Srf.ch: More from the region - less for the region
Too few clicks: The "Regionaljournal" pages on Srf.ch will soon be history. This also applies to the Regionaljournal Bern Fribourg Valais. At its meeting on November 26, 2019, the Program Commission asked itself why SRF online is withdrawing from the regions and how the decision should be assessed.
A survey at the beginning of the meeting on November 26, 2019 shows: Members of the SRG Program Commission Bern Fribourg Valais make little to no use of the Regional Journal website on Srf.ch. They only consume SRF via radio and television, say some; the site is too hidden, say others.
Thus, the online usage of the Program Commission members does not differ fundamentally from that of the average user. The numbers show: The Regi websites hardly find an audience. But it is also clear to the commission that since the catchment area of the regional journals is limited, the number of clicks is also limited.
Peter Brandenberger, head of the regional journal Bern Fribourg Valais, also justifies the end of the regional websites on Srf.ch with the lack of hits. A quantitative analysis by SRF had shown that the articles on the regional subpages often reach only a few hundred people. And a qualitative survey of user needs had shown that SRF's audience expects topics of supraregional interest, background information and classifications of major regional events on the web.
Regional news would be accessed on the news portals of the regional newspapers, not on SRF. With its Srf.ch/bern site, Regionaljournal gets too few views per week, especially for the pure news articles. That's not worth the effort, according to Brandenberger.
Reset button instead of Delete button?
Opinions on the online withdrawal from the regions are not black and white within the program commission. One member sees the decision as another cost-cutting measure. Brandenberger disagrees: they want to use the resources differently, for example for podcasts, for more research and for background reports on the online platform. Another member understands that measures have to be taken when user numbers are so low.
The program committee, however, raises the question of whether optimizations could be considered instead of taking the websites offline in spring 2020. Various ideas are mentioned: better advertising of the pages; regional pages, divided according to cantons, as is already done for elections and votes. SRF could also have benefited from the regional program commissions in this decision if it had involved them in the process at an early stage.
More correspondent tasks
In the future, regional topics of interest to the whole of Switzerland will increasingly take place at the top of the Srf.ch homepage. This is an opportunity for the regional journals, says Peter Brandenberger. Their own good stories could thus be placed prominently. The Regis should take on more of a correspondent role on the network. Or in other words: more from the region - less for the region.
