Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Le Temps, the main serious newspaper in French-speaking Switzerland, is making several changes to cope with a sharp drop in advertising revenue, cutting 7.5 percent of its editorial staff (10 jobs). It says the subscription price will be raised for 2010. The newspaper says that the advertising revenue decline, which has hit the entire industry, is the worst in 60 years and requires dramatic action. GenevaLunch spoke with another newspaper editor from the region Monday, who said more cuts can be expected at other newspapers in the region in the next two months. Le Temps notes that it was able to keep the job cuts at this level because of offers by several staff to reduce the number of hours they work.
Le Temps editor Jean Jacques Roth explains in a lengthy editorial that subscriptions and newsstand sales rarely cover more than one-third of a newspaper’s revenues but in the past few years costs have risen due to competition from free newspapers’, readers’ rising expectations for coverage, development of web sites, and in the case of Le Temps, good growth in readership.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Profits at Switzerland’s largest media group, Tamedia AG plunged to only CHF800,000, a drop of almost 99 percent in the first half of 2009, the company announced 3 September. The results were even worse than analysts had predicted, and were blamed by the company on the “severe recession and also a collapse in advertising spending“. Sales revenues dropped 15.9 percent in the period versus only a 1.7 percent decline in corresponding costs, despite making savings of CHF47.8 million in the first half of the year.
Updated 14:15 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Edipresse, the largest media publisher in western Switzerland, will sharply cut back the work it gives Publicitas, one of the largest agencies that sells advertising space in the country, at the end of 2009 when their current contract ends.
