Sports information Si
| Sports information Si AG
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | April 1, 1922 (as the Zurich Sports News Bureau ) |
| resolution | January 1, 2016 |
| Reason for dissolution | Merger into sda |
| Seat | Zurich |
| sales | approx. CHF 9 million (2015) |
| Branch | News agency |
| Website | www.sda.ch |
The sports information Si AG (Si) was the national sports news agency in Switzerland. It was founded in 1922 as a sole proprietorship and ended up being a stock corporation owned by the Swiss Dispatch Agency (sda). As of January 1, 2016, she was integrated into the sda as a sports editorial team.
General
The focus of the Si was on the major public sports ( football , ice hockey , alpine skiing , Formula 1 , tennis and athletics ). In addition, it reported news on all sports represented in the Swiss Olympic Association at relevant events and had access to an archive with historical sources and data going back to the 19th century . (The same applies to sda-Sport since the merger into sda.)
At the time of the merger, a total of 28 editors were working in Zurich (20) and Geneva (8), two people each for the archive and two for the secretariat; they were all taken over by sda-Sport.
history
founding
Arnold Wehrle senior (1899–1975), at that time employed by the advertising agency Orell Füssli and occasionally writer of sports news, founded the “Zürcher Sportnachrichten-Bureau” in Zurich in 1922 at the age of just 23 as a sole proprietorship. He was encouraged to do so by Jakob Welti from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , who suggested a distribution center for sports news. In 1923 Wehrle renamed the office “Schweizer Sportnachrichten-Bureau” and in 1924, based on his telegram address “Sportinformat”, “Sportinformation” (Si) and entered it in 1925 in the commercial register. In 1929, the company on the basis of the cooperation agreement with the Swiss Telegraphic Agency, which had treated until then the sport was only peripherally, in a general partnership convicted by a majority of sda and in a 1940 GmbH converted. She succeeded quickly; At the beginning there were four subscribers, more were added all the time. At the Olympic Winter Games in St. Moritz in 1928 , the Si already transmitted the news material to eleven foreign agencies. A branch in western Switzerland was soon established, first in Neuchâtel with Georges Perrin, then in Geneva with Edouard Filliol.
Towards the end of the thirties, the Si placed itself in the service of the newly founded Sport-Toto-Gesellschaft (transmission of current football results to the stadiums) and from 1954 operated its headquarters. In 1940 she fought for a Swiss sports badge and for the establishment of the Swiss Institute for Physical Education. This entrusted Si in 1946 with the design of the national sports calendar.
post war period
In 1948 the Si introduced a separate shooting service, an aviation service in 1951, an article service in 1962 and a separate service for engine and traffic in 1969. From 1949 the messages were transmitted by telex , from 1962 by simultaneous telex (1968 for customers in French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino), in 1994 via the sda satellite network and since 2004 via its intranet .
In 1955 television was added as an important customer. In the same year the telephone sports news service was introduced on the number 164, which quickly became an important pillar of the agency. However, due to the technical development of the radio and the Internet , it has recently lost its importance. In 1976 the company was converted into a stock corporation, in which the sda initially held a majority, from 1986 100% of the share capital.
Walter Wehrle introduced his two sons Arnold (1924–1991) and Walter junior (1926–2013) to the company early on. Both had to do courier services as boys. Arnold Wehrle came in 1942 with 18 years as a trainee in the editorial and was then 1945-1948 Sports Secretary on Kurverein St. Moritz in preparation for the 1948 Winter Olympics , before returning back to Si. Walter Wehrle junior began his stage in 1946. Arnold worked more in the journalistic area, Walter in the administrative area, until the brothers realized that the talents were exactly the opposite. As a result, Arnold Wehrle became general manager and Walter Wehrle junior editor-in-chief after his father retired in 1964.
In mid-1986 (Arnold) and late 1986 (Walter), the Wehrle brothers resigned, and the sda took over the leading positions with Theo Zingg as president and Bernard Reist as editor-in-chief and director. In the 1990s and 2000s, Peter A. Frei then became the defining figure of Si, who in 1993 took over the management and editor-in-chief from the specialist newspaper Sport . In 2009 he was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors and in 2011, after his resignation, became Honorary Chairman.
From the very beginning, the Si was special in that it was the only news agency in the world that concentrated on sport, alongside the German Sport Information Service (SID) founded in 1945 .
As of January 1, 2016, Si was integrated into the parent company sda as a sports editorial team and thus liquidated as a company. Since then, the sports department of the sda has taken on the tasks of the previous Si in the same way.
Editors-in-chief
- 1922–1964 Walter Wehrle senior
- 1964–1986 Walter Wehrle junior
- 1986–1989 Bernard Reist
- 1989–2009 Peter A. Frei
- 2009–2013 Peter Lerch
- 2014–2015 Roman Eberle
Directors
- 1922–1964 Walter Wehrle senior
- 1964–1986 Arnold Wehrle
- 1986–1989 Bernard Reist
- 1989–2008 Peter A. Frei
- 2009-2009 Jolanda van de Graaf
- 2009–2015 Markus Schwab (as delegate)
President of the joint stock company
- 1976–1986 Arnold Wehrle
- 1986-1993 Theo Zingg
- 1993-2005 Fritz Latscha
- 2005-2008 Peter Müller
- 2008–2009 Bernard Maissen
- 2009–2011 Peter A. Frei (afterwards Honorary President)
- 2011–2015 Markus Schwab
literature
- 50 years of sports information. 1922-1972. Report House, Zurich 1972.
- Sports information Si. 1922 ff. 75 years of Si. Sports information Si, Zurich 1972.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Swiss dispatch agency integrates Sportinformation Si AG. In Klein Report . May 4, 2014.
- ↑ 50 years of sports information. 1922-1972. Report House, Zurich 1972.
- ↑ Sports information Si. 1922 ff. 75 years of Si. Sports information Si, Zurich 1972.