SRG Bern Fribourg Valais: Relocation of editorial offices to Zurich confirmed

In the future, Radio SRF will produce and broadcast current news from Zurich and background and analysis from Bern. 70 employees from the newsroom and SRF 4 News will move from Bern to Zurich, while 230 SRG employees will remain in Bern.

The management of SRF radio and television made the final decision on Tuesday as part of the new audio strategy, the company announced. In Zurich, the newsroom will take care of the daily news content for the formats in the linear program and for the digital offerings. In Bern, a competence center for background, in-depth and analysis will be established.

The domestic and international editorial teams will remain in the Berne radio studio, along with magazine and background programs such as "Echo der Zeit," "Rendez-vous" and "Info3. The space in Bern freed up by the partial move will be taken over by SWI Swissinfo.ch, SRG's international foreign service, which employs around 100 people. This means that almost 150 SRF radio employees will remain in Bern.

On the one hand, the partial move is due to the new audio strategy, which establishes the Leutschenbach site with the "Radio Hall" as the sole and central development and production location for SRF's digital audio offerings. On the other hand, this reorganization also has financial reasons, according to the statement.

Digital Center Leutschenbach

With the relocation of the 24-hour news channel SRF 4 News and the newsroom, SRF is bundling its current affairs reporting in the newsroom on the Leutschenbach campus and securing the digital transformation in the audio sector. The station could thus further develop into an actual newsroom radio within the newsroom.

Overall, SRF's strategy is aimed at sharpening the profiles of all SRF radio stations and expanding the production of original podcasts, according to the statement. The latter are particularly popular with young people.

Radio SRF's relocation plans had caused quite a stir in the political arena. The city and canton of Bern, for example, intervened and criticized the weakening of the Bern location.

Regret and criticism

The Radio and Television Cooperative Bern Fribourg Valais regretted the "painful" decision in a statement on Tuesday. The board of the regional carrier cooperative observes the increasing concentration of the German-speaking Swiss media in the greater Zurich area with concern.

The Swiss Capital Region organization and the city and canton of Bern are also disappointed with the relocation decision. They criticize that part of the journalistic diversity within the public media house will be lost and the background formats remaining in Bern will be weakened.

The decision is a "loss for journalism in the capital - and in particular for the Bern radio studio," the Swiss Syndicate of Media Professionals (SSM) also announced. The fear remains that radio background broadcasts will be cut off from digital development and gradually phased out.

The Pro Idée Suisse association spoke of a "tragedy" and of "a death in installments" of the Bern radio studio. What was threatening was a "media-politically untenable uniform mash from Zurich's Leutschenbach.

More on the subject: SRG Bern Fribourg Valais speaks of painful decision

Federal government does not want to interfere with locations

At the national level, parliament largely stayed out of the debate. The Council of States scuttled two parliamentary initiatives that had demanded that radio information broadcasts be produced primarily in Bern and Lausanne, as the National Council had first decided.

Already at the beginning of October, the relocation of the news broadcasts of the French-speaking Swiss television RTS from Geneva to Lausanne was communicated as definite by the SRG. The move is scheduled to take place in 2024. The news of the Westschweizer Radio is already produced in Lausanne. (SDA)