Publishing houses do not usually publish their earning figures advertising sales, sponsorship, and subscriptions. However, one can assume that the sale of subscriptions is currently higher than the revenue from various forms of advertising. Andreas Häuptli, managing director of the publishers’ association VSM, recently drew attention to a rampant decline in advertising, speaking of a decline in advertising by half in April and over 40 per cent in May 2020. He said that even in June 2020, around a quarter of revenues had not been received. In July 2020, it was 7 per cent less than in the previous year (Schweizer Medien, 2020).
At SRG SSR, however, revenues are reported in the annual report. Annual revenues amount to around CHF 1.65 billion. While 77 per cent of SRG’s revenues come from reception fees (household tax), 23 per cent comes from commercial revenues. With a good fifth of its budget, the SRG SSR also has a veritable management problem with the collapse in advertising revenues.
As advertising revenues have fallen sharply everywhere – not only for daily newspapers, but also for regional radio and television broadcasters and the volume of regional and local advertisements – advertising and advertising boycotts have lost much of their explosive power. The big debates about advertising boycotts seem to be over – boycott threats have lost their horror. There are, however, cases where major advertisers are angry with the editorial staff for reporting. From a commercial point of view, such incidents must be taken seriously in the editorial office, and advertising clients must be told why the editorial office has reported about their company in this form. The extent to which commercial enterprises or advertising clients of various origins succeed in influencing the reporting remains unclear, because neither the editorial staff nor any of the companies involved have an interest in transparency and public debate (Lauerer & Keel, 2019). In any case, most daily newspapers depend on individual large advertising customers in the food sector. These represent a cluster risk for the daily press.
On the other hand, publishing supplements and “sponsored content”, “Publireportage”, “native advertising”, and “paid posts” have increased. The publishing houses feel responsible for maintaining profitability and viability of their companies with more or less problematic forms of advertising, despite reduced advertising shares, often against the will of the media professionals in their own companies. It can be assumed that the publishing houses make customer-oriented offers in order to create a correspondingly attractive advertising environment. Even if advertising revenues fall, structural problems remain: the more daily news media are compromised by economic interests in their publishing activities and tasks, the more their journalistic credibility and performance suffers. In any case, the impact of native advertising on digital journalism is likely to increase further (Porlezza, 2017).
Dependence on readers and the advertising market does not mean publishers and editors must take certain advertisers into account. However, in the case of news media, financed exclusively by advertising, consideration must be given, and good relations with the advertising clients must be maintained. The convulsive adherence to old and new forms of advertising financing can also be taken as an indicator that even after 20 years of declining advertising revenues, publishing houses have still not succeeded in developing a new business model compatible with consumers, citizens, and a democratic society.
