Pierre Veya, Le Temps, new managing editor
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Le Temps, the main serious newspaper in French-speaking Switzerland, has named one of its own, Pierre Veya, editor-in-chief, after a three-month industry-wide search. Veya replaces Jean-Jacque Roth, who has held the post since 2002. Roth in February became head of a joint television-radio news team at Radio Television Suisse Romande (RTSR), created in January by the merger of public television and radio in the region.
Veya, age 49,will take up the new position 1 May 2010.
Veya received a graduate degree in business in Delémont, Switzerland, after which he worked at L’Impartial, covering the Jura and cantonal news. In 1989 he joined Swiss news magazine L’Hebdo, where he was responsible for the economy section.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The cost of subscribing to a Swiss daily newspaper will rise in 2010, between 1 and 11 percent, to keep in step with increased costs and lower advertising revenues. The rise is even greater in reality in some cases such as the NZZ, when a mid-2009 increase is taken into account, notes ats/TSR. The newspaper’s editor, Markus Spillmann, has written to subscribers saying that “High quality information is an expensive product.”
The traditional income balance has been one-third subscriptions and two-thirds advertising, but with the latter falling dramatically for several months, readers are now being asked to foot a larger share of the bill. Newstand prices are also set to rise.
The rising cost of Swiss papers, according to ats/TSR, includes:
- Le Matin and 24 Heures, CHF379 to CHF389
- Le Temps, 11 percent, from current price of CHF432 for 13 months
- NZZ, from CHF488 to CHF512.
Background, GenevaLunch
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Staff at Le Matin protested in front of the Edipresse tower in Lausanne Tuesday in solidarity with photographers at the newspaper, particularly hard hit by the layoffs that the company is planning. Edipresse is the largest private media company in French-speaking Switzerland. It announced 9 October that it would lay off 10 percent of its workforce, 100 people, in the face of a continuing weak advertising market.
Zurich/Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss newspapers’ print versions are seeing their circulations rise, albeit a slight 0.6 percent. The most recent figures from the Remp survey, done by the Swiss advertising media’s independent research organization, shows that 92.4% of Swiss people over age 14 read a newspaper “more or less regularly,” without defining the frequency. Remp notes that figures for the number of readers has remained “remarkably stable” over the past 10 years.
Le Temps and 24 Heures are the winners for growth in French-speaking Switzerland, among the for-pay newspapers.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Tamedia, which is scheduled to buy out the Swiss business of Edipresse if the competition commission approves the deal, has published less than rosy results for 2008: a 30 percent fall in profits, to CHF105.8 million. The company’s sales rose 21 percent to CHF895.7m, but this was due mainly to absorbing Bern-based Espace Media Group.
