Local radio/TV stations to receive more funding
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Local radio/TV stations to receive more funding
Switzerland’s Senate has approved a plan to give local radio and TV stations a larger share of the licence fee, endorsing a slightly revised draft already backed by the House of Representatives.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
The revision takes up undisputed elements of the package of measures in favour of the media, which was rejected in the popular vote of 13 February 2022. It provides for an increase in the proportion of licence fees allocated to local radio and television stations with a performance mandate.
At present, the share of licence fees for regional public service broadcasters is between 4% and 6% of revenue. This is to be increased to 6-8%. The draft also provides for measures to support educational institutions, press agencies such as Swiss news agency Keystone-ATS and the Swiss Press Council. It no longer contains any reference to the online media, an area criticised at the time of the referendum campaign.
“The measures must serve the quality of the Swiss media as a whole,” said Marie-France Roth-Pasquier, speaking on behalf of the committee. Several speakers stressed the importance of having independent and plural media to enable the population to form an opinion. This benefits democracy.
In the overall vote, the Senate voted 131 to 40 in favour of the increase. However, the debate led to a wide-ranging discussion on the future distribution of the licence fee to the private media and the SRG.
Translated from French by DeepL/ds
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
External Content
More
Geneva secondary schools to ban mobile phones
More
Gold traceability, the weak link in Swiss watchmaking
More
Does democracy really make the world more peaceful?
More
UBS charges pension funds to hold their liquid assets
More
China’s project to mediate global disputes underlines divide between the West and the rest
News
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.