Swiss Review 2/2019

Swiss Review / March 2019 / No.2 20 Society THEODORA PETER “There is a severe lack of money in the journalism sector,” saysManuel Puppis, Professor inMedia Systems at the Uni- versity of Fribourg. He illustrates this alarming observa- tion with some stark figures. Only 20 years ago, 1.7 billion Swiss francs in revenue from advertisements and job post- ings flowed into the coffers of newspaper publishing com- panies on an annual basis. Printingmachines ran at full ca- pacity. The onset of the digital age saw advertising move increasingly over to the Internet. According to Puppis, paid-for newspapers in Switzerland only generated around 500million Swiss francs fromadvertising in 2018. Publish- ers could only offset a small amount of this shortfall through advertisements on their online platforms. On the other hand, Internet giants such as Google and Facebook are making big money. As much as 1.4 billion Swiss francs of the total 2.1 billion Swiss francs earned from online ad- vertising in Switzerland in 2017 went to search engines. Display advertising on websites and apps accounted for only 265 million Swiss francs – with only a fraction of this amount going towards the journalism sector. One editorial team, several publications In recent years, Swissmedia companies have responded to the dramatic slump in advertising revenue by concentrat- ing and merging their editorial teams, or even closing in- stitutions such asmost recently “LeMatin” in French-speak- ing Switzerland (see secondary text). This has not only cost hundreds of jobs but also been detrimental to journalistic diversity. It is of course cheaper for publishing houses to produce all cross-regional content in one place, explains Puppis. “However, if only a small number of market players are pro- ducing copy for a national audience, this limits media plu- rality.” For example, Zurich-based Tamedia has a central editorial department that currently provides 13 daily news- papers within the Zurich-Basel-Berne trianglewith all the national, foreign, business, culture and sports news that these outlets need. Meanwhile, CHMedia – a joint venture betweenAZMe- dien and NZZ-Regionalzeitungen – will soon be supplying 19 daily newspapers, including the “Luzerner Zeitung” and “St. Galler Tagblatt”, with national news coverage from its Aarau-based central editorial office. “Blick” (Ringier), “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” and the online platform of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) remain the country’s independent media voices. Losing regional perspective Switzerland still has a large number of newspapers due to the regional split editions. However, this obscures the fact that “a regional take on national events barely exists any more”, says Puppis, who believes that it is still important to “cover all geographical localities” in a federal Switzerland that practises direct democracy at national, cantonal and municipal level. Local providers have stepped into the breach in some regions. For example, online magazine “Zentralplus” produces news for the cantons of Lucerne and Zug. “Republik” – a new ad-free, reader-funded online mag- azine – was launched at national level in 2018. More than 13,000 people pledged their support for the platform in re- cord time by registering as subscribers, or “co-publishers”, even before the magazine had published its first story. The next few years will prove whether “Republik” has a viable business model. In the long run, “Republik” needs 28,000 subscribers (publishers) to balance its books. Pup- pis points out that both the German-language “Republik” Journalism is facing the squeeze Like their counterparts abroad, the media in Switzerland are stuck in a financial crisis. This is affecting the diversity of content – and fuelling calls for government funding. More “likes”, less news The last ten years have seen a major decline in interest among young peo- ple for conventional news. According to a survey by the Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society (Fög) at the University of Zurich, 53 per cent of 16- to 29-year-olds in Switzerland are “news-deprived” young people who mostly consume entertainment and only follow the news spo- radically. This figure compares to 32 per cent in 2009. One third (36 per cent) of the entire Swiss population now miss out on conventional news altogether. Fög refers to “global surfers”, whose share of the total population has increased from 16 to 23 per cent. Global surfers do not subscribe to paywall news sites either and prefer to read online news from foreign sources. Fög’s findings show that media consumption has grown overall, but it is mainly the global technology companies that benefit from this through their communication platforms. (TP) Manuel Puppis: “A regional take on national events barely exists any more.” Photo provided