French-speaking Swiss television removes Mister Switzerland from the program
Switzerland's most handsome man is drawing little interest from television viewers in French-speaking Switzerland. The TSR network is dropping the broadcast of the Mister Switzerland pageant from its schedule. Last year, the show achieved a market share of just 15 percent on TSR.
This is clearly not enough for a prime-time program, said TSR head of entertainment Thierry Ventouras when asked by the news agency SDA. He was confirming an article in the Tribune de Genève on Thursday. With the decision not to broadcast the program, TSR will no longer produce it every three years. Previously, the election was broadcast alternately by SRF, TSR and TSI in the respective language regions.
In doing so, the broadcaster saves several hundred thousand francs every three years, which can now be used for other projects, said Ventouras. However, TSR is not questioning the broadcasting of the Miss Switzerland pageants, which, according to Ventouras, achieve a market share of around 30 percent.
There will also be a change in Ticino: The Ticino television station TSI has decided to no longer participate in the production of the Mister Elections. However, broadcasting will not be affected by this decision for the time being: The election in April 2011 will also be shown in Ticino. Whether it will continue afterwards,
The TSI will decide after the election, as TSI spokesperson Stefania Verzasconi explained.
Although the market share of the election is still significantly higher on SF than in French-speaking Switzerland, it has fallen slowly but steadily in recent years - from 31.4 percent in 2008 to 30.9 percent in 2009 and finally to 27.7 percent last year. According to Reichlin, it is not clear how many viewers the election must reach this year as a minimum in order to remain on the program. There is no definitive limit.
