Bakom: Information offering of local radio stations investigated
In addition to the SRG programs, the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) also had eight local radio stations in the cantons of Bern and Ticino scrutinized. According to the program analysis, the stations generally fulfill their license obligations well in terms of news and information programming.
The private Bernese radio stations Capital FM, Radio BE 1 (now Energy Bern), Radio BeO, Radio Neo1, Canal 3 German & French, and the private Ticino radio stations Fiume Ticino and Radio 3iii were analyzed. Their programs were studied for a total of six hours each day during prime time for one week in October 2009.
According to the analysis, Radio BeO devoted the most space to information. During prime time on weekdays, it was 1 hour and 25 minutes. Radio Canal 3 broadcast nine minutes less, while BE1, which has since been merged into Energy Bern, broadcast information for only about 40 minutes. The dominant topics at most of the stations were politics, sports and society. Business and culture were given less space.
The license requires local radio stations to broadcast primarily relevant local-regional information on politics, business, culture, society and sports during prime time. The analysis was prepared by the Publicom consortium, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano and the Université de Genève on behalf of Bakom as part of continuous program monitoring.
