AZ Medien squints at fee pot

According to NZZ am Sonntag, the TV station planned by AZ Medien would require 100 million francs from the fee pot. According to the report, Wanner wants to create direct competition to SRF 1 and SRF 2 with the entire program range of sports, information and entertainment. Peter Wanner justifies the move by calling for more competition and diversity in the Swiss media landscape. The AZ media publisher presented his proposal to the telecommunications committees of the National Council and Council of States, which discussed the Federal Council's Service Public report. SRG did not want to comment on Wanner's plans to the NZZ am Sonntag.

With the new station, which would cover the whole of German-speaking Switzerland, AZ Medien would further expand its presence in the TV landscape. The AZ family of stations already includes the regional stations TeleZüri, Tele M1, TeleBärn, as well as TV24 and TV25, which can be received nationally. Although the stations with a performance mandate already receive money from the fee pot - Tele M1 and TeleBärn have so far each received around CHF 2.3 million per year - the distribution of the funds has long been a thorn in Wanner's side.

"These are crumbs, ridiculously few resources compared to the resources available to SRG broadcasters," he criticized at this year's general meeting of AZ Medien, for example in may. Competition was not taking place - or was being played out with very unevenly long stakes. Wanner is annoyed by the "giant" SRG, which has become too big and has to concentrate on those parts of the public service that the market is not capable of providing. Wanner sees two possible solutions to this problem: Reduce fees or divide them up differently.

He now seems to want to put variant two into practice with the fee-financed, national TV station. (hae)

Photo: AZ Medien / G. Krischker