SF wants to expand Infochannel into a de facto third channel

 Next Wednesday, the Federal Council will also decide on the future of the information channel SF info with its decision on the new SRG draft license. After it was announced in June that the new draft license for the channel provides for the end of the advertising ban (see "Advertising ban on SF Info falls"
), the competition is now increasingly afraid of what all this could mean.
 
 If the government approves the draft, the repetition and information channel will become a third national broadcaster in one fell swoop, according to many concerned competitors. As the NZZ am Sonntag reports, it is then quite possible that, in addition to broadcasting important events such as the WEF in Davos or other events of national importance, the wishes of SF entertainment director Gabriela Amgarten, for example, will be followed and live sports programs will be moved from SF zwei to SF info. Logically, the operators of private Swiss television stations are not at all pleased about such regulations. In the consultation on the new SRG concession, Pro Sieben Schweiz writes that the first broadcasts and the sponsorship and advertising license make SF info a fully-fledged channel. The provisions on SF info were therefore moving further and further away from the originally defined purpose of this channel. Christoph Zimmer, media spokesman for Tamedia, is also extremely disconcerted by Swiss Television's plans: "If advertising is permitted on SF info, the private regional stations will be cut off. SF info was introduced as a channel without advertising and as a pure replay channel."
 
 
SF Info was initially launched in 1999 as a field test in the Zurich area. In 2001, the project was extended to the whole of German-speaking Switzerland.