet profitable is no surprise only one and a half years after its launch and in the middle of a crisis, the spokesperson continued.