"The Bilan brand offer is truly hybrid from now on".

Bilan, the leading business magazine in French-speaking Switzerland, is launching in 2021 with a new publication frequency and a sharpened digital strategy. We asked Editor-in-Chief Serge Guertchakoff how the magazine has developed since 1989 and what readers and advertisers can expect from 2021.

Mr. Guertchakoff, Bilan has been one of the leading business media in western Switzerland since 1989. What development has the magazine undergone over the three decades?

The 1990s marked the beginning of a decade in which Bilan almost single-handedly occupied its market niche with outstanding sales successes. The advertising market has steadily declined since then. Ten years after its launch, Alain Jeannet took over the management of the magazine and revitalized it with a new vision. However, from 2000 onwards, Bilan's editorial team faced economic problems with the advent of the Internet. In 2005, they took the gamble of relaunching Bilan every two weeks. This proved to be a wise decision for almost a decade. Until, with the advent of new generations of readers, digital media gained in importance.

In the industry, you hear about slumping readership and advertising losses because of Corona. How is Bilan doing today?

Bilan benefited from the Corona virus with a temporary increase in sales last March. The trend in 2020 was nonetheless a slight decline in our newsstand sales. Our website, on the other hand, saw a more than 150% increase in readership in 2020. We achieved the highest growth in the group. We are pleased to report that the number of our subscribers is on the rise.

Bilan has been published monthly since this year. What else is changing with the first new issue on January 27?

You can expect a modern yet elegant page layout. There are new sections, for example on decoding fake news or on the green economy, but also a large monthly survey and a picture report that looks behind the scenes of a company. And that's not all by a long shot. We have strengthened the DNA of various sections and are taking care to vary the length of the articles. At the same time, Bilan will launch a new version of its website next spring with significantly more video content. We have set ourselves the goal of reaching our future readers with an offer tailored to their individual needs. In summary, from now on the Bilan brand offer will be truly hybrid using the main media.