Sophie Hostettler becomes journalistic director at Gassmann-Medien
Following the takeover of Gassmann-Medien by entrepreneur Fredy Bayard, it is now clear how the company intends to move into the future. Sophie Hostettler, the former program manager of Telebielingue, will be the journalistic director.
The four media under the Gassmann umbrella, the Bieler Tagblatt, the Journal du Jurathe local radio station "Canal 3" and the TV station "TeleBielingue", will remain independent, as the publishing house announced on Tuesday. However, the majority of them will receive new editors-in-chief and program management respectively.
By making the four media independent, Gassmann says he wants to contribute to media diversity.
From the beginning of September, Hostettler will lead the editorial teams as journalistic director together with her deputies Parzival Meister, previously deputy editor-in-chief of the Bieler Tagblatts, and Kevin Gander, previously managing director of "TeleBielingue" and "Radio Canal 3".
The media house wants to focus more on digital presence, as the statement on Tuesday continues. The media house is also committed to bilingual multimedia and interactivity with users in the Biel, Seeland, Bernese Jura, Lake District/Murten and Grenchen areas.
New task for Bernhard Rentsch
The Bieler Tagblatt is being reorganized with the appointment of a new editor-in-chief, Lino Schaeren. Bernhard Rentsch, who has been Editor-in-Chief for many years, will remain with Gassmann and will now be responsible for publishing/entrepreneurial projects and partnerships, according to the media company.
Following the retirement of the previous co-editor-in-chief team at the Journal du Jura with Philippe Oudot and Pierre-Alain Brenzikofer, Laurent Leisl becomes the new head of the newspaper. Grégory Brodard becomes head of programming at TeleBielingue. The multimedia online editorial team is headed by Simon Dick.
Moving together
As a result of the decline in advertising due to the Corona pandemic, the Biel media center is moving closer together, as Gassmann further announced. From the fall, the media house will take over the main part of the newspaper's advertising acquisition. Biel-Bienne. The editorial offices are not affected by this partnership and remain independent.
Mario Cortesi continues to lead Cortepress as Chairman of the Board of Directors and as CEO Biel-Bienne. At TeleBielingue, the Gassmann company takes over the block of shares held by the Cortesi office shareholders and thus becomes the sole owner of the regional TV station.
Last December it was announced that the Biel-based media group Gassmann would be sold to the Valais entrepreneur Fredy Bayard (Werbewoche.ch reported). For several years, the latter has been the owner of the Mengis media group in the Valais, which among other things runs the Valaisan messenger publishes.
The sale was made for family reasons, as publisher Marc Gassmann announced at the time. A succession solution within the family had not been possible. The Gassmann publishing house with the Bieler Tagblatt has been anchored in the Biel and Seeland region since 1850. (SDA)
