Private media companies and SRG: cooperation is possible
According to a new academic study, there are already numerous examples in Europe of closer cooperation between the SRG and private media companies, and many stakeholders in Switzerland also support this approach.
The biggest challenge, however, is not to distort competition - as is currently the case with the Admeira advertising market joint venture. The study was carried out by Stephanie Grubenmann and Stephan Russ-Mohl (both Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano) on behalf of the Swiss Media Association.
As part of the study, practitioners and media experts commented on the opportunities and risks of cooperation between the publicly financed SRG and private media companies. The report shows that there is great interest in cooperation and that open discussions and a political debate are called for. The authors of the study see little potential for conflict with regard to undesirable preferential treatment of market partners in the case of cooperation in non-competitive areas such as research and education. Cooperation in the editorial area must be more finely balanced. In an initial phase, explorative, time-limited and, if necessary, reversible projects should be launched involving as many private media companies as possible. The start should be made in non-political areas. In the view of the interviewees, secondary exploitation of SRG content and the opening of SRG's audio and video archives are particularly interesting. This content is already financed by license fee payers and there is a public interest in the widest possible distribution. If media diversity in Switzerland is to be promoted effectively, the authors of the study believe that small media companies and start-ups in particular should be included in the projects.
The Swiss Media Association welcomes the results of the study and is convinced that only a partnership between public and private media can strengthen media diversity in Switzerland. The Admeira advertising market joint venture, in which a state-controlled and a state-financed company are attempting to consolidate the advertising and media market together with a single private provider, is therefore heading in the wrong direction. Politicians must shape the framework conditions in such a way that a diverse media landscape is promoted in the best possible way. The Swiss Media Association therefore supports the efforts of various parliamentarians to promote a diverse media landscape. In the view of the Swiss Media Association, the parliamentary initiatives of Beat Vonlanthen, a member of the CVP Council of States in Fribourg, and Hugues Hiltpold, a member of the FDP National Council in Geneva, which explicitly allow the SRG to enter into cooperation agreements if this strengthens media diversity in Switzerland and all interested companies can participate on equal terms, are a step in the right direction.
The fact that public-private partnerships between the private media and SRG can also work in the Swiss media industry is already demonstrated by the cooperation between the Swiss news agency SDA, the Swiss media database SMD and the Swiss School of Journalism MAZ.
