Gilli: "Experiment failed"

"Tele Top in crisis" is the headline of the current issue of Schweiz am Sonntag. The newspaper - like Tele Züri - belongs to AZ Medien (noted in the article). Tele Züri came away empty-handed in 2008 when the concession was awarded, while Tele Top was given the go-ahead by the Federal Council for the Zurich/Northeastern Switzerland region. The station will now receive CHF 1.9 million from the fee pot. In return, it must provide basic editorial services for the cantons of Zurich, Thurgau and Schaffhausen.

Markus Gilli, editor-in-chief of Tele Züri, considers "the experiment a failure. Tele Top had started out in 2008 with the claim to be the television for Zurich and northeastern Switzerland, and had thus received the support of the Zurich government council and city council. This intention, says Gilli, has largely vanished into thin air - today, the then blinded government council would clearly opt for Tele Züri. Also because Tele Züri is no longer part of the market power Tamedia.

While Tele Top today reaches only 20,000 viewers in the license area, five times as many people tune in to Tele Züri every day. Tele Top Managing Director Günter Heuberger sees the reasons for the lack of and declining viewer interest - based on his own and Bakom studies - in the gap between the fulfillment of the performance mandate and the wishes of the viewers. For example, viewers want more tabloid - instead of the overweighting of politics, business, society and sports. However, since advertising revenues increased by 14 percent in 2015, Heuberger believes the response is higher than the Mediapulse figures indicate. This is also reflected in the usage analyses of mobile, social media and online.

Difficult times for regional TV stations

But it's not just Tele Top that's struggling with a loss of viewers. Tele M1 and Tele Bärn, which belong to the AZ broadcasting family, are also struggling with falling audience figures. According to a Bakom spokeswoman, regional TV stations are "generally in a financially difficult situation" - due to structural change in the media industry and changing user behavior. Schweiz am Sonntag also cites as a possible reason the fact that UPC has shifted the stations to rear program positions, while Tele Züri is prominently represented at No. 8.

For Gilli, it is clear that Tele Züri must be taken into account in the next concession award, as it provides public service on a daily basis and is "very well anchored". The audience ratings are irrelevant from the point of view of the licensing authority - according to Bakom, however, it is "desirable" that regional service public offerings are used. (hae/Switzerland am Sonntag)