CH Media is a Swiss media company which was founded in 2018 as a joint venture of the AZ Medien and the NZZ Media Group. It has about 2000 employees and generates sales of almost CHF 500 million.
History
On December 7, 2017, AZ Medien and the NZZ Media Group announced the formation of the joint venture, which is owned equally by both groups. The two media companies contributed their regional newspapers and associated online portals as well as their radio and television stations to the new CH Media company. AZ Medien's magazines were also added to the network. The NZZ Media Group contributed its entire regional media business. Printing plants such as Mittelland Zeitungsdruck, NZZ Media Services and Vogt-Schild as well as all employees and managers in the above-mentioned areas of both media groups were also transferred to the new company. The NZZ Media and Business Media divisions of the NZZ Media Group, including the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and NZZ am Sonntag, are not part of the merger.
Media
The joint venture reaches about 2 million people with all its media.
Newspapers
CH Media publishes six regional newspapers from AZ Medien and two from NZZ Media Group. Including their head pages, these are around 20 paid newspapers in 15 German-speaking cantons with a paid circulation of almost 370,000 copies and a reach of around 1 million readers:
Together with the cooperation partner Zofinger Tagblatt, these newspapers and regional editions form az Nordwestschweiz and are published as printed daily newspapers and online.
Schweiz am Wochenende: Launched in 2007, the Sunday newspaper, which was published from 2013 to 2017 together with Südostschweiz Medien with eight regional editions under the title Switzerland on Sonntag, was replaced from February 2017 by Schweiz am Wochenende, which is published every Saturday. Since July 2019, its cover has also been used by the St. Galler Tagblatt and the Luzerner Zeitung as a replacement for their Sunday newspapers Ostschweiz am Sonntag and Zentralschweiz am Sonntag
On July 1, 2018, AZ Medien and the NZZ Media Group returned the licences of their four radio stations Radio Argovia and Radio 24 as well as Radio FM1 and Radio Pilatus, which enabled their transfer to CH Media.
Online
All online portals of the newspapers concerned were also integrated into the new company. One exception is the online newspaper Watson, which still needs entrepreneurial freedom as a start-up company, but could be integrated later.
Management
Peter Wanner is President of the board of directors of CH Media, Axel Wüstmann is CEO of AZ Medien, and journalistic director is the former journalistic director of the NZZ regional media, Pascal Hollenstein.
Critique
It is controversially judged whether the merger would lead to a strengthening of the alleged "unity circle" in the Swiss media or, thanks to a powerful editorial staff that has the time and the financial means to be able to research precisely the opposite. Mergers actually strengthened critical journalism.
