GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – WRS public radio faces a decision in June by its parent SSR (Swiss Public Broadcasting) to either close it or sell it, but the station’s fans don’t intend to let it die without a fight.
A private group has launched a petition-signing campaign, Save WRS, to at least give voice to the complaints that public funding of English-language radio should not end, although the petition carries no legal weight.
The station itself is not involved in the campaign, but Philippe Mottaz, who cannot comment while the station’s future is under discussion at SSR, has told GenevaLunch that “The amount and quality of the support received from our listeners on our website reinforces our conviction that WRS provides an invalubale service accross the country to both Swiss and foreign listeners.”
Future holds no quick or easy answers
A spokesperson at Ofcom, the federal department that oversees radio licenses, told GenevaLunch that what will happen if SSR maintains its decision to close or sell is at best complicated: the company “can’t just sell as they want – they would need to get the okay from the Federal Council. The council would then need to decide to create a new regional radio.”
The issue is more complex than whether or not to create another station because Bern is phasing out FM radio, as is happening in other countries, and promoting DAB radio.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Falling numbers and tighter budgets took the ax to Mr Switzerland in 2011 and in 2012 it is the turn of the Miss Switzerland pageant, which has been cancelled due to lack of funding, Swiss media reported Sunday morning 15 April. Both shows were broadcast by Swiss Public Broadcasting (SSR) stations, but with budget cuts everywhere in the broadcast world and audience numbers that were dropping, the organizers say they will not be able to run the pageant this year.
Mr Switzerland now has a three-year contract with German-language TV channel 3+. The Miss Switzerland pageant has been talking to +3.
The current Miss Switzerland, Bern’s Alina Buchschacher, will continue to hold the crown while a solution is found.
Miss Switzerland on Swiss public television, September 2011
The newly expanded WRS newsroom in 2009
Update 12:15 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – WRS, World Radio Switzerland, says Wednesday morning 4 April, that SSR (Swiss public broadcasting, also known as SRG), its parent company, is considering the possibility of selling the station and privatizing it or closing it down.
The station cites SSR chief executive officer Roger de Weck as saying English-language radio should no longer be publicly funded. De Weck was formerly president of the Graduate Institute in Geneva, took over at the helm of SSR in January 2011.
The station called in a media observer this morning to comment on the situation.
The station was formerly the private station WRG, World Radio Geneva, but SSR, which had been a partner, took it over in 2007. Three years later the station added several hours of programming and began to work with NPR in the US as well as the BBC for broader news coverage, part of its extension as a national rather than local radio station.
Mark Butcher and Peter Sibley, who created the online and cable station Radio Frontier in June 2011, as the linchpin of their company Anglo Media, reacted to the news in a statement saying the company ” believes the closure of an English language FM station is potentially a backward step” but that they sympathize “with the financial pressure the SSR has to face up to – many public broadcasters across Europe have made similar tough decisions.” They believe “the private sector has to be given the opportunity to provide these essential information services,” noting that they are talking to all parties concerned.
Butcher, who spoke to GenevaLunch Wednesday morning, says that as a former WRG and then WRS announcer he is “obviously sad for the people who work there” but that he does “understand the situation that Swiss Public Broadcasting finds itself in,” citing Europe-wide radio difficulties.
Roger de Weck, new SSR CEO in January 2011
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss Public Broadcasting Corporation, SSR, will be tightening its belt in January by streamlining its administrative structure. The company will be acting on the advice of Roger de Weck, who takes over in January as chief executive officer, to reduce the senior management team from nine members with four “paticipants” to seven members, with the four participants used as consultants on an occasional basis.
SSR owns TSR television, RSR radio, WRS radio and the swissinfo web site in the Lake Geneva region as well as several other media, in several languages, throughout Switzerland.
SSR cost-cutting part of the deal
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Billag, the company that charges households a Swiss television and license fee which forms a key component in the budget of SSR, Swiss public broadcasting, will bill only once a year starting in 2011, the Swiss government has decided. The annual fee for private households is a little over CHF460.
Billag currently bills quarterly, sending 12 million bills annually for total annual fees of CHF1.4 billion. The shift will provide administrative cost savings of CHF9-10 million, mainly for printed paper, that can be passed on to SSR, says Bern.
SSR has lobbied heavily for higher license fees and greater freedom to advertise, in order to meet the growing cost of continuing to produce original material. The Federal Council in June 2010 approved a budget of CHF134.5 million, but it refused to accept SSR’s proposals for CHF14m to improve the state of the pension fund, CHF16m to increase its capital and CHF3.5m for various expenses. It called on SSR to economize in order to cover these and other costs, but it also relaxed some of the public media advertising restrictions slightly.
The June decision also emphasized a stronger role for French media programmes, insisting that some of the budget be deployed to create more original material in French.
One part of the budget cuts proposed by SSR has been to eliminate swissinfo, but a spokeswoman at the federal communications office confirmed to GenevaLunch that the move would require the approval of the federal government. World Radio Switzerland is also part of the SSR family, as are TSR television and RSR radio.
Roger de Weck, new head of Swiss public broadcasting
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Roger de Weck has been named the new head of SSR, Swiss Public Broadcasting, the group announced Tuesday.
De Weck, 56, succeeds Armin Walpen 1 January 2011, upon Walpen’s retirement. The new director is a well-known journalist in Switzerland but he is particularly well-known in Geneva as the president of the Graduate Institute.
Roger de Weck has a multilingual, multicultural Swiss background that will stand him in good stead as he leads a monopoly organization that has been operating in the red for some time.
He is based in Zurich but works in Geneva, was born on the language divide in Fribourg, grew up in Geneva and Zurich, took an economics degree in Saint Gallen, then studied business and publishing in Hamburg, Germany. He later earned a doctoral degree from the University of Lucern.
He has worked for Edipresse’s Tribune de Genève and 24 heures, as well as the German-language publications Weltwoche and Die Zeit. He was later editor-in-chief of Tages-Anzeiger and a member of the management team at Tamedia, also editor-in-chief at Die Zeit, then worked independently before being named to his position at the Graduate Institute.
SSR press release (Fre)
Deficit for 2010 expected to soar due to sports coverage
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - SSR, Swiss public broadcasting, is seeking the right to raise more funds through advertising and license fees, saying its funding situation is “critical” with a third annual deficit of CHF75 million expected for 2010. The figure was put forward Tuesday 27 April when the group published its key financial figures for 2009, showing a CHF46.7m deficit. The figure was better than the loss SSR had in 2008 of CHF79.1m, but the group needs the government’s approval to increase the level of advertising or license fees to add revenue, just as it needs the cabinet (Federal Council) to give it the right to cut back editorially, on content.
SSR owns TSR television, RSR radio, WRS English radio and the swissinfo web site for the Swiss abroad, as well as German, Italian and Romansch radio and TV stations.
The company blames the loss for a sharp drop in commercial sales in 2009, down more than 26 percent, when Swiss media in general suffered from a large decline in advertising revenue.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Journalists will be spared but 100 of their colleagues in support services at SSR, Swiss Public Broadcasting Corporation, will lose their jobs between now and 2014. Support services, with 735 employees, include: computer services, real estate, logistics, human resources, training, communications, marketing, and accounting.
SSR owns TSR television, RSR radio and WRS English radio, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.
Shared Internet news ok, but not on radio and TV
Geneva / Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The merger of TSR, public television in French-speaking Switzerland, and RSR, public radio, is meeting some resistance from cantonal governments, which insist the two editorial teams must remain separate and independent. Vaud and Geneva, in a joint statement released Monday 23 November, say they would also like to see the traditional roles maintained of Lausanne as a radio centre and Geneva as a television centre. The statement was made in advance of today’s presentation of the merger project to the board of SSR, the parent company.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – SSR, Swiss public broadcasting company, will lose its director general, Armin Walpen, and its deputy director general, Daniel Eckmann, at the start of 2011. Walpen has confirmed that he will retire 31 December 2010 and Eckmann earlier announced that he will leave at the end of January 2011, a month later. SSR will begin the search for its new senior management team at the end of August 2009.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – SSR, the Swiss Broadcasting Company, is freezing salaries effective the end of 2009, as well as new hires, part of a series of measures to economize in the face of a growing deficit. The company announced Tuesday 23 June that the state-supported system will see its deficit grow from CHF200-790 million by 2014 without larger subsidies or revenues.
The salary freeze will allow the company to save CHF30 million a year, but it still needs to find another CHF40m a year to remain financially healthy.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – SSR, the Swiss public broadcasting company, will combine TSR and RSR, its television and radio units in French-speaking Switzerland, as well as its television and radio in German-speaking Switzerland. The move is designed in part as a response to a group 2008 financial loss of CHF79 million, reports TSR, citing an SSR press release, but also as a longer term response to changing audience habits and technical developments in journalism.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – SSR’s chairman Armin Walpen announced Thursday morning that the company will be freezing jobs in 2009 at the 2008 level and taking other cost-cutting and containment measures. SSR is the parent of Swiss French-speaking radio and television, RSR and TSR, as well as World Radio Switzerland, WRS and swissinfo, a multi-language online Swiss news site.
