Constant change as the foundation for the transformation of the media
Presentation by Christoph Tonini of Tamedia at the Smart Business Day 2019
Christoph Tonini has been with Tamedia for 17 years and, as CEO of the Group, is a well-founded expert on the media industry in Switzerland.
To start with, he will refer to the presentation by Siemens as an example of a company that is massively reducing its (classic) advertising expenditure. This has long been Tamedia's business. Today, however, over 50% of the group's income comes from digital media.
Every year (all) newspapers lose 4-5% of their readers. A trend that has been going on for ten years, with newspapers as a whole having lost half their readership since then. Advertising revenues have followed the same trend. Tonini remembers times when there were so many job advertisements in the newspaper that it became too thick for the letterbox.
The most important part of the transformation was driven inorganically. In a first phase from 2000 onwards via investments in newspapers (from a Zurich-based media company to the leading media house in Switzerland) and from 2008 onwards consistently in digital business models.
By 2020, the product will have 20 minutes more digital readers than print readers. This is also the way revenues are behaving, and this despite the fact that Switzerland is a commuter country and therefore predestined for free newspapers.
It is important and driven by the Group Executive Board to invest, especially in these challenging times.
Tonini keeps the section on marketplaces short, as Gilles Despas (CEO of the Scout24 Group), the competitor and market leader in the car market, will be speaking to him on the Smart Business Day. But two little side blows to a Google representative in the room who launched Google Jobs in Switzerland (they always claim to be doing it to help us) and that it's no fun to be number two behind Scout in classifieds for cars. By the way, Tamedia is number 1 in all other areas.
A formative slide to 100% login. Logical. The competitors know their customers, but the publishers still don't. So the publishers, including Schweizer Fernsehen, have managed to agree that customers must log in. Mandatory from September 2020.
Finally, the goals of Tamedia. I am curious.
