Allocation in tranches
Submission A new model for the official gazette Anzeiger Region Bern: advertising management, prepress, printing and distribution could be outsourced to different companies.
Submission A new model for the official gazette Anzeiger Region Bern: advertising management, prepress, printing and distribution could be outsourced to different companies.
The concentration process among (major) publishers also has consequences for the public sector: it is now almost impossible to obtain competitive bids for major publishing contracts such as the publication of official gazettes. The situation of the Anzeiger Region Bern (ARB), the official organ of the city of Bern and 14 surrounding municipalities, illustrates this: In the last tender five years ago, Bund Verlag AG (BVA) and Espace Media were still bidding, with BVA ultimately winning the contract. However, since Espace Media has a 40 percent stake in BVA, will soon be printing the Bund itself and is selling the Bund printing presses, a tender like five years ago would be pointless. Nevertheless, a tender took place in December and January, in which the Verein Region Bern (VRB), a publishing association of the city of Bern and the 14 municipalities, took a new approach that could become a model for this situation. "We no longer delegate the publication of official notices to a general contractor, but instead award four partial lots and retain responsibility for publishing," explains VRB Managing Director Isabelle Meyer. Specifically, advertising management, prepress, printing and forwarding/dispatch were put out to tender. A complete package could also be offered. In plain language: In future, up to four independent companies could take care of the ARB. A product manager will assume the necessary bracketing function in the mandate, but one has not yet been appointed, according to Meyer.
While BVA and Espace Media had to offer an annual concession fee at the time, this time it's all about the best value-for-money offers. For example, the advertising management may not exceed 20 percent of the gross revenue. For distribution, the city copies must be in the mailboxes on the evening of the day of publication. A four-year contract is envisaged for the management, while the contracts for the other areas last two years.
According to the tender documents, the ARB will essentially remain as it is: neither the appearance nor the newspaper format will be changed; as before, it will only be 40 percent four-color, with a circulation of 140,000 copies. From 2006, however, only one complete edition will be published on Wednesdays and Fridays, and the division into three city and two regional splits will be discontinued. "This is in line with the political will of the participating municipalities, which want to grow together into a single region," says Isabelle Meyer. Certain losses in turnover are accepted, but these will remain small. Meyer: "The overall edition is also in line with the trend among advertising customers."
According to documents, the VRB assumes around 1400 advertising pages per year. For comparison: last year the city edition had 1576 pages (plus 2.5 percent), the regional edition 1809 pages (plus 0.6 percent), in 2001 the ARB had 2682 pages in the city and 2049 pages in the region. Net sales of the ARB (including supplements) fell from 13 million francs in 2001 to around 9 million francs in 2004.
The decision to award the contract has not yet been made. Meyer does not want to say how many companies have submitted bids. What is certain is that BVA - i.e. NZZ, Espace Media and PubliGroupe together - has submitted bids for two areas. BVA has a chip on its shoulder when it comes to ARB: due to the decline in advertising and the relatively high, but self-bid fee of CHF 3.7 million per year, the Anzeiger has caused it to run high deficits in recent years.
The contract model of the scoreboard is changing and the splits are being dropped.
Markus Knöpfli
The concentration process among (major) publishers also has consequences for the public sector: it is now almost impossible to obtain competitive bids for major publishing contracts such as the publication of official gazettes. The situation of the Anzeiger Region Bern (ARB), the official organ of the city of Bern and 14 surrounding municipalities, illustrates this: In the last tender five years ago, Bund Verlag AG (BVA) and Espace Media were still bidding, with BVA ultimately winning the contract. However, since Espace Media has a 40 percent stake in BVA, will soon be printing the Bund itself and is selling the Bund printing presses, a tender like five years ago would be pointless. Nevertheless, a tender took place in December and January, in which the Verein Region Bern (VRB), a publishing association of the city of Bern and the 14 municipalities, took a new approach that could become a model for this situation. "We no longer delegate the publication of official notices to a general contractor, but instead award four partial lots and retain responsibility for publishing," explains VRB Managing Director Isabelle Meyer. Specifically, advertising management, prepress, printing and forwarding/dispatch were put out to tender. A complete package could also be offered. In plain language: In future, up to four independent companies could take care of the ARB. A product manager will assume the necessary bracketing function in the mandate, but one has not yet been appointed, according to Meyer.
While BVA and Espace Media had to offer an annual concession fee at the time, this time it's all about the best value-for-money offers. For example, the advertising management may not exceed 20 percent of the gross revenue. For distribution, the city copies must be in the mailboxes on the evening of the day of publication. A four-year contract is envisaged for the management, while the contracts for the other areas last two years.
According to the tender documents, the ARB will essentially remain as it is: neither the appearance nor the newspaper format will be changed; as before, it will only be 40 percent four-color, with a circulation of 140,000 copies. From 2006, however, only one complete edition will be published on Wednesdays and Fridays, and the division into three city and two regional splits will be discontinued. "This is in line with the political will of the participating municipalities, which want to grow together into a single region," says Isabelle Meyer. Certain losses in turnover are accepted, but these will remain small. Meyer: "The overall edition is also in line with the trend among advertising customers."
According to documents, the VRB assumes around 1400 advertising pages per year. For comparison: last year the city edition had 1576 pages (plus 2.5 percent), the regional edition 1809 pages (plus 0.6 percent), in 2001 the ARB had 2682 pages in the city and 2049 pages in the region. Net sales of the ARB (including supplements) fell from 13 million francs in 2001 to around 9 million francs in 2004.
The decision to award the contract has not yet been made. Meyer does not want to say how many companies have submitted bids. What is certain is that BVA - i.e. NZZ, Espace Media and PubliGroupe together - has submitted bids for two areas. BVA has a chip on its shoulder when it comes to ARB: due to the decline in advertising and the relatively high, but self-bid fee of CHF 3.7 million per year, the Anzeiger has caused it to run high deficits in recent years.
The contract model of the scoreboard is changing and the splits are being dropped.
Markus Knöpfli
