Printed edition of Blick am Abend is discontinued

Thereafter, the focus will be on the digital offering of Evening view the media group Ringier announced on Wednesday. This step had become economically necessary due to the development on the Swiss advertising market. The shift of readers and advertisers from print to online continues, it said. "We did not take this decision lightly and regret the closure. But the economic situation and the negative forecasts have led us to focus henceforth on the digital Blick in the evening," said Alexander Theobald, COO Ringier Switzerland and managing director of the View-Group, in the release.

At the same time as the recruitment, adjustments will be made in the newsroom and in the publishing house of the Blick Group. In total, eleven permanent employees are affected by the discontinuation of the reorganization.

Examine alternative measures

The association of journalists, Imprint, regrets the discontinuation of the Evening view, because another editorial medium would be lost, he announced on Wednesday evening. Imprint expects "that employees will be consulted on alternative measures before the hastily announced terminations are implemented." He said that by not filling vacancies and reducing staffing levels, a creeping reduction in jobs has already been taking place in the Blick newsroom for months.

In addition, the association is "shocked by Ringier's approach of cutting jobs and terminating employees before the workforce has been properly informed about the restructuring via its representatives and consulted about alternatives. This is not in line with industry practice, the statement said.

Imprint therefore expects Ringier to suspend the implementation of the layoffs until the workforce has been consulted on alternative measures.

Onliner not affected

Part of the job cuts will be made through early retirement. The Ringier social plan will apply to the employees affected. The online employees are not affected by the discontinuation of the print edition. They will continue to create content for Blickamabend.ch and the social media presences. According to the Storyclash ranking, the social media sites of the Evening view around 800,000 interactions per month (Werbewoche.ch reported).

The free newspaper Evening view was published for the first time on June 2, 2008. At that time, the new Abendblatt replaced the free newspaper Today launched by Ringier in 2006. Evening view is published with a circulation of over 220,000 copies in five regions.

Ringier's net profit (EBITA) has risen steadily in recent years, according to the imprint, and amounted to a good CHF 110 million in 2017. Revenue from the advertising market was 135 million according to the 2017 annual report - although the digital marketplaces are not included in this figure. (SDA/hae/pd)