Publisher president takes SRG to court hard
According to Hanspeter Lebrument, president of the Publishers Association, the Swiss media are at a crossroads. Switzerland must ask itself whether a state-backed SRG should be allowed to dominate the media landscape or whether there should continue to be room for privately funded publishers in the future.
Entrepreneurial, cultural and political diversity has made Switzerland great and strong, Lebrument said on Tuesday at the Epiphany meeting of the Swiss Media Association in Zurich. He addressed his words not only to representatives of the media industry, but also to members of the National Council and the Council of States. Publishers have long since become media entrepreneurs who have been working for years to bequeath a functioning media landscape to future generations. However, this requires the appropriate framework conditions. The planned joint venture between SRG, Swisscom and Ringier runs counter to this. If it were to come about, the largest advertising marketer in Switzerland would be created in one fell swoop. Other media companies would be severely disadvantaged. With a bundling of offers and personalized forms of advertising, the new alliance would have considerable advantages over all competitors - and this would be partly financed with fees. Lebrument was particularly fierce in his criticism of SRG. The cooperation of the three partners was the preliminary culmination of a strategy that had been developed from ambush. "The ambush has a system at SRG," Lebrument said. In recent years, the SRG has proven time and again that it does not want to find a consensus with private providers, despite the sound of bells and whistles.
Hard-hitting power expansion
On the surface, politicians and the people are led to believe that SRG only wants to do what private providers cannot. This thesis has long been disproved. SRG is all about the hard-core expansion of power. The publishers are not alone in this view. SP National Councilor Matthias Aebischer, who used to work for Swiss television himself, had also recently criticized this. Lebrument's criticism of SRG fell on the ears of SVP National Councilor and publisher Roger Köppel. In his speech, Köppel spoke of a regulatory neglect that had taken hold at SRG. Lebrument and Köppel assured that they did not want to weaken SRG. But publicly financed radio and television must limit itself to its core offering. Advertising revenue was not necessary for this.
Growing skepticism in parliament
Skepticism toward SRG is growing in parliament, the publisher president said. There is a growing realization that the privately financed media are in danger and must be supported in their fight against the SRG. Parliament does not want power clusters, he said. (SDA)
