Swiss Review 1/2018

7 Swiss Review / January 2018 / No.1 Major publisher makes drastic cuts Switzerland still has lots of newspapers, but that does not detract from the fact that while the diversity of the press is dwindling, concentration in themedia industry continues to increase apace. The three largest Swiss publishing com- panies today control over 80 percent of the German-speak- ing Swiss market. Tamedia’s portfolio includes “Tages-An- zeiger”, “Der Bund”, “Berner Zeitung”, “Sonntags Zeitung”, the free newspaper “20 Minuten” and many other print ti- tles; Ringier has “Blick”, “Sonntags Blick”, “Schweizer Illus- trierte” and other publications and radio stations; while the NZZ Group owns the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”, “NZZ am Sonntag”, “Luzerner Zeitung”, “St. Galler Tagblatt” and a number of radio stations. The changes currently taking place at Tamedia are very conspicuous. It is the media group with the greatest reach in Switzerland and it is also a conglomerate. In the free com- muter newspaper “20 Minuten”, the company owns Swit- zerland’smost-consumedmedium. The print edition alone reaches two million readers a day. This in turn attracts ad- vertising. The company also generates a great deal of in- come from address trading and web-based marketplaces, such as Homegate, Ricardo and Immostreet. In 2016, Tame- dia turned a profit of 122 million francs– more than any other media group. While Tamedia is operating in highly lucrative areas, the traditional daily newspaper industry is struggling. The group renowned for its rigorous profit orientation is now investing very little in journalism. Instead of putting the profits into innovative media projects, the group has re- peatedly responded to falling revenues fromsubscriptions and advertising in the same way over the past 20 years – with job cuts. This is now leading to themost extreme form of internal media concentration to date. While all of Tame- dia’s 14 daily titles have been retained, Swiss politics, for- eign affairs, economic affairs, culture, society, background articles, science and sport will be merged into two central editorial departments – one in German-speaking Switzer- land and the other in the French-speaking part of the coun- try. Here the titles of all of the Tamedia Group’s publications will be given the same layout. Thesemeasureswill hit Berne particularly hard. The two Tamedia newspapers “Bund” and “Berner Zeitung” previously had a strong, independ- ent profile, whereas in future they will practically only be differentiated by their local sections. The billionaire’s thirst for power In the wake of these developments, one multi-billionaire is increasinglyextendinghis influence in the Swissmedia land- scape – he is Christoph Blocher, the businessman, dominant figure in the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and former Federal Councillor. Last year, he got his hands on theZehnder Verlag publishing company. The Zehnder Verlag? Few people have heard of it, but it is nevertheless a powerful player. It has 38 titles with around 800,000 readers. These weekly newspa- pers aremainly circulated in the easternpart of Switzerland fromZurich toGrisons but also in the regions of Lucerne, Zug, Entlebuch, Emmental, Berne, Oberaargau and Aargau. Blocherhas thereforenot onlyacquirednewspapers but also a distribution network which can also be used to convey po- litical messages if need be. Will broadcasting from this studio soon come to an end? If the Billag licence fee is abolished, the ex- istence of the Swiss Broadcasting Corpo- ration would hang in the balance. Tamedia has cut many jobs over recent years. This has led to repeat- ed protests – such as one in 2016 by the edi- torial staff at the “24 Heures” newspaper in Lausanne. Photos: Keystone