Ringier wants to remain loyal to Admeira - SRG, on the other hand, is struggling

How the NZZ on Sunday writes, Admeira, the advertising joint venture founded by Swisscom, Ringier and SRG, is under fire. The reason: SRG's stations are reporting sharply declining advertising revenues - even though the TV industry, unlike other media sectors, was not particularly hard hit by a lack of advertising bookings. In 2018, the industry actually earned more than in 2014. Now the turnaround: SRG Director Gilles Marchand announced in an interview with the Balance at the end of May that SRG would miss the 2019 budget by 20 million francs.

At SRG, some are convinced of the direction in which Marchand's statement is aimed, writes the NZZ on Sunday. Accordingly, the SRG director has always been critical of Admeira. And now SRG is apparently asking itself what added value the new joint venture actually offers compared to its predecessor, the in-house marketer Publisuisse. An unnamed executive says there is none, and that Admeira is doing little in the way of developing new forms of advertising. SRG spokesman Edi Estermann contradicts this. There is an ongoing exchange with Admeira about which innovative ideas and measures could be helpful to improve the situation.

Although SRG is no longer a shareholder in Admeira and has sold its shares to the co-founders Swisscom and Ringier, it is no longer a shareholder in Admeira. (Werbewoche.ch reported). Nevertheless, it is still tied to the marketing company by a five-year contract. The sale was SRG's response not least to the fierce criticism from private publishers, who had criticized from the outset that an organization financed by fees was marketing advertising jointly with private companies. The dispute over SRG's role in the joint venture led to Ringier's break with the Swiss Media Association. The company, under CEO Marc Walder, subsequently withdrew from the publishers' association, which is chaired by Tamedia publisher Pietro Supino.

How the NZZ on Sunday writes, there is a rumor in the media industry that Ringier could also soon lose its appetite for Admeira. One possible hint: While Admeira buried its in-house content marketing subsidiary Adtelier in Ferbruary 2019, Ringier is continuing to expand its booming content marketing division. This development could be interpreted as a symbol of the desire at Dufourstrasse to take all advertising marketing into its own hands again.

If CEO Marc Walder is to be believed, however, this is not the case. When asked by the newspaper, he waves it off - there are no plans to switch to his own marketing. He points to the difficult market environment in which advertising marketers are increasingly operating - but Admeira has fulfilled the task well since its founding in 2016, the Ringier boss is convinced.

And Admeira also has a different explanation for why SRG's revenues are plummeting. Spokeswoman Romi Hofer emphasizes that it is a market and not a performance phenomenon, and that advertising investments are shifting from TV to online media. In addition, SRG's voluntary waiver of interruptive advertising for feature films has had a negative impact on advertising revenues.