Founder(s) Max Ras Language German | Editor-in-chief Andres Büchi Headquarters Zürich, Switzerland | |
Type Consumer, polititical, health and politicial magazine (26 issues a year) Founded 1926 as Der Schweizerische Beobachter | ||
Beobachter, also known by his former name Der Schweizerische Beobachter, is a German-language Swiss magazine. Published in Zürich, its 26 issues a year focus on consumer, polititical, health and political contents.
Contents
History and profile
The magazine was founded in 1926 by Max Ras as Der Schweizerische Beobachter and first distributed in 1927 as a free newspaper to all households in the German-speaking Switzerland. From the beginning, it was a political, but non-partisan struggle sheet, that took position in favor of the economically weak positionned people. The newspaper fought for equal rights for women, fights the rampant bureaucracy, reveales scandals and hypocrisies.
Through his populist style and the high number of readers, which was in 1994 over a million, Beobachter secured an extensive advertising volume within Switzerland. The low-prized subscription magazine was, from 2007 respectively 2010 (against medial and political protests) fortnightly, published by Axel Springer AG Switzerland. At that time, it had a circulation of 308,000 copies, and printed 283,284 copies (WEMF 2013) respectively 918,000 readers (MACH Basic 2013-2) in 2014.
Additional services
Beobachter also provides consultant service in legal question, information about employment, rental, consumer and family law for its subscribers, that was particularly well-developed. It is additionally distributed on internet, by phone, by letter and by apps (Android/iOS). The Beobachter TV serial on SRF 1 and SRF 2 as well on radio DRS 3 contributes also helpful consumer information. The so-called Beobachter-Verlag publishes non-fiction printed and e-books.
Kinder der Landstrasse
Beobachter got in the even international focus in 1972, as the newspaper's journalists investigated, when the newspaper got hints by affected Jenisch (Fahrende) people. Hans Caprez published on 15 April 1972 in the article Kinder der Landstrasse the facts and the backgrounds of the Kinder der Landstrasse scandal, involving about 590 children of the Jenisch people minority in Switzerland. The newspaper hence actively supports the so-called Wiedergutmachungsinitiative started in April 2014 – on 19 December 2014 the initiative was submitted at the Federal Chancellery (Bundeskanzlei).