The Federal Council does not want to abolish special interest radios
The Federal Council does not want to abolish special-interest stations such as Radio Swiss Classic, Radio SRF Virus or Musikwelle. It rejects a motion from the National Council's Telecommunications Committee (KVF) with this demand.
In the opinion of the KVF, certain radio special-interest stations do not perform an actual public service mission and should therefore be discontinued. The resulting savings would have to be passed on to the fee payers.
The Federal Council does not share this assessment. In a highly segmented society, part of the audience may only be reached by specific offerings, it wrote in its statement published on Thursday. These offerings therefore fulfill a specific function within the public service mandate.
However, the Federal Council wants to review the licensing of target group and special-interest programs in connection with the new Electronic Media Act and the adaptation of the current SRG license. The SRG should continue to have the option of adapting its public service mandate to changing audience needs in the future.
No Open Content
The Federal Council also rejects another KVF motion from the media sector: This wants to oblige SRG to make its own productions available to private media. In this way, it wants to prevent market distortions. In addition, it wants to put a stop to the preferential treatment of individual private broadcasters. The advertising alliance with Ringier and Swisscom is a particular thorn in the side of the KVF.
The Federal Council, on the other hand, welcomes "new forms of cooperation between the SRG and other media providers," as it states in its statement. In its view, the motion's demand goes too far. He also has doubts whether it would strengthen the system of Swiss electronic media. In addition, the use of SRG content is already possible to a limited extent today.
However, the Federal Council wants to partially implement another motion: The KVF is demanding, among other things, that the "2 + 2 rule" be abolished. This rule prohibits a company from acquiring more than two television licenses and two radio licenses.
According to the Federal Council, the diverse forms of cooperation among organizers impair the effect of the rule anyway. In addition, the rigid mechanism prevents many a sensible development, according to the statement. The Federal Council is therefore ready to implement this mandate.
Federalist tricky
By contrast, the Federal Council rejects the KVF's call for an increase in the size of the journalistic coverage areas. In its view, this would lead to a reduction in the number of coverage areas, which is delicate for federalist reasons, or to increased overlapping of coverage areas. The result would be economic competition among TV stations that receive a share of the fees. For the Federal Council, this would result in an increase in the cost of journalistic coverage without securing additional commercial revenues. (SDA)
