Uster Rundschau at the end

 
Free newspaper Tagi and Zürcher Oberländer made life all too difficult for Zehnder's free paper. 
The empire of the Zehnder publishing house in Wilhelmshaven comprises 22 regional free titles. For now. Soon there will be one title less. "It's true, the Uster Rundschau, which we launched in September 2007, will be published for the last time on May 8," confirms senior publisher Rolf-Peter Zehnder, who was responsible for the Zehnder titles. Almost all of the company's free papers are in the care of his son Andreas, who explains the decision with the competitive pressure from the Tages-Anzeiger and Zürcher Oberländer. The Tages-Anzeiger used dumping measures to acquire advertisements for its new Oberländer split edition, so that the Uster Rundschau was unable to keep up. "The advertising prices with a wide range of discount and PR opportunities made things difficult for us", he states in a short press release. Major advertisers such as Coop and Migros also failed to support him. When Zürcher Oberland Medien AG recently announced the founding of five small weekly newspapers for the fall (see page 13), Zehnder didn't hesitate. "It's no good like this: we were already missing out on 20,000 francs in revenue every week," says Zehnder. The publisher can continue to employ most of the staff, but the dismissal of one editor is unavoidable.
The Swiss "free newspaper king" founded the Uster Rundschau (42,688 copies) just last fall, shortly after Tamedia discontinued its Uster Nachrichten - a paper that Zehnder had also launched 25 years ago. "I was of the opinion that this region needed an independent newspaper again - and the response from the population was good," says the senior citizen. But then he had to realize that the market had completely changed with the Tagi-Split and Tagi-Grossauflage.
Nevertheless, Zehnder will not be withdrawing from the region completely. Another of his free titles, the Zürich Rundschau, which is also based in Uster, will be published with 50,000 copies from next week instead of 35,598 copies and will also cover the area from Volketswil to Schwerzenbach in addition to its current distribution region. This will shift the title towards the city of Zurich, says the publisher. "Wetzikon and Pfäffikon, on the other hand, will be left uncovered in future." The advertising rate for the expanded free newspaper will therefore increase from the current CHF 1.32 per millimeter to CHF 1.49.
 
Markus Knöpfli