Parliament's few Italian speakers would like to see the government using Italian regularly, but too few Swiss politicians understand the language well
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Federal Council agreed Tuesday 11 October to allow SSR, Switzerland’s public broadcast corporation, to start broadcasting in French in the country’s German-speaking regions. Programmes picked up from TSR and RSR, in French, will be sub-titled for German language audiences.
Italian-language programmes from Radiotelevisione Svizzera (RSI) are also covered by the revised licensing agreement, which goes into effect 1 November.
The change was made as part of efforts to improve multilingualism in Switzerland.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The RTS (Television Suisse Romande) tower on Boulevard Ansermat in Geneva was evacuated at 10:50 Thursday morning 13 January for an hour, following what police are calling a “credible” bomb threat. Some 1,000 employees were gathered nearby 10 minutes later, as police began to search the building. TSR public television remained on air, but with automatic programming. The 12:45 news was able to go live when police found no evidence of a bomb, after taking sniffer dogs and specialist teams through the building.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A popular presenter of rock music programmes for Swiss public television TSR in the 1980s, who lives in France, was placed under house arrest 13 December, by French police in Gex. The man, who cannot be named publicly in Switzerland, although he is named in France, is accused of committing sexual acts with young boys, reports France’s Dauphine Libéré. The newspaper says he has partially admitted to the crimes, which consist mainly of sexually touching young boys who were invited as guests on his show. The newspaper also cites his Geneva lawyer, who objects to the use of the term pedophile, saying it implies rape, a crime of which he is not accused and did not commit.
French police were alerted by Swiss authorities, who acted on information supplied by the man’s victims, now all adults.
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.
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.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Jean-Jacques Roth, who has just resigned as editor in chief of Le Temps newspaper, has been named to head the joint television-radio news team at the recently created Radio Television Suisse Romande (RTSR). The new entity is the result of the merger of public radio and television stations RSR and TSR, which join forces in January 2010. The two are already part of SSR, the Swiss public broadcasting company.
Roth is the only outsider of the eight person senior management team named Monday 21 December. The news teams will be coordinated, but remain separate, with Bernard Rappaz heading television news and Patrick Nussbaum heading the radio team.
The complete management group:
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - RSR radio and TSR television will be reborn as RTS, Radio Télévision Suisse in January, when the regional media will merge. The two are part of the SSR group, Switzerland’s public media company. The merger was announced Wednesday 25 November to staff at the two stations in Lausanne and Geneva.
A savings of CHF6 million for a total budget of CHF392m is expected, with the money to be put into programming. The merger will also result in 30 jobs lost out of 1,600 (fulltime equivalent: 2,000 actual jobs), but over a period of five years.
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.
Basel and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two young men, ages 20 and 23, are in critical condition following attacks, one in Basel and the other in Zurich, in the early hours of Sunday. In addition, police in Zurich report a series of violent incidents, only some of which appear to be possibly related. Several people were injured in the string of aggressive incidents, at a level not often seen in Switzerland.
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.
