The Swiss voice in the world since 1935

Swiss Broadcasting Corporation pulls plug on FM radio

No more FM radio reception on New Year's Eve midnight
Around two dozen private radio stations in Switzerland will continue to broadcast via FM. Keystone-SDA

The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) switched off outdated analogue FM transmitters at 11:59pm on New Year's Eve.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Connections to around 850 ultra-shortwave transmitters throughout Switzerland have come to an end.

Anyone wishing to continue listening to the radio stations SRF1, SRF2 Kultur und SRF3 in the new year, for example, will have to switch to the digital radio technology DAB+ or Internet radio. All other SBC programmes were previously only available via the Internet or DAB+.

SBC, SWI swissinfo.ch’s parent company, now only needs around 260 antennas for DAB+ broadcasting.

Around two dozen private radio stations in Switzerland will continue to broadcast via FM and will not discontinue the service until the end of 2026 at the latest.

+ Read more: not everyone happy with the end of FM radio

According to the Federal Office of Communications, around 10% of the population listened to radio only via FM at the end of 2024. Meanwhile, the use of DAB+ and internet radio has risen continuously since 2015: from 23% to 41% in 2023 for DAB+ and from 26% to 39% for internet radio.

FM radio was most frequently listened to while driving (33% of listeners in 2023), according to the federal office.

Adapted from German by DeepL/sb

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

F/A-18 take-offs and landings at Bern-Belp Airport

More

F/A-18s take off and land at Bern Airport

This content was published on The Swiss Armed Forces are training their fighter jets in Bern to fly from a civilian base. The exercise at Bern Airport will last until Wednesday.

Read more: F/A-18s take off and land at Bern Airport
cern

More

Plans materialise for new particle accelerator in Geneva

This content was published on Preparations for a huge new particle accelerator in Geneva have reached a milestone. After several years of work, a feasibility study for the project has now been finalised.

Read more: Plans materialise for new particle accelerator in Geneva
More Russian assets frozen in Switzerland

More

More Russian assets frozen in Switzerland

This content was published on The value of frozen Russian assets in Switzerland currently stands at CHF7.4 billion ($8.4 billion), the Swiss government announced on Tuesday.

Read more: More Russian assets frozen in Switzerland
Increase in business start-ups in the 1st quarter

More

Increase in Swiss business start-ups in Q1

This content was published on The number of business start-ups in Switzerland accelerated in the first three months of the year, with entrepreneurs being particularly dynamic in Central Switzerland, Basel and Geneva.

Read more: Increase in Swiss business start-ups in Q1

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR