The media landscape is characterised by a high level of technical reach and, in principle, unlimited public access, disregarding costs of newspaper subscription and broadcast fees (see Indicator E5 – Affordable public and private news media). There are hardly any linguistic or regional, and only limited urban-country divides as far as the supply of newspapers is concerned, although broadband access to the Internet is partly restricted in remote areas. Each linguistic area is provided with its own media: private-commercial and public service radio and television programs, daily and weekly newspapers, as well as various periodicals (Meier et al., 2011). Extensive cable networks (e.g., by UPC) and Swisscom, together with mobile telecommunication networks by Swisscom and digital platforms (e.g., by UPC or Sunrise), allow most Swiss households to access programmes from neighbouring countries, sharing one of the country’s national languages. Increasing access to electronic media, particularly via the Internet, has further expanded the availability of news and information sources. This holds true even in 2020.
But since the 1990s, press concentration in the form of large-scale mergers into monopoly newspapers in central and eastern Switzerland has strongly increased (e.g., Bühler & Moser, 2020), combined with a background of declining readership of subscribed newspapers and advertising flows into Internet platforms. In addition, newspapers are increasingly now read online, for example, via mobile phones, and television programs are watched via computers and not necessarily in real time.
Concerning broadcast media, in past years, the Swiss radio and television landscape has experienced some fundamental changes. In 2006, the Swiss Parliament adopted a new Federal Radio and Television Act (RTVG) to ensure the dominant role of SRG SSR. In parallel, the law supports local-regional, commercial licensed broadcasters with performance mandates. Ten years later, public service broadcasting came under political pressure, mainly because of the “No Billag” initiative, which called for the abolition of radio and television reception fees. However, in March 2018, 71.6 per cent of the voters said no to the initiative against SRG SSR.
The public broadcasting corporationSRG SSR is the most important producer of radio and television programmes. Institutionalised by law and financed by obligatory licence fees, it is entrusted with the mandate to provide all linguistic regions with programmes of equal quality on a public service basis. Its programming mission, Art. 24 in RTVG (2006), states:
Comprehensive supply of the entire population and promotion of understanding, cohesion and exchange among the national regions, language communities, cultures and social groups through comprehensive, diverse and appropriate information on political, economic and social contexts, namely for the free formation of opinion, cultural development, education and entertainment of the public.
The SRG SSR operates between three and six radio stations in each language region in German, French, and Italian, with a total of 17 radio programmes. A full programme is also being produced for the Rhaeto-Romanesque regions. In each linguistic region, there are television studios in Zurich, Genf (Geneva), and Lugano producing seven television programmes, two for each region, and one in Chur for the Rhaeto-Romanic language (only a few hours per week). In addition, the German part of Switzerland is provided with a 24-hour information channel, repeating the latest news programmes initially shown on one of the two regular channels. Furthermore, 37 private radios with 149 programmes and 13 private televisionstations with 155 programmes exist in the local and regional markets (BAKOM, 2020a).
In addition, the SRG SSR produces and offers the widest broadcasts on both television and radio with market shares of about 38 per cent for SRF Television, compared with 11 per cent of the commercial local television stations, and a market share of 61 per cent for SRF Radio, while the commercial local radio stations in the German part of Switzerland (2019 data) possess 35 per cent. Of the Swiss population (15+), 60 per cent use television, 61 per cent listen to radio programmes, and 33 per cent use online supply every week, all provided by SRG SSR (2020b).
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In terms of press, Switzerland has renowned, high-quality elite newspapers such as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), which is mainly read by economic elites. Popular media such as the tabloid newspaper Blick are read more by the rural population, while the free-sheet 20Minuten has the highest reach and is aimed at young commuters in major agglomerations. As in most European countries, traditional regional press in Switzerland also came under severe pressure due to the launch of the free-sheet 20Minuten in 1999 by Tamedia, for commuters, in the German-speaking Switzerland, followed by its introduction in Romandie in 2006 and Ticino in 2011. Paradoxically, even high-quality newspapers such as the NZZ now publish advertisements as editorial articles, which are misleadingly referred to by the readership as “Publireportage” or “Sponsored Content”. Sponsored travel and car items have also increased because of the commercial pressure on newspapers in the small market of Switzerland. Processes of horizontal concentration (see Indicators E1 & E2 – Media ownership concentration national and regional level) have also been very strong in the last 20 years. Today, there are only five media companies dominating the press market (all circulation numbers by WEMF, 2019; 1 April 2018–31 March 2019).
Tamedia, today namedTX Group – the largest publishing company,with over 50 brands, 3,700 employees, and a business volume of CHF 1,080 million in 2019 – published the following regionally leading daily newspapers: Tages-Anzeiger (130,957); the Sunday paper SonntagsZeitung (146,126); the Berner Zeitung and Der Bund (119,700 total), both published in Bern, the capital of Switzerland; and Basler Zeitung (40,422). Tamedia also publishes 20Minuten (424,502) in German and 20 minutes (169,453) in the French-speaking part, a Monday-to-Friday daily for commuters, free of charge. The title 20 minuti for the Italian-speaking Switzerland has a circulation of 32,192 copies. In addition, Tamedia, in 2010, bought the three leading daily newspapers 24Heures (49,107), Le Matin (after 2018 online-only), and Tribune de Genève (31,282) in the French-speaking part of Switzerland with approximately 3,600 employees and sales payment media approximately for CHF 570 million (2018).
Ringier AG produces the daily tabloid newspaper Blick (107,119), the evening free-sheet Blick am Abend (2008–2018), and the Sunday newspaper Sonntagsblick (129,715), together with 30 magazines, comprising about 550 employees and a total business volume of CHF 1,004 million in 2018.
CH Media producesdifferent regional newspapers, which – before 2018 – were published by AZ Medien in the region of Aargau, Solothurn, Basel-Land (Basel country), and owned by Peter Wanner. It was integrated in the form of a joint venture in 2018 with the NZZ-Media Group and its regional titles like Luzerner Zeitung (110,081 total) and St. Galler Tagblatt (109,077 total), totalled to about 20 local newspapers with a central editorial office in Aarau, about 2,000 employees and a business volume of CHF 448 million in 2019.
The NZZ Media Groupwith its flagship NZZ (96,109) is a highly regarded national daily newspaper, and its Sunday counterpart NZZ am Sonntag (110,815) has a separate editorial staff. In addition, it owned several regional newspapers, now integrated into the joint venture CH Media Group, which has 780 employees and a business volume in 2019 of CHF 231 million.
Somedia, the former Südostschweiz Media House by Hanspeter Lebrument, publishes several regional and local newspapers in the Cantons Graubünden (Grisons), Glarus, and St. Gallen (St. Gall), namely the Südostschweiz together with the Bündner Zeitung (73,252 total), and La Quotidiana in Rätoromantsch (romansh) language (3,917).
There are also local free papers. Christoph Blocher, a well-known right-wing conservative SVP (Schweizerische Volkspartei [Swiss People’s Party]) politician and former Federal Councillor, bought the Zehnder publishing house in 2018, which issued 25 local-regional free papers with a total circulation of approximately 835,000 examples.
The five big media companies mentioned above, together with further titles, produced and distributed a total of 312 newspapers (including local non-dailies) in 2009, and 269 in 2019, with a total circulation of 9.2 million in 2009 and 5.9 million in 2019. Switzerland is still one of the richest countries in terms of number of newspapers published in proportion to its population and geographical size (VSM, 2019). However, many titles are virtually identical in terms of foreign and domestic reporting. Newspapers are also widely available in all regions: 221 titles with a total circulation of 4.8 million in the German part, 35 titles with a circulation of 94,000 in the French part, and 11 titles with a circulation of 172,700 in the Italian part of Switzerland in 2019. More than half of the cantonal capitals and almost all major cities have at least one regional newspaper, although 12 cantons do not have their own daily newspaper, but only a local editorial office, such as Appenzell Outer Rhodes, Basel-Country, Glarus, Lucerne, Nidwald, Obwald, Schwyz, Solothurn, St. Gall, Thurgovia, Uri, and Zug.
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Nonetheless, the number of newspapers and the total circulation has decreased in the past decade by about a third. Furthermore, big publishing houses are in possession of different newspapers in different regions. This diminishes the diversity of newspapers, as they share most of the international and national politics sections and only provide the bare minimum on exclusive local or regional content (Meier, 2017; Studer, 2017). Table 3 illustrates that only a few publishing houses control the leading newspapers in the 26 cantons like TX Group, Ringier Axel Springer, NZZ Media Group, and CH Media in the German part of Switzerland. The total number of “independent” titles, meanwhile, are about 35 (VSM, 2019).
Today, all press titles are also present on the Internet. This also applies to broadcasters. In addition, there are usually smaller local-regional news media with an online presence only, such as tsüri.ch, bajour.ch, and zentralplus.ch, or national news platforms such as infosperber.ch or watson.ch.
