Changing times at Le Temps

 

The Swiss Competition Commission last week approved publisher, Ringier’s take-over of flagship Swiss daily Le Temps. Managing director, Valérie Boagno has left the company and Daniel Pillard, CEO at Ringier Romandie, assumes operational management in the interim.

From April 2015, Stéphane Benoit-Godet (44), Bilan’s current editor-in-chief, will be the newspaper’s editor-in-chief. Benoit-Godet worked for Le Temps from 1998 where he directed the Economics section of the paper, until he was nominated managing editor of Bilan in 2006. Pierre Veya, the current editor-in-chief at Le Temps, has announced he will depart on the arrival of his successor.

In a not unexpected move, Ringier has also decided to relocate the business to Lausanne from Geneva. Co-operation between the editorial teams from Ringier’s leading titles, L’Hebdo, Edelweiss and Le Temps is slated, with the titles sharing the same newsroom. Le Temps is expected, however, to retain its editorial independence, a consideration of some importance given the increasing power and gravitational pull of the main publishers in the region.

According to the recent readership figures published by REMP, Le Temps’ readership is 99’000, based on a paid circulation of 36’391 copies.