Swisster will stop publishing 23 December 2010

Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swisster, the English-language online news service set up in 2008 by Edipresse, the largest media publisher in French-speaking Switzerland, is shutting down after two-and-a-half years, effective Thursday 23 December.

Swisster was launched in March 2008 during the boom phase of Internet media, but shortly before the financial crisis hit the industry. In a statement published 22 December in Cominmag, a publication for the communications industries in the region, Edipresse noted that the site was not able to “take advantage of synergies to develop optimally and thus reach a point of critical mass” during a difficult economic period and in an extremely competitive niche market, despite having doubled its readership between January 2009 and December 2010.

The statement by Edipresse makes no mention of its own imminent takeover by Tamedia, a process that will be completed in January 2011. Tamedia is one of the country’s largest publishers.

Swisster joined what was a growing number of English language media in 2008, with at least seven newspapers, magazines and radio stations in the Lake Geneva region, including GenevaLunch, a volunteer daily news service set up in 2006. GenevaLunch wrote at the time, of Swisster, that “the real “newness” lies mainly in the business model, with Edipresse selling bulk subscriptions [for CHF300] to multinationals and EPFL.

This content will be largely unavailable to the public.” In early 2009 the editorial staff at the online paper changed, with Marcus Berry, who had earlier managed World Radio Geneva before it became World Radio Switzerland, taking over as chief editor and product manager, working under the name Mark Oliver.

The 22 December edition of Swisster makes no mention on the home page of its closure, but editorial staff Wednesday sent out a message of thanks, “to express our warm appreciation to all our readers, partners and sponsors for their wonderful support over the past three years”.

The 11,000 articles published by Swisster in its nearly three years will remain available online, as part of the Tribune de Geneve’s and 24 Heure’s archives.

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