Otfried Jarren sees purchase of Goldbach as reaction to Admeira
Tamedia's offer to buy Goldbach is, in the view of journalism scholar Otfried Jarren, a reaction to the Admeira advertising alliance. Nevertheless, he sees the traditional media industry as hardly technologically capable of standing up to new providers like Google.
The move makes economic sense for Tamedia, said Otfried Jarren, professor at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich, in response to a question from the SDA news agency on Friday. Goldbach has the technical and methodological knowledge in the field of audiovisual production and digital media.
According to Jarren, Tamedia's offer is "without a doubt" a reaction to Admeira, the advertising platform founded in 2016 by SRG, Swisscom and Ringier. Goldbach is an economically sensible partner, not least because the company has business relationships throughout the electronic media sector, especially in Germany.
Difficult starting position
In general, Jarren sees the entire advertising marketing business in a state of flux. Digitalization is enabling other forms of measurement and data analysis. As a result, the market is also becoming more difficult for Goldbach, estimates Professor Jarren.
In his view, the traditional media industry is hardly technologically capable of keeping pace with new providers such as social media platforms (Facebook) or search engines (Google). Swiss publishers, he said, lack skills in designing platforms through which information is made available, knowledge is shared and transactions are carried out. "Companies are stuck in an old competitive mindset."
New measures in demand
Jarren is also less optimistic about the increasing press and media concentration. The structural change of the media has consequences for the democratic public and for political processes in direct-democratic and multilingual Switzerland.
The Federal Media Commission has therefore repeatedly pointed out the need for new media policy measures in its statements, said Jarren, who chairs this commission. Conceivable, for example, are non-governmental support measures in the area of technology or a national platform that is open to all journalists, editorial offices and bloggers. (SDA)
