"Speeding formats do not belong in the program".
Former SRF editor-in-chief Ueli Haldimann believes the SRG is facing the worst crisis in its history and, in an interview with the NZZ am Sonntag, holds it partly responsible.
Haldimann believes that one of the three reasons for the narrow result of the RTVG initiative - in addition to a polemical counter-campaign and the recent negative attitude of private publishers - is a lack of perceived public service among the population. Swiss television, for example, has cut and reduced cultural formats, launched expensive and worn-out casting shows, increasingly broadcast programs glorifying extreme sports and introduced "speeding formats" such as "Tacho" or "Top Gear". According to Haldimann, this kind of thing does not belong in the programming of a channel financed by licence fees and the audience notices this.
The former editor-in-chief is also concerned about the increasing threat to the independence of the electronic media. In Switzerland - in contrast to Germany and Austria - there had previously been a consensus that politicians should not interfere with program makers. What is happening now is a "total breach of the dam", as political parties are publicly announcing which programs should be deleted and which should be rebroadcast. SRG should stand alongside politics and report critically on it, but now it has become a "plaything of daily politics".
Publishers' proposal is "nonsensical"
Haldimann also criticizes the fact that "the beneficiaries of SRG" - the film and music industry, the cultural sector and sports associations - did not have their say in the referendum campaign.
Haldimann describes the publishers' suggestion that SRF should do without advertising spots because CHF 1.2 billion in fees is sufficient as "nonsensical", although he has "great understanding for the publishers' problems". "They probably think that advertisers will once again place full-page advertisements in newspapers or spots on regional TV stations. But that's a mistake." Instead, the Swiss advertising windows of German private broadcasters would benefit, with 300 million francs of advertising money flowing abroad without any added value in Switzerland. "Do publishers really want that?" asks Haldimann. (hae/NZZaS)
Picture: SRF/Marc Wetli
