Tribune. The debate on the financing of the public audiovisual is launched, especially in this newspaper. The presidential campaign shows various proposals, ranging from the replacement of the fee by a budget allocation to the privatization of the entire sector.
Obviously, this theme is sensitive. It concerns a fragile ecosystem, shriveled by the international pressure of streaming platforms, plowed by social networks. He also fascinates the political world, which indulges in the drunkenness of being both regulatory, customer and consumer of the media. Switzerland, with its model of direct democracy, constitutes an interesting laboratory. Because, in this small federal, multilingual and multicultural state, the population can decide, by a vote, the fate of its public service.
The Swiss broadcasting company (SSR) is thus the only European public service to have been confronted directly by universal suffrage. In 2018, a popular ballot, which aimed at deleting any form of public funding, inflamed the country, which discussed Radio, television and online SSR programs as ever. And the European audiovisual followed, stunned, this bill for or against the existence of public service media. Finally, after a very intense campaign, the verdict of the polls was without appeal: more than 70% in favor of the public service and a royalty that rises today at about 330 euros a year, for all households!
Crucial debate
Despite this success, a new federal popular initiative has just been launched. Currently in the cropping phase of signatures (we need 100,000 to trigger a vote), this proposal aims this time to reduce the means of SSR by 50%. In this chronic hostility with regard to the public service, we can distinguish four great thought movements that add up or intertwine.
First, a political, classical current, considers that the public service is oriented rather on the left and that it must be weakened. Still in the political register, a neoliberal component believes that the public service must fade for the market and private actors. In a more societal dimension, there are those who think that public media have become propaganda institutions in the service of the State and that it is necessary to fight them in the name of freedom. This trend has been doped by the CVIV-19 crisis. There is, finally, a consumer audience, which has nothing against the public service as such, but which does not agree to pay only what it consumes. Often young people, these opponents refuse the principle of compulsory royalty.
You have 57.57% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.