SRG SSR is the public service broadcaster in Switzerland. Built upon a federalist model, specific for the country’s political organization, SGR SSR consists of five broadcast corporations as following: Radiotelevisione svizzera (RSI), the Italian language broadcaster, Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha (RTR), the Romance language public broadcaster, Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), the French broadcaster, Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF), the German broadcast unit, and SWI swissinfo.ch, a news portal run by the company that publishes content in 10 languages.
In total, SRG SSR has a portfolio of 26 radio and television channels. Founded in 1931, the company is headquartered in Bern, the capital city of Switzerland.
Media assets
Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF): Television: SRF 1, SRF zwei, SRF info; Radio: Radio SRF 1, Radio SRF 2 Kultur, Radio SRF 3, Radio SRF 4 News, Radio SRF Musikwelle, Radio SRF Virus
Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana (RSI): Television: RSI La 1, RSI La 2; Radio: RSI Rete Uno, RSI Rete Due, RSI Rete Tre
Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS): Television: RTS 1, RTS 2, RTS Info; Radio: La 1ère, Espace 2, Couleur 3, Option Musique
Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha (RTR): Televisiun Rumantscha (TvR); Radio Rumantsch; Swiss Info
State Media Matrix Typology: Independent Public (IP)
Ownership and governance
The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) operates as a non-profit association comprising four regional companies with around 22,500 members. Membership in SRG SSR is open to anyone interested in the media. The four regional companies influence the content of the SRG SSR by making known the concerns of their audiences to the broadcaster, according to the SRG SSR statute, the document that governs the broadcaster’s operation.
The highest governance bodies at the SRG SSR are the Delegates Assembly and the Board of Directors. The presidents of the four regional companies are members of both the Board of Directors and the Delegates Assembly.
The Delegates Assembly consists of 41 people consisting of delegates from the four regional companies plus three members of the Board of Directors elected by the Delegates Assembly and two members appointed by the Federal Council, Switzerland’s government. An Executive Board consisting of the Director General, the Director for Development and Offering, the Director of Operations, the Director of Finances and the directors of the regional companies (RSI, RTR, RTS and SRF) serves as the supreme decision-making of the station.
Source of funding and budget
Some 80% of SRG SSR’s budget is generated through a user levy; it used to be called “license fee” until 2019. The difference between this levy before and after 2019 is that the current tax is imposed on all households that consume audiovisual content. Before, the tax (called “license fee” at the time) was paid by all those that owned an audiovisual content reception device. The current user levy is CHF 335 (US$ 355) a year. The fee is collected by Serafe, a fund collection agency, which was selected to do this work through a public tender. Serafe won a contract to collect the fee for SRG SSR until 2025.
In 2021, SRG SSR had a total budget of CHF 1.51bn (US$ 1.57bn), of which CHF 1.2bn came from the revenues raised through the user levy, with the remainder generated primarily from advertising sales, according to data from the company’s annual report. In 2022, SRG SSR had a budget of CHF 1.57bn (US$ 1.62bn), according to data from the company.
Editorial independence
There are no rules imposed by the government on the SRG SSR that would force the broadcaster to give favorable editorial coverage to the authorities. On the contrary, the broadcaster is highly popular among the Swiss citizens thanks mainly to its credibility and solid editorial coverage.
The editorial independence of the SRG SSR is established through several key documents, including the Federal Constitution (where the broadcaster’s editorial autonomy is explicitly mentioned among the law’s key guarantees) as well as the SRG SSR Charter.
Each regional company part of the SRG has a public council whose main mission is to guarantee the exchange between the public and the broadcaster’s professionals in charge of creating programs. At the same time, SRG SSR has an ombudsman’s office that is tasked to receive complaints about SRG SSR’s content and make recommendations for remedies for the broadcaster’s editorial teams involved in producing the respective content.
September 2023