25 years of Tele Züri: A TV pioneer celebrates its birthday

Tele Züri was the first station in Switzerland to use a one-hour program of news and talk, repeated every hour, and to work cost-effectively with video journalists instead of the three-man TV crews that were common at the time. The concept was later copied by most regional stations and is still "state of the art" among Swiss regional TV stations today.

Tele Züri went on the air for the first time on October 3, 1994. Video journalism was new to Switzerland at the time. For once, it was not Roger Schawinski's own invention, but he discovered the concept at the New York city station NY1 and adapted it for Zurich. In no time at all, Schawinski recruited 15 young people and trained them as video journalists in just two months.

Matthias Ackeret, publisher of Persönlich, recalls to Keystone-SDA: "None of us had ever held a camera before. Suddenly, I had three professions: Journalist, cameraman and sound engineer." Of course, they had to pay a lesson at the beginning, says Ackeret: "There were blurry pictures, unsightly quad collars and interviews filmed from below into the nostrils."

Initially, video journalists were still smiled at, but they quickly improved and became serious competition for SRG. They were often faster on the spot and more flexible to use. Nowadays, not only do practically all regional television stations work with video journalists, but they are also being used more and more frequently by Swiss television.

Daniela Lager, current SRF "Puls" presenter, opens the first Tele-Züri show in 1994. Founder Roger Schawinski (right) welcomes the audience to the first "TalkTäglich.

Repeat loop as a success factor

The program scheme was also unusual at the start. Tele Züri did not offer a full program, but only one hour of programming that was repeated every hour. The core elements have remained the same to this day: A daily news program and a half-hour talk show. Alternatively, an entertainment format such as "Lifestyle." The repeat principle became the station's very DNA. "The hourly loop was a decisive success factor," Markus Gilli, the station's longtime editor-in-chief and program director, tells Keystone-SDA. "Predictability is quite important for viewers. Watching TV has a lot to do with habits."

Today, Tele Züri says it reaches almost 300,000 viewers a day with its broadcasts. The flagship "Züri News" reached an average of 137,000 viewers in the first half of 2019. The market share for the first broadcast at 6 p.m. is 15.3 percent in the greater Zurich area.

New stylistic devices

Tele Züri shaped the Swiss television landscape in terms of both content and style. To this day, the newscasts focus primarily on the three P's: police, politics and celebrities - with blue-light stories having a particularly high priority.

New for Switzerland at the start were not only the tabloid topics, but also the fact that "the little man in the street" often had his say on Tele Züri. Street surveys and testimonies became a defining stylistic device of regional TV journalism.

"SRG quickly realized there was something fresh and dynamic coming, which also somewhat reflected the spirit of the times," says Ackeret. "That also influenced the choice of topics and the type of reporting on Swiss television."

Changing owners

Tele Züri was initially owned one-third each by Ringier, Tamedia and Roger Schawinski's Belcom. In 2001, Schawinski sold the station together with Radio 24 to Tamedia for CHF 92 million. In 2011, Tamedia passed the station on to Peter Wanner's AZ Medien for an unknown sum.

Together with Tele M1 and Tele Bärn, Tele Züri has since formed a station group that cooperates closely with each other. With the joint venture between AZ Medien and the NZZ Media Group, the NZZ stations TVO and Tele1 are now also part of this group. Added to this are the national stations TV24, TV25 and S1, which are also produced from Tele Züri's studios in the Steinfels area of Zurich.

New competition

Tele Züri and other local broadcasters have long since ceased to be the only providers of regional video content. The major online portals, as well as the Keystone-SDA agency, now have their own video departments. Tele Züri is also feeling this competition. "The pressure is increasing day by day; we used to be the first to report on a serious accident at 6 p.m.," says Markus Gilli. "Today, the video images can be seen online shortly after the event. So we have to be able to offer our viewers more than the others in the evening." He also says that competition is increasingly being felt in job postings: "Trained video journalists with experience are in demand."

Digital into the future

In order to stand up to the competition from online portals, Tele Züri is also continuously expanding its video online offering together with its partner stations. "TV will continue to be an evening medium for a long time to come, but certainly not a daytime medium. We also have to distribute our content on other channels," says Markus Gilli.

Despite the digital transformation, Gilli remains convinced: "Especially in a globalized world, the region in which you live plays a central and increasingly important role." Tele Züri's role will therefore remain, but the distribution channels will probably change over the next 25 years. (SDA)