David versus Goliath
Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2025 4:51 am
Even the deaf could not ignore the fact that the Swiss Publishers Association was creaking. It is surprising that it is faltering so much in the face of the first big storm, the question of online funding. But perhaps Gilbert Bühler, CEO of the Freiburger Nachrichten, and Christof Nietlispach, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Freiämter brazil rcs data Regionalzeitungen AG, have only done what is in the air when they founded their interest group for small and medium-sized publishers : an interest group – as the name suggests – for their own interests. And it is primarily about money, federal money. As the late Polo Hofer sang forty years ago: “Weigh money, weigh a lumpy lot of money.” Or to put it a little more nobly: it is about online support.
"Nevertheless, the unease of small and medium-sized publishers is somehow understandable."
The planned federal law on the promotion of online media provides for financial subsidies - and this according to a mathematically interesting key: the eight largest publishers are to receive 54 percent of the proposed 30 million francs. Thanks to the holding clause and degressive payment model, the approximately 100 small and medium-sized independent newspaper titles with a circulation share of 23 percent would receive a share of 46 percent. So far, so good. But the big companies are resisting this preferential treatment of the small ones. Explosively, both Bühler and Nietlispach sit on the presidium of the Swiss Media Association, and their founding of the IG is, so to speak, a coup from within. Heroically speaking: David against Goliath. Bühler elegantly describes his structure as a "pop-up association" , which has the advantage that no one really knows what it is, but is primarily intended to appease the large publishers. It is also probably intended to imply that his IG is not intended to last forever. But what takes forever – apart from Corona and – of course – the discussion about press funding.
"Nevertheless, the unease of small and medium-sized publishers is somehow understandable."
The planned federal law on the promotion of online media provides for financial subsidies - and this according to a mathematically interesting key: the eight largest publishers are to receive 54 percent of the proposed 30 million francs. Thanks to the holding clause and degressive payment model, the approximately 100 small and medium-sized independent newspaper titles with a circulation share of 23 percent would receive a share of 46 percent. So far, so good. But the big companies are resisting this preferential treatment of the small ones. Explosively, both Bühler and Nietlispach sit on the presidium of the Swiss Media Association, and their founding of the IG is, so to speak, a coup from within. Heroically speaking: David against Goliath. Bühler elegantly describes his structure as a "pop-up association" , which has the advantage that no one really knows what it is, but is primarily intended to appease the large publishers. It is also probably intended to imply that his IG is not intended to last forever. But what takes forever – apart from Corona and – of course – the discussion about press funding.