The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (german: Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft; french: Société suisse de radiodiffusion et télévision; it, Società svizzera di radiotelevisione; rm, Societad Svizra da Radio e Televisiun; SRG SSR) is the

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri *Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internati ...

public broadcasting Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

association, founded in 1931, the holding company of 26 radio and television channels. Headquartered in Bern, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is a non-profit organisation, funded mainly through radio and television licence fees (70%) and making the remaining income from

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

and

sponsorship Sponsoring something (or someone) is the act of supporting an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services. The individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor, is kn ...

. Switzerland's system of direct democracy and the fact that the country has four official languages (German, French, Italian and Romansh) mean that the structure of Swiss public service broadcasting is rather complicated. The actual holders of the broadcasting licences that enable SRG SSR to operate are four regional corporations: * German Switzerland: (SRF) *

French Switzerland Romandy (french: Romandie or )Before World War I, the term French Switzerland (french: Suisse française) waalso used german: Romandie or , it, Romandia, rm, Romanda) is the French-speaking part of western Switzerland. In 2020, about 2 milli ...

: (RTS) * Italian Switzerland: (RSI) * Romansh: (RTR) These four corporations maintain SRG SSR as a joint central production and broadcasting association. The fifth business unit of the SRG SSR is the ten-language news platform

Swissinfo SWI swissinfo.ch is a multilingual news and information platform produced by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR). Its content is Swiss-centred, with top priority given to in-depth information on politics, the economy, the arts, science ...

Name

The association's official name is (SRG, formerly "") in German, (SSR, formerly "") in French, (SSR, formerly "") in Italian, and (SSR, formerly "") in Romansh. The corporate name, SRG SSR, is derived from its initials in German and its initials in French, Italian and Romansh. In English, the organisation is known as the ''Swiss Broadcasting Corporation''. The moniker "" (), which refers to the public service mission of the organisation, was adopted in 1999 and was removed from the name in May 2011.

History

Europe's third public radio station started broadcasting from

Lausanne Lausanne ( , , , ) ; it, Losanna; rm, Losanna. is the capital and largest city of the Swiss French speaking canton of Vaud. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and fac ...

in 1922, from the start based on a licence fee system. 980 licences were bought in 1923. Within a few years radio cooperatives working along the same principles had started throughout the country. In 1930 it was decided that radio was an important public service that should not be allowed to become a money maker for private interests, and that it needed to be structured on a federal basis. In 1931 SRG SSR was founded (see original names above), as a co-ordination organisation for the regional broadcast associations, and received the only licence to broadcast from the

Federal Council Federal Council may refer to: Governmental bodies * Federal Council of Australasia, a forerunner to the current Commonwealth of Australia * Federal Council of Austria, the upper house of the Austrian federal parliament * Federal Council of Germa ...

. The same year it was agreed that all news reports in the new medium had to be provided by the Swiss news agency SDA, a decision that remained unchanged until 1971. The first national transmitters began operating in 1931: Radio Sottens for French, Radio

Beromünster Beromünster is a municipality in the district of Sursee in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. On 1 January 2004 the former municipality of Schwarzenbach merged into the municipality of Beromünster.Monte Ceneri for Italian. In 1938 Romansh was recognised as the country's fourth national language, and the

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich () i ...

studios began broadcasting programmes in Romansh in between those in German. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, SRG SSR filled an important function as a neutral, unbiased supplier of news, reaching far outside Switzerland's borders through

shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 m ...

transmissions. Radio Beromünster and Radio Monte Ceneri became known as the only free German and Italian-language radio stations in Europe. In 1950 SRG SSR was one of 23 founding broadcasting organisations of the

European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who are members of the Co ...

. In 1939 television test transmissions started in Zürich. In 1953 regular TV transmissions started in German (from Zürich) – one hour per evening, five days a week – immediately attracting 920 early TV licence buyers. A year later, in 1954, French transmissions were broadcast from Geneva. For the Italian-speaking region, the programmes were re-transmitted with Italian subtitles until dedicated Italian studios were built in 1958. 50,000 TV licences were bought the first year. In 1960 the company was renamed ''Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft'' (and the equivalent names in the other languages - see above) to reflect the addition of television services. In 1964 the Federal Council allowed television advertising, as a means of keeping licence fees down. In 1966 the three main languages were each given a second radio channel, in order to counter the effects of new commercial broadcasters outside the country, whose strong signals were reaching the Swiss population. In the same year a dedicated Romansh broadcasting unit was created in

Chur , neighboring_municipalities= Arosa, Churwalden, Tschiertschen-Praden, Domat/Ems, Felsberg, Malix, Trimmis, Untervaz, Pfäfers , twintowns = Bad Homburg (Germany), Cabourg (France), Mayrhofen (Austria), Mondorf-les-Bains (Lux ...

, using some of the new German-language second channel's broadcasting time. In 1968 colour television was introduced, and the number of licence fee payers passed one million. In 1978 the radio channels started stereo transmissions. In 1983 the Federal Council relaxed the Swiss media legislation to permit local private and commercial radio channels. SRG SSR countered this threat by launching its third set of channels, aimed at a younger audience. In 1991 SRG SSR underwent a wide-ranging restructuring. The enterprise organised itself as a private industry association, structured as a holding company under Swiss company law. The name, SRG SSR idée suisse, was introduced in 1999. In 1992 Radio Rumantsch was separated from the German-language radio broadcaster, that had housed the Romansh broadcasting activities since 1938, and in 1994 the Romansh TV activities were moved over as well and the Romansh company renamed itself Radio e Televisiun Rumantscha. In 1997, SRG SSR started digitally on Hot Bird (13 degrees East) satellite. It is encrypted from satellite due to copyright restrictions. SRG SSR Sat Access information channel stopped broadcasting in 2005. In 2016, all channels are broadcast over satellite only in HD quality. All radio and SRF info TV channels is free-to-air in satellite. On 3 June 2019, SRG SSR terminated digital terrestrial (

DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Feb ...

) broadcasts of all of its television channels due to the extremely low usage of digital terrestrial signals on television sets in Switzerland, which was part of a series of cost-saving measures partly brought about as a result of the 2018 "

No Billag {{short description, 2018 referendum in Switzerland about abolishing the licence fee for public radio and TV "No Billag"''No Billag'' is the informal name under which it is widely known. The formal name of the initiative was "Ja zur Abschaffung de ...

" popular initiative. Since then, reception of SRG SSR television channels is only possible mainly through digital cable, Internet streaming, IPTV and DTH satellite.

Organisation

SRG SSR is headquartered in Bern. It is governed by a Board of Directors, appointed by a central council consisting of representatives of the four organisations. Broadcasting is handled by five business units: *

Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF; "Swiss Radio and Television") is a Swiss broadcasting company created on 1 January 2011 through the merger of radio company Schweizer Radio DRS (SR DRS) and television company Schweizer Fernsehen (SF). The ...

: handles German-speaking radio and television *

Radio télévision suisse Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

: handles French-speaking radio and television *

Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana (; RSI, abbreviated as RTSI until 28 February 2009) is a Swiss public broadcasting organisation, part of SRG SSR. RSI handles production and broadcasting of radio and television programs in Italian ...

: handles Italian-speaking radio and television *

Radio Television Rumantscha Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha (RTR, en, Radio-Television Romansh Switzerland or Swiss Romansh Radio-Television), formerly known as Radio e Televisiun Rumantscha ( en, Romansh Radio and Television), is a Swiss broadcasting company (part o ...

: handles Romansh-speaking radio and television *

Swissinfo.ch SWI swissinfo.ch is a multilingual news and information platform produced by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR). Its content is Swiss-centred, with top priority given to in-depth information on politics, the economy, the arts, science ...

: handles external services and the web portal swissinfo.ch File:Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen Logo.svg,

File:Radio Télévision Suisse.svg,

File:RSI logo.svg,

File:RTR Logo.svg,

In addition, there are six subsidiary companies which produce TV programmes, teletext pages, book publishing,

TV commercials A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

, and audience research. Until the termination of all terrestrial signals on 3 June 2019, the only television channels available in the whole of Switzerland were SRF 1, RTS Un, and RSI La 1, but the other channels are available in the linguistic regions represented by the broadcast language, and also nationally via cable, satellite and via the Internet.

HD suisse HD suisse is a former Swiss high-definition television channel operated by the public service broadcaster SRG SSR. This was the 8th channel launched by SRG SSR, and the first Swiss television channel available in high definition. The channel be ...

was the first

high-definition television High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the ...

channel of the SRG SSR. Programming came from the four language networks of SRG SSR. SRG SSR is free to watch all television channels on the internet. However, it cannot be watched outside Switzerland due to broadcasting rights on all television channels. Only RTS Couleur 3 television channel it is watched over the internet outside of Switzerland. All radio broadcasts are listened to outside Switzerland.

Swissinfo

The former abbreviation SRI originally stood only for "Swiss Radio International", which was SRG SSR's international broadcasting arm (1935–2004), aimed at

expatriate An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...

s and others interested in Switzerland. In October 2004, SRI ceased broadcasting on shortwave and satellite, and instead concentrated its efforts on its multimedia internet platform

swissinfo.ch SWI swissinfo.ch is a multilingual news and information platform produced by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR). Its content is Swiss-centred, with top priority given to in-depth information on politics, the economy, the arts, science ...

, which now takes most of the resources. The Swissinfo website is produced in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Japanese.

Swiss Satellite Radio

Swiss Satellite Radio Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland *Swiss people Places *Swiss, Missouri *Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia *Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss International A ...

(SSatR) is a radio company owned by SRG SSR that includes three stations: Radio Swiss Pop (pop music); Radio Swiss Jazz (jazz, soul and blues) and Radio Swiss Classic (classical music) all without interruptions. These stations have been on air since 1 September 1998. Radio Swiss Pop Logo 2018.svg, Radio Swiss Pop logo (2018) Radio Swiss Jazz Logo 2018.svg, Radio Swiss Jazz logo (2018) Radio Swiss Classic Logo 2018.svg, Radio Swiss Classic logo (2018)

References

External links

*
SRG Deutschschweiz (SRG.D)
- the German parent organisation
SSR Suisse Romande (SSR.SR)
- the French parent organisation
Società cooperativa per la radiotelevisione nella Svizzera italiana (CORSI)
- the Italian parent organisation
SRG SSR Svizra Rumantscha (SRG.R)
- the Romansh parent organisation * {{Portal bar, Companies, Journalism, Radio, Television, Switzerland * Mass media in Bern Radio in Switzerland European Broadcasting Union members Multilingual broadcasters Publicly funded broadcasters Mass media companies established in 1931 Radio stations established in 1931 Television channels and stations established in 1953 1931 establishments in Switzerland Peabody Award winners