SRG Board of Directors gives green light for media convergence project
On Wednesday, the national Board of Directors of SRG Deutschschweiz approved the overall concept for the merger of Schweizer Radio DRS and Schweizer Fernsehen SF into a polymedial media company. A final decision on the planned merger is to be made in June 2010.
It is planned that the merger of radio and television will be completed on January 1, 2011. In July 2010, a regional director will be elected to head the SRG.D company. The Executive Board will consist of eight to nine people. These are the two editors-in-chief of radio and television and the heads of the programming, entertainment, culture and sport departments as well as the heads of the merged support areas.
Television and radio will continue to form the backbone. The new Programmes department, which will combine the radio stations DRS 1, DRS 3, DRS Musikwelle, Virus and Swiss Pop as well as TV program planning and overarching areas such as multimedia central services and design, will be given a high priority. According to the press release, this department will significantly shape SRG.D's presence in the public market. Radio and television will each have an information department. These will be located in Bern and Zurich respectively. In the core journalistic area, internal competition is desirable for media policy reasons. However, the online editorial teams of the two information departments will work closely together and will be partially merged. The SF Culture department will also be merged with the SR DRS2 department, as will the two radio and television sports departments. The children's editorial department will be assigned to the Entertainment department.
A joint area for the production of radio and television programs will be created and the IT areas integrated into it. In addition, the communications/marketing and finance support areas will be merged. The synergy effects in this area will amount to around five million francs. Around 20 to 30 full-time positions are expected to be cut.
With the "Convergence and Efficiency" project, radio, television and online are to work together more closely in all language regions under one management. German-speaking Switzerland will implement media convergence in 2011, following implementation in Romansh-speaking Switzerland in 2006, Italian-speaking Switzerland since 2008 and French-speaking Switzerland from 2010.
Television and radio will continue to form the backbone. The new Programmes department, which will combine the radio stations DRS 1, DRS 3, DRS Musikwelle, Virus and Swiss Pop as well as TV program planning and overarching areas such as multimedia central services and design, will be given a high priority. According to the press release, this department will significantly shape SRG.D's presence in the public market. Radio and television will each have an information department. These will be located in Bern and Zurich respectively. In the core journalistic area, internal competition is desirable for media policy reasons. However, the online editorial teams of the two information departments will work closely together and will be partially merged. The SF Culture department will also be merged with the SR DRS2 department, as will the two radio and television sports departments. The children's editorial department will be assigned to the Entertainment department.
A joint area for the production of radio and television programs will be created and the IT areas integrated into it. In addition, the communications/marketing and finance support areas will be merged. The synergy effects in this area will amount to around five million francs. Around 20 to 30 full-time positions are expected to be cut.
With the "Convergence and Efficiency" project, radio, television and online are to work together more closely in all language regions under one management. German-speaking Switzerland will implement media convergence in 2011, following implementation in Romansh-speaking Switzerland in 2006, Italian-speaking Switzerland since 2008 and French-speaking Switzerland from 2010.
