"No contradiction to the RTVA"
Although AZ Medien now covers half of German-speaking Switzerland with local TVs - and although local radio stations now broadcast regionally by means of DAB+ - Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard sees no legal problem. She does not believe that an early revision of the RTVA is necessary.
WW: AZ Medien now owns three regional TV stations with which it covers a large, contiguous area of German-speaking Switzerland and which it links into a network by means of a master program. Doesn't this take the originally federalist local TV concept in the RTVA ad absurdum?
Doris Leuthard: No, as I understand it, all three local TV stations will remain alive - with the independence that goes with them and with the staff, many of whom will be taken on. In this respect, only the ownership is changing. This corresponds to a concentration movement that we generally see in large publishing houses that are involved in print, radio and TV. And if the independence of the editorial teams remains guaranteed, diversity is also maintained for consumers, who today have a wide range of information media at their disposal.
Local radio stations are also increasingly breaking down their regional boundaries by becoming regional language stations via DAB+. This is also a contradiction to the RTVA.
No. Today, local radio stations have a journalistic mandate for which they receive compensation. They receive this for regional news, not for national information. If they now extend their service geographically, this does not contradict this. What's more, as someone from Aargau, for example, I'm happy to be able to listen to information from my local Aargau radio station in Bern, where I spend most of the week. I therefore think that the expansion via DAB+ meets a certain customer demand. That's why it doesn't seem to me to contradict the RTVA.
Given the two developments in local radio and regional TV mentioned above, is an early revision of the RTVA not advisable after all?
In the case of DAB+, we will first see how many actually enter this market. I don't believe that the state needs to anticipate something that doesn't actually exist yet and is only being considered. We can then see in four to five years' time where we actually stand.
Still on the subject of SRG's Internet advertising: In your opinion, by when should a solution be found between SRG and publishers?
As we have already announced several times, SRG and publishers have a time window until the end of the year for their discussions on possible cooperation models.
Interview: Markus Knöpfli
