With forked tongue
Guest commentary The fact that Bakom has not denied a false report by the SDA on Swiss TV advertising windows is deeply disturbing, says Christian Gartmann.
Guest commentary The fact that Bakom has not denied a false report by the SDA on Swiss TV advertising windows is deeply disturbing, says Christian Gartmann.
Some people will have rubbed their eyes at the report published last week by the SDA in which the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) castigates advertising window operators almost like outlaws. I, too, was startled. The fact that German broadcasters "often" do not comply with Swiss advertising regulations with their advertising windows is just as complete nonsense as the claim that Bakom finds these violations "worrying". Moreover, the impression created by the report that the Biel authority has so far been unable to do anything about such violations is fundamentally wrong. This is also confirmed to me by Bakom - an agency faux pas - so far, so bad, one might think. Finally, Bakom clarified that the concern did not relate to breaches of the rules (which in fact hardly ever occur), but to the large market share of windows in Switzerland.
And again I rubbed my eyes: Twelve years after the launch of the first advertising window and against my better judgment, our media watchdogs are still acting as if these windows are harming the Swiss television market. Yet the Bakom statisticians must have noticed how quickly the television market has developed since 1993 - thanks to and not despite German participation. Ten years later, this fact was scientifically proven in a study by Prognos.
Internally, there is hardly anyone at Bakom today who seriously doubts the "economic factor of advertising windows". It's just that you can't say that to the outside world. After all, it is the media minister himself who is constantly resisting promising private initiatives in the TV and radio market. In this way, party politics and species protection for the billion-euro fee-paying SRG colossus continue to be pursued at the expense of the advertising market.
It is therefore not surprising that in the current case, Bakom generously refrained from immediately correcting the politically explosive distortion of its own statements mentioned at the beginning. It was foreseeable that this character assassination would end up in the news columns of specialist and mass media via copy/paste journalism.
The timing is also explosive: the Council of States and National Council are poring over a new radio and television law, which was originally intended to create a Swiss television market under the title of "liberalization". In the meantime, however, the SRG's multi-million lobbying is having an effect. Not least because of the spectre of German monsters devouring everything and against all professional opinion, a draft law has emerged that only Armin Walpen is likely to like, as liberalization and European compatibility are as good as banished from the RTVG revision.
However, the law has not yet been passed. Will all good things come to those who wait? I would rub my eyes ...
> Christian Gartmann is Managing Director for Switzerland of the ProSieben-Sat-1 Group.
Some people will have rubbed their eyes at the report published last week by the SDA in which the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) castigates advertising window operators almost like outlaws. I, too, was startled. The fact that German broadcasters "often" do not comply with Swiss advertising regulations with their advertising windows is just as complete nonsense as the claim that Bakom finds these violations "worrying". Moreover, the impression created by the report that the Biel authority has so far been unable to do anything about such violations is fundamentally wrong. This is also confirmed to me by Bakom - an agency faux pas - so far, so bad, one might think. Finally, Bakom clarified that the concern did not relate to breaches of the rules (which in fact hardly ever occur), but to the large market share of windows in Switzerland.
And again I rubbed my eyes: Twelve years after the launch of the first advertising window and against my better judgment, our media watchdogs are still acting as if these windows are harming the Swiss television market. Yet the Bakom statisticians must have noticed how quickly the television market has developed since 1993 - thanks to and not despite German participation. Ten years later, this fact was scientifically proven in a study by Prognos.
Internally, there is hardly anyone at Bakom today who seriously doubts the "economic factor of advertising windows". It's just that you can't say that to the outside world. After all, it is the media minister himself who is constantly resisting promising private initiatives in the TV and radio market. In this way, party politics and species protection for the billion-euro fee-paying SRG colossus continue to be pursued at the expense of the advertising market.
It is therefore not surprising that in the current case, Bakom generously refrained from immediately correcting the politically explosive distortion of its own statements mentioned at the beginning. It was foreseeable that this character assassination would end up in the news columns of specialist and mass media via copy/paste journalism.
The timing is also explosive: the Council of States and National Council are poring over a new radio and television law, which was originally intended to create a Swiss television market under the title of "liberalization". In the meantime, however, the SRG's multi-million lobbying is having an effect. Not least because of the spectre of German monsters devouring everything and against all professional opinion, a draft law has emerged that only Armin Walpen is likely to like, as liberalization and European compatibility are as good as banished from the RTVG revision.
However, the law has not yet been passed. Will all good things come to those who wait? I would rub my eyes ...
> Christian Gartmann is Managing Director for Switzerland of the ProSieben-Sat-1 Group.
