When the situation becomes hopeless, people resort to irony. This was also the case with the dispute with the SRG over online advertising. If the publishers enter into a joint venture with the SRG, warned the head of the Schaffhauser Nachrichten, Norbert Neininger, the division of labour must not end up like that between a butcher and a pig in the production of bacon.
This makes Neininger one of the optimists: for many of his colleagues in the industry, such as NZZ CEO Polo Stäheli or Tamedia publisher Pietro Supino, cooperation with the SRG is taboo. Even spain rcs data piglets live by the motto that hope dies last. The harmony between publishers and the SRG, which was made even more comfortable thanks to license fee payments to struggling private stations, is over. Federal Councillor Leuthard's magisterial appeal for reconciliation did not weaken the strengthened solidarity among publishers at all. Quite the opposite. In the middle of this week, the major publishers NZZ, Ringier and Tamedia announced the establishment of a joint online sales company that would cover three quarters of the market. Although questionable under antitrust law, it is hardly the compromise proposal that the media minister had called for at the publishers' conference in Flims at the end of the year.
Christmas miracles have become rare, but declarations of war more frequent. The disputed advertising pie is only 30 million francs, scoffed Weltwoche media specialist Kurt W. Zimmermann. What Zimmermann overlooked is that this conflict is now less about money than about principle. For too long, the publishers believed that they were - to use Neininger's terminology - the SRG's bacon suppliers. SRG General Director Roger de Weck sees himself at the end of the year in the same role as his non-idol Christoph Blocher in the Zurich Council of States election campaign: all against one. Although the chance is growing that the SRG will win once again in the end. With Mrs. Leuthard's blessing and a bit of luck.