SRG Ombudsman's Office Sees Itself as a "Wall of Complaint

The increase in complaints cannot be interpreted as a sign of a general deterioration of the programs, the ombudsman's office wrote in its statement on Tuesday. Rather, it is increasingly being called upon as a "wall of complaint".

Information and political broadcasts targeted

Television viewers were particularly critical of information and political programs such as "Tagesschau" (31 submissions), "10 vor 10" (12 submissions) and "Rundschau" (10 submissions). The radio audience complained mainly about the satirical program "Zytlupe" (9 submissions), the news in general (7 submissions) and about contributions to "Regionaljournal" (6 submissions). Apart from 2014, when over 500 complaints were received, the ombudsman's office has never dealt with as many complaints as in 2015 in the last ten years. In 2014, two programs alone caused a lot of trouble: 110 complaints were received about a "Rundschau" report on the purchase of Gripen, and as many as 185 about the "Schawinski" program with Andreas Thiel.

The number of justified complaints decreased: In 2015, 17 percent (previous year: 24 percent) of complaints were considered "more or less justified. In contrast, 83 percent were "more or less unjustified" in the eyes of the ombudsman's office. 16 cases were referred to the Independent Complaints Authority for Radio and Television.

Election year takes its toll

The 2015 election year is also reflected in the statistics: 24 complaints criticized broadcasts that were directly or indirectly related to the elections. It was noticeable that these complaints came almost exclusively from people with an affinity to the SVP. All of them were considered unjustified. On the other hand, seven submissions regarding a "Kassensturz" report were judged to be justified. This dealt with the attitude of the parties regarding consumer protection. (SDA)