Official sanct. TV

 
René Worni on independent private television: It is better to remain independent and act to the best of one's journalistic knowledge and conscience than to be fobbed off and bullied by the state with licence fee money. But if fees are to be distributed, then, please, everyone would like to have some of it. The old song about the duality of noble causes and economic constraints, a constant egg dance. Remember that publisher president Hanspeter Lebrument danced this dance to the assembled industry at the Epiphany Conference just over a year ago, when he called for journalistic and entrepreneurial independence. But it was clear to everyone that he was fighting just as relentlessly as his colleagues from the multimedia Swiss publishing houses present for his share of the fee pot. And the industry has long lived comfortably with this unease between desire and reality.
But now, a year and a half later, there is at least a glimmer of light on the horizon for the colleagues on Werdstrasse and their Tele Züri. This is because the majority of cantons and municipalities want Günter Heuberger's comparatively narrow-ranging Tele Top, rather than the long-established Tamedia station, to receive a license for the Zurich/north-eastern Switzerland region and thus fees. Tele Züri, on the other hand, is able to continue broadcasting on its own. This would give Tele Züri a unique opportunity to launch its brand as the only state-independent private broadcaster in German-speaking Switzerland.
Because brand is everything. Günter Heuberger has probably also realized that a veritable opportunity is opening up for the competition. He has not planned a studio in the city of Zurich for Tele Top. He is convinced that the location of the studio alone would make the program too urban, too tabloid and VIP-heavy. And on the other hand, Heuberger would give Tele Zurich program director Markus Gilli and his people every opportunity to denigrate him as a country bumpkin who (here's a conceivable example of an argument) "misses the audience" with his "state-sanctioned chronicler station". And apart from that: without a license, Tele Züri will remain in the regions in terms of media diversity, because the station does not have to worry much about broadcasting areas. Bakom wants to make a decision before the summer vacations, then we will know more.
René Worni, Editor