SWA welcomes Weko decision

With digitization, it is important that there is movement and more competition in the Swiss advertising market, SWA announced on Thursday. By joining forces, the advertising market would gain a new Swiss player that could offer innovative services in various media genres. Advertisers want to be able to benefit from new forms of advertising such as TV spots to individual target groups instead of all viewers at the same time, the communiqué said. The Weko had approved the joint venture on Wednesday without conditions - to the delight of Ringier, SRG and Swisscom. The publishers, on the other hand, are disappointed. In their view, this advertising alliance of a private media house with the state-affiliated companies Swisscom and SRG leads to a further distortion of competition. In fact, the Weko expects the joint venture to emerge as one of the strongest advertising marketers in Switzerland, it said Wednesday. Nevertheless, the Weko assumes that the advertising market will continue to function because there are other strong competitors, it said. (SDA)