Somedia merges editorial teams of Bündner Tagblatt and Südostschweiz

Today, the classic daily newspapers are forced to compensate for the declines in the readership and advertising market by optimizing costs. Tamedia, for example, is now producing the so-called jacket section of its newspapers (domestic, foreign, business, etc.) in a central editorial department, and the NZZ Media Group and AZ Medien in Aarau have recently created a joint company which, among other things, also aims to serve the daily newspapers in Lucerne, St. Gallen and the Mittelland with a uniform jacket section.

Joint editorial office for SO and BT

Somedia cannot ignore this trend towards exploiting synergies and making savings, it says in a press release. The publication of two daily newspapers in the economic region of Graubünden with two separate editorial offices is increasingly difficult to finance. Somedia will therefore continue the Bündner Tagblatt and the Südostschweiz be produced by a joint editorial team in the future. Both titles will be retained, but the proportion of joint editorial sections will be increased. The layouts of both titles will be based on the classic character of a daily newspaper. In this context, the subtitle of the Südostschweiz in the sense of a return to the tried and tested. Grisons Newspaper are.

With this step, Somedia is ensuring that the editorial teams can continue to guarantee diverse and economically independent reporting from and for Graubünden in the future, despite significantly lower revenues.

Independent jacket part

As already announced, Somedia has decided to continue producing the cover section of the newspapers itself and to forego cooperations with other publishing houses that go beyond the current collaboration. This also means that the cooperation with the Basel Newspaper. In view of the widespread jacket cooperations, Somedia would like to focus on its own, individual solution in the future, which, however, does not exclude selective cooperation with other publishers.

The new joint editorial team to be formed for both titles will be made up of employees from the existing editorial teams of SO and BT. The composition of the editorial team will be determined in the coming months. The two current editors-in-chief, Martina Fehr and Luzi Bürkli, will both sit on the new editorial board.

The planned measures will lead to possible job cuts in the editorial departments and, if necessary, in the technical departments of the newspapers. As the corresponding planning is only just beginning, no further details on personnel consequences can be given today. A consultation procedure under labor law for the employees has been initiated in the company of the Cantonal Office for Industry, Trade and Labor (Kiga).

The new newspaper concept will be implemented by mid-April, the Südostschweiz / Bündner Zeitung and the Bündner Tagblatt will then appear in an adapted and refreshed form.