SRG announces savings – and increases the number of your employees

In the past five years, the SRG has presented several savings programs. Result: The editions of radio and television have increased.

Then the official figures of the SRG show: the operating effort did not drop last year, but increased by CHF 39 million.

CHF 150,000 becomes from savings of 50 million

The development is all the more remarkable when media minister Albert Rösti (SVP) announced a reduction in media levy at the end of 2023: each household will pay CHF 335 instead. The exponents of the SRG protested violently. 900 jobs are in danger, they said. The Federal Council’s plan leads to cuts in the programs.

Now every company would have activated the brake. Especially since Rösti confirmed the reduction in fees in the summer of 2024. The SRG grumbled – and increased its costs.

The broadcasting is not permanently saving funds. The former SRG general director Gilles Marchand lowered some editions after the no-billag vote of 2018-as he had announced. In 2020 he presented a new savings package of CHF 50 million. The expenses then decreased by only CHF 150,000. Nathalie Wappler, the director of Swiss radio and television, announced a job cuts at the end of 2021. A year later she blew him off.

Willes main task is initially to ward off the SVP’s half -time initiative. Probably in the coming year, the Swiss voters will decide whether the media levy will drop to CHF 200.

The SRG boss now has to prove that the company deals with its funds inherent. That the broadcasting savings not only announce, but also implemented. The message to the fee payers: With a delivery of CHF 300, public radio and television have to stretch. A tax of CHF 200 plus the liberation of all companies from the levy would destroy the public service in the electronic media.

Palpessimism with political ulterior motives

Will has announced that the SRG must save CHF 270 million. This is much with current expenses of 1.54 billion. How does will come up with the high number? Media tax will fall, as much is certain. And the Federal Council has reduced an increase in inflation, which was previously generous.

Will also assume that the commercial income of the SRG will decrease by CHF 90 million by 2029. With advertising and sponsorship, the radio and television company took 208 million last year. The yield is « stable », writes the SRG. Now these revenues are to decrease by 43 percent in just four years. Is that plausible?

The forecast is only understandable if will and their subordinates do a bad job. Should you assume?

The impression arises that the SRG is in purpose pessimism. The savings volume of 270 million is based on a number of assumptions. They seem to be chosen in such a way that the public can be communicated: it will be financially narrow for broadcasting even without a 200-frank initiative of the SVP. A thousand areas are at stake, it is said. However, it may be much less.

Radio and television have announced new savings rounds in German -speaking Switzerland, Switzerland and Ticino. The question now is: Does the SRG really save funds this time-or do the costs for the growing online activities rose the expenditure reduction again?

There is a difference between David Copperfield and the SRG: the illusionist – apparently – brings objects to disappear that actually exist. Those responsible for the radio conjure up savings packages that were never more than products of their imagination.