Advertising campaign for the No Billag initiative shows strong regional differences
An above-average number of referendum advertisements were published regarding the No-Billag initiative. However, there are regional differences: Supporters and opponents of the initiative were particularly active in regions with linguistic minorities.
By February 21, 11 days before the vote on the No Billag initiative, 310 advertisements had been published in 52 print media analyzed. For the other 48 votes analyzed since 2013, there were an average of 282 advertisements at the same time. This is shown in an analysis published on Friday by Année Politique Suisse (APS). Above all, initiative opponents have placed advertisements. 196 of all newspaper ads oppose the No Billag initiative, 96 support it. This is roughly in line with the average ratio for ad campaigns, according to the statement. The remaining 18 advertisements could be assigned neither to the opponents nor to the proponents of the initiative. These are, for example, advertisements for panel discussions.
It is striking that the campaigns are strongly concentrated in certain regions. Opponents of the initiative were particularly active in the canton of Graubünden, in eastern Switzerland and in the French-speaking cantons. According to the evaluation, the proponents of the initiative invested particularly heavily in Ticino. The campaigns of supporters and opponents were weak in the most populous German-speaking cantons of Switzerland: Zurich, Bern and Aargau. But even in the national newspapers, according to the statement, no to hardly any ads appeared on the No Billag initiative. Both supporters and opponents advertised much more frequently than usual in regional and thus lower-circulation newspapers.
There are also differences between the various language regions. In German-speaking Switzerland, 98 contra ads and 35 pro ads were published. Advertisements from all German-language newspapers were analyzed, except those from the canton of Graubünden. In Graubünden, 27 contra ads and only 3 pro ads were published. In the French-language newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland, there were no pro ads at all; 62 contra ads were recorded. In both regions, there is a strong fear of a loss of media diversity in their own language if the initiative should be accepted, as APS further writes.
The situation is reversed in the Italian-language newspapers: There, 58 pro ads are compared to 9 contra ads. According to the APS communiqué, there has hardly been any advertising campaign so far for the second upcoming referendum proposal, the Financial Regulation 2021. (SDA)
Image: nonobillag.ch
