TV25 brings movies and weather news

The media company is already making its mark on the TV landscape with TeleZüri, Tele M1 and Tele Bärn. TV25 claims to offer "sophisticated entertainment" for the 30 to 50 age group. AZ Medien promises a broad spectrum of European feature films, series, cooking programs as well as arthouse films and Swiss in-house productions. TV25 is likely to cover a gap in the market with its daily program: Weather news is the order of the day. From 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., TV25 is simply a weather channel. Meteonews, the largest Swiss weather service founded by Peter Wick, aims to provide regional, national and international information - with weather images, reports and even environmental warnings. The media company has been pursuing a similar concept with its TV24 channel since May 2014. On weekdays, a news program is shown after the feature film at 10 pm. TV24 is aimed at the target group of 20 to 40-year-olds. Publisher Peter Wanner's AZ Medien is further expanding its position in the TV market with its latest TV child. The media company from Aargau is now the largest regional TV broadcaster alongside SRG.

Maintaining market share with growth

"We want to continue to grow our TV portfolio," says Roger Elsener, Managing Director of AZ Medien TV, to the news agency SDA: "Digitalization means that the fragmentation of the TV market continues unabated." In the last two years alone, 16 private TV stations have been launched or announced in Switzerland. Large broadcasters such as RTL are losing market share due to the constantly growing competition. RTL is trying to maintain or increase its portfolio market share with its own special-interest channels. "Our goal with TV24 and TV25 is the same: We want to keep the market shares of the regional channels as stable as possible and grow across the entire TV portfolio with TV24 and TV25." This has been very successful with TV24 so far.

Turnover of 35 million francs

AZ Medien TV currently employs around 135 full-time staff. The company estimates its turnover from electronic media at CHF 35 million. The Aargau media company is therefore focusing on TV - in stark contrast to the media groups Tamedia and Ringier, which lost a lot of money with their ambitions. Tamedia ceased operations at TV3 after just two years at the end of 2001. Ten years later, the Group sold the two regional channels Tele Züri and Tele Bärn to AZ Medien.

Moving images as the future

"We recognized early on that moving images have a great future," emphasizes Elsener: "People are consuming more and more moving images across more and more platforms and devices." According to Elsener, moving images are also suitable as an advertising medium, both on linear TV and via on-demand platforms. "Thanks to the TV stations' production units, we also benefit from synergy advantages for the production of video content for our online platforms." While the regional broadcasters Tele M1 and Tele Bärn have licenses and therefore receive some fee money, Tele Züri and TV24/25 are financed exclusively by advertising revenue. The regional stations offer fast and tabloid reports as well as talk shows. The "SonnTalk" with editor-in-chief Markus Gilli is of particular importance.

More freedom for private providers

Elsener is calling for "acceptable conditions for a functioning dual media landscape in Switzerland". This is not about putting the SRG in its place. "Today, however, the SRG is so overpowering that it unnecessarily restricts the development of private providers." "We certainly see opportunities for the private media in the discussion of the public service mandate and the associated possible return to the SRG's core mandate," he emphasizes. In principle, however, he welcomes a strong SRG as a provider of the national public service. In any case, selective cooperation with SRG media is not taboo. "We are already cooperating in various areas, for example in the exchange of sports and news content in short reports." It is certainly conceivable to pursue this cooperation in other areas in the spirit of cooperative competition. The advertising alliance between SRG, Ringier and Swisscom will also be kept in mind. "However, we will always examine this with the necessary foresight," Elsener makes clear. "Our independence is a valuable asset." (SDA)