Compromise in the dispute over time-shifted television

The bone of contention between the advertising-financed TV broadcasters and the telecom industry was that viewers fast-forward through the advertising on time-shifted TV. The advertising industry is not happy about this. The TV broadcasters complained of revenue losses because the compensation for time-shifted TV paid by the telecom providers was too low.

The major TV distributors such as UPC and Swisscom refuted the broadcasters' complaints that advertising revenues had fallen since the introduction of replay TV in 2012. On the contrary, they had risen. The National Council rejected restrictions on replay TV in December 2018 as part of the copyright revision.

Compromise found

Now both sides have found a solution: The collecting societies and the telecom associations Suissedigital and Swissstream have agreed on a new tariff that will regulate time-shifted television in Switzerland from 2022. They made the announcement on Friday.

The advantage for viewers is that the storage period for TV programs will be extended from 7 to 14 days from the year after next. And replay TV will be retained as a central offering. This sets the TV offering in Switzerland apart from abroad, where programs can only be viewed retrospectively in the media library of the respective TV station.

Spectators have to swallow toad

But the new compromise also has disadvantages for viewers: They are forced to watch commercials if they want to skip commercial breaks. Or they have to pay more.

There are three variants, explained Suissedigital Managing Director Simon Osterwalder: In the basic rate, everything would remain as before. There is no fast-forward option there.

The second variant provides for a start ad of 7 seconds before the viewer can watch his program time-shifted. But then he would be right at the beginning of the show, said Osterwalder. This is familiar from Youtube. With the interruption advertising blocks in a film, you have to watch three commercials with a total duration of not quite two minutes, he said. Then, with one click, you can jump to exactly where the film continues. This eliminates today's multiple-speed fast-forwarding, which often takes you too far.

But that only applies to the TV stations that are part of the industry agreement, Osterwalder said: With the other broadcasters such as SRG, one must continue to rewind as before, but also not watch any forced advertising. SRG is not participating in the industry agreement because it does not agree with the extension of the replay duration to 14 days, the communiqué said.

Advertising-free for 5 francs per month

In the third variant, everything would be free of advertising if the TV broadcasters received 5 francs per month and customer. Then you can skip the commercials at the touch of a button and go straight to the movie. This variant is possible with all TV stations, even those stations that, like SRG, are not involved in industry agreements, Osterwalder explained.

The industry agreement is a broad-based compromise to secure replay TV in Switzerland in the long term, it said. Joining the industry agreement is open to every TV distributor and TV broadcaster and is not mandatory. The new copyright tariff was submitted to the Federal Arbitration Commission for Copyright for approval on Thursday.

The new rule is a compromise, Osterwalder said in response to criticism that there is now forced advertising. "Each side had to give ground." The point, he said, was to keep time-shifted TV as a central replay function. Otherwise, viewers would have to go to the media libraries of the respective stations, which would be much less user-friendly.

Without agreement, there would have been a new tariff that would have been much higher than today, Osterwalder said, "I hope hard that SRG also accepts this compromise, even if they don't agree with the 14-day rule. That would be sporting behavior." (SDA)