Results from the first survey to include French language free dailies Le Matin Bleu and 20 Minutes in Switzerland are out today, showing German language 20 Minuten to be the largest daily newspaper in the country, while Le Matin Bleu is the most read daily in the country's French speaking region.

20 Minuten counts 1.2 million readers, while Le Matin Bleu has 353,000 readers, according to the Swiss readership survey conducted by Publicitas between April 2006 and March 2007. 20 Minutes saw readership of 276,000.

The only paid daily newspaper to see readership increase is Berner Zeitung, in the Berne region, from 392,000 in the second quarter of 2006, to 405,000 in the same quarter this year, according to the survey, MACH Basic 2007-2. Semi-national general and business quality newspaper, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, was the only paid daily to see readership hold steady, with readership at 312,000.

Switzerland's other German top dailies all saw readership drop. Blick, down to 689,000 from 715,000 the same time last year; Tages-Anzeiger, to 536,000 from 551,000; Mittelland Zeitung, to 429,000 from 449,000; Neue Luzerner Zeitung/Total edition, to 287,000 from 294,000; St. Galler Tagblatt/Total edition, to 206,000 from 219,000; Basler Zeitung, to 188,000 from 212,000.

Of the top three Swiss German Sunday titles, NZZ am Sonntag saw readership rise, from 453,000 in 2006 to 479,000 the same period this year. SonntagsBlick saw readership drop slightly, from 997,000 to 995,000, while SonntagsZeitung dropped from 809,000 last year to 768,000 in 2007.

Switzerland's top daily French newspapers saw the same trends as the country's top German papers, with only one seeing a rise in readership (Nouvelliste, up from 109,000 last year to 112,000 this year), one maintaining readership (La Liberté, at 91,000) and the rest seeing readership slide, the Publicitas survey found.

Le Matin, the Swiss French region's top paper, published on weekdays, saw readership decline from 228,000 in the second period in 2006 to 317,000 the same period this year. 24Heures/edition totale saw readership drop from 260,000 to 240,000; Tribune de Genève, from 175,000 to 168,000; Le Temps, from 125,000 to 119,000; L'Express, from 63,000 to 55,000; Le Quotidien Jurassien, from 48,000 to 47,000; and L'Impartial, from 39,000 to 35,000.

Switzerland's top French Sunday title, Le Matin Dimanche, saw readership drop from 581,000 to 552,000.

Top daily newspapers in Italian all saw readership drop. Corriere del Ticino saw readership decline from 121,000 in the second quarter last year to 119,000 this year; La Regione Ticino, from 110,000 to 106,000; Giornale del Popolo, from 55,000 to 53,000.