And once again a traditional title is disappearing: 36 years after its founding, the French-speaking Ringier newspaper "L'Hebdo" is being closed down (persoenlich.com reported) . The timing is - as is often the case with such decisions - surprising: "L'Hebdo" was - at least for outsiders - like an untouchable beacon in the fiercely contested media landscape.
This may also have been due to its history: when "L'Hebdo" was greece rcs data founded in 1981, it was just the little sister of the news magazine "Die Woche", an ambitious "Spiegel" copy with a Swiss twist. Hanspeter Lebrument, now publisher of Somedia, was editor-in-chief, and Frank A. Meyer, Ringier's journalistic conscience for three decades, was editor-in-chief of the Bern editorial office. But all the advance praise was of no avail: "Die Woche", which launched pompously in autumn 1981 with 44,000 copies, plummeted over the next 13 months and ceased operations in October 1982. At that time, circulation was only 14,000 copies.
But it's like a fairy tale: while its big brother suffered a rapid heart attack and was soon forgotten, its French-speaking counterpart prospered to everyone's surprise.