The city of Bern wants to support SRG in its search for real estate
The city of Bern is opposing the SRG's plan to relocate its Bern radio studio to Zurich. Mayor Alec von Graffenried therefore wants to help the SRG find suitable properties in the federal capital.
"It is clear that SRG would like to concentrate its sites in Bern in the area around Schwarztorstrasse, close to the city center," von Graffenried is quoted as saying in an interview with the Bernese Newspaper quoted Saturday.
The city will therefore support the SRG to the best of its ability in its search for a suitable property and a re-letting solution for the SRG site on Bern's Giaccomettistrasse, the Bernese mayor announced.
Among other things, the SRG general management is located on Giaccomettistrasse. The Bern radio studio is located on Schwarztorstrasse.
According to von Graffenried, the Bern city government is convinced that a spatial and organizational distance is needed between radio and television. This would serve journalistic quality. For this reason, the city government "resolutely" rejects the planned move of the radio studio.
In the interview, Von Graffenried outlined the vision of a competence center for information and politics in Bern, analogous to SRG's competence center for culture in Basel. "The goal is to make the broadcasts more political, more information-driven and more up-to-date," the city president explained.
Moving the Bern radio studio to Zurich would lead to an impoverishment of journalistic pluralism within the SRG offering, von Graffenried stressed. Moreover, Bern is the country's political center and bridgehead between German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland, he said. "Not only the government, parliament and federal administration are located here, but simply everything that has to do with politics," von Graffenried pointed out. (SDA)
