One key feature of Switzerland is its ethnic and linguistic diversity. Multilingualism is dominant and determines the media landscape radically: Dailies, weeklies, magazines, radio and TV programmes exist for each lingual region – German, French, Italian and Rhaeto-Romanic. The national broadcasting cooperation SRG SSR is mandated by law to provide programmes reflecting and maintaining the linguistic and cultural diversity of the country. It produces radio and TV programmes in all four official languages. Six radio studios located in zurich, Berne, Basel, Geneva, Lausanne and Lugano and four additional regional studios in Aarau, Chur, Lucerne and St. Gall produce 16 radio channels in addition to seven television channels. All media services are provided to the four linguistic groups on an equal basis, with the larger German sector subsidizing internally services for the smaller French, Italian and Rhaeto-Romanic communities. In contrast to the abundant news provision for its language communities, Switzerland has no policies to create special media channels for immigrant minorities. The SRG SSR undertakes some efforts in this regard. However, information news media attach only little relevance to this issue. A recent study shows that only 6.4 per cent of all media contributions (SRG SSR radio and TV programmes as well as private commercial radio programmes) are focused on immigrants minorities (cf. Bonfadelli 2008: 233).
There is no discernible religious orientation in the major newspapers and magazines. Special-interest publications represent the interests of various religious groups (e.g., Jüdische Rundschau).
Major international English-language newspapers and editions are available. The national public television broadcasts the leading news programmes with sign language on its repetition channel SFinfo. In addition, the SRG SSR sub-company Swiss TXT has provided subtitles for deaf people in German, French and Italian (teletext) since 1987.
Alternative, non-profit oriented media products do exist, such as weekly newspapers and non-profit radio stations (which receive some license fees from the state). Journalists who work for alternative media do so for little money or voluntarily. There is one feminist magazine for the French-speaking part, but no longer in the German-speaking part. Due to financial problems, the “Frauenzeitschrift Fraz” had to close down in September 2009. Alternative media fight even harder – unless they are subsidized – against the crisis.
