At the national level, Switzerland experiences all forms of press concentration: Ownership concentration (a declining number of publishing houses), journalistic concentration (a declining number of fully staffed papers) and a concentration of circulation can be observed. The trend seems to be heading towards a two-tier newspaper landscape. Only a few high-circulation papers will serve the economic centres and the suburbs, meanwhile many small newspapers will have to fill the gaps, taking advantage of narrow local advertising and readership markets. In addition, cross-media concentration is also a fact. Big publish houses have entered other media markets – more expansion is due to occur (cf. Meier 2010: 10; Meier 2007: 189). The dominant publishing houses hold different products; cross-media portfolios are common.
Because Switzerland has no single language and thus no national media, we define national concentration according to the three main linguistic areas: the German, French and Italian parts of the country. The concentration of newspapers seems to be much greater at the regional than at the national level. The large number of newspapers in Switzerland disguises the fact that most dailies are owned by the same publishing houses.
According to Künzler (2011: 84), the most profitable publishing houses that publish a daily are the following: Ringier, Tamedia, nzz-Gruppe, Basler zeitung Medien, Az Medien and Südostschweiz Mediengruppe. Publishing houses from abroad play a minor role. In the French-speaking region, the publishing house Hersant has expanded, but the most invasive corporation is Tamedia from zurich.
With its takeover of Edipresse Tamedia also controls the French part of Switzerland.
In the Italian-speaking region, the daily newspaper Corriere del Ticino has a market-share of 43.9 % of the total newspaper circulation. Its competitors reach 36.8 % (La Regione) and 19 % (Giornale del Popolo) (Wemf MACH Basic 2010/II).
Regarding the broadcasting sector, the degree of media concentration can also be calculated according to the market data for the three linguistic regions (audience market share). Generally, Switzerland’s audiovisual media market is dominated by programmes provided by the public service broadcaster SRG SSR. In fact, the combined market share of the public radio programmes in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is 61.7 per cent, in the French-speaking part 60.1 per cent and in the Italian-speaking part even 71 per cent (Source: SRG SSR 2009). Unlike the television sector, radio programmes from foreign broadcasters have only little relevance.
The SRG SSR television channels face competition from a large number of foreign broadcasters sharing one of Switzerland’s national languages (Table 6). About one third of the total watching time is dedicated to Swiss public programmes, while two thirds are spent watching foreign channels. However, the advantage of SRG SSR is its Swiss perspective and the provision of domestic information. Moreover, there are no private commercial television stations on a national level. Private commercial television channels are just able to assert themselves on a regional level with a small audience and limited commercial success.
In the German part of Switzerland, the leading channel of the public service television SF TV reaches an audience market share of 33.3 per cent. Private commercial regional channels achieve only 6.4 per cent, while the foreign channels reach 59.6 per cent (Source: SRG SSR 2009).
In the French and Italian part of the country, the two leading SRG SSR TV channels have the highest reaches (TSR 29.2 per cent and RSI 30.3 per cent). However, their runners-up are foreign channels from France and Italy (Source SRG SSR 2009).
Taken together, citizens in the three linguistic areas that are defined as national level in Switzerland can choose from newspapers, public and private radio and television and a considerable number of freely accessible online media. We therefore consider national media concentration to be less relevant than regional media concentration.
Table 6. TV concentration in the linguistic regions
Market Share TV (24h, Mo-So) 2009
| German-speaking region (in %) | |||
| Public (SRG SSR): 33.3 % | Swiss commercial station: 6.4 % | Foreign | 59.6 % |
| …the biggest thereof: SF1 22.7 % | … the biggest thereof: RTL | 6.7 % | |
| SAT 1 | 5.5 % | ||
| Viewer per day: 2,866,000 | 1,518,000 | ||
| French-speaking region (in %) | |||
| Public (SRG SSR) 29.2 % | Swiss commercial station: 0.8 % | Foreign | 68.4 % |
| …the biggest thereof: TSR 1 22 % | TF 1 | 13,00 % | |
| M6 | 9.3 % | ||
| Viewer per day: 913,000 | 215 | ||
| Italian-speaking region (in %) | |||
| Public (SRG SSR) 30.3 % | Swiss commercial station: 1.7 % | Foreign | 64.4 % |
| …the biggest thereof: RSI 1 23.6 % | Canale 5 | 11.9 % | |
| Rai 1 | 11.2 % | ||
| Viewer per day: 180,000 | 63 |
Table 7. Radio concentration in the linguistic region
| German-speaking region (%) | |||
| Public (SRG SSR) 61.7 % | Swiss commercial station: 28.8 % | Foreign | 5,00 % |
| …the biggest thereof: DRS1 36.4 % | |||
| Listeners per day: 2,929,000 | 2,351,000 | ||
| French-speaking region (in %) | |||
| Public (SRG SSR) 60.1 % | Swiss commercial station: 22.3 % | Foreign | 10.2 % |
| …the biggest thereof: La Première 39.9 % | |||
| Listeners per day: 861,000 | 681 | ||
| Italian-speaking region (in %) | |||
| Public (SRG SSR) 71 % | Swiss commercial station: 8.1 % | Foreign | 7.8 % |
| …the biggest thereof: Rete Uno 49.6 | |||
| Listeners per day: 195,000 | 80 |
Source: SRG SSR 2009.
