Cultural groups say CHF200 licence fee is not enough

CHF 200 media fee is not enough for cultural organisations Keystone-SDA

Four cultural associations say an initiative to almost halve the Swiss television and radio licence fee, which will be put to the vote on March 8, would jeopardise Switzerland's cultural diversity and cohesion.

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The “CHF200 is enough!” initiative wants to reduce the annual licence fee of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) from CHF335 ($430) to CHF200. Companies would be exempt from the fee.

As part of this year’s Solothurn Film Days, the associations Cinésuisse, Suisseculture, the Swiss Music Council and IG Volkskultur held a media conference to draw attention to the SBC’s “indispensable contribution” to Swiss film and Swiss series.

Halving the SBC’s financial resources would have far-reaching consequences for culture, media diversity, jobs and social cohesion, the associations wrote in a joint press release on Sunday.

“A third of the more than 5,000 jobs in the industry would be affected,” Cyril Tissot, Secretary General of the Association romande de la production audiovisuelle (Aropa), told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA. All series produced in Switzerland are dependent on funding from the public service. Aropa represents over 80 companies from the cinema, series, documentary and animated film sectors.

+ Swiss to vote on TV and radio licence fee in March

The initiative threatens our ability to tell stories through cinema and series, actress Anna Pieri Zürcher said in the press release on Sunday. “What we collectively spend money on says a lot about what kind of country we want to be,” said Pieri Zuercher.

The cultural associations stated that the initiative would cut important funds used to tell Swiss stories. As a result, Swiss productions are in danger of being displaced by cheaply purchased series and international formats.

In the eyes of the initiative committee, however, the reduction in fees would leave all citizens with “more to live on”, as the committee explained at its media conference on the vote in mid-January.

Adapted from German by AI/ts

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