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| Picture: Rim Hay VG |
Public service broadcaster SRG will reassess the situation.
SRG Director General Susanne Wille is considering restarting the FM-network under pressure from parliament. If the government (State Council) allows private radio stations to continue broadcasting on FM, Susanne Wille intends to reconsider the plan. The National Council has already decided not to shut down FM. Radio stations should be allowed to broadcast on these frequencies even after 2026. Following the National Council, the relevant committee of the State Council now also supports this, albeit by a narrow margin.
On November 7, with 5 votes to 4 and 2 abstentions, the State Council's Committee on Transport and Telecommunications (KVF-S) voted against shutting down FM at the end of 2026 and supported an extension, which was announced on Friday. The decision will now go to the upper house.
According to the statement, the majority believes that more time should be given for the transition to DAB+. They expressed concern about the decline in listening share following SRG's shutdown of FM at the beginning of the year. This could lead to listeners switching to foreign radio stations even more.
The minority in the committee rejected the proposal. The commission points out that the initiative to shut down FM radio originally came from the radio industry itself, and the switch to DAB+ was announced well in advance. It also notes that continuing FM broadcasting entails costs.
The commission held hearings before its decision. Among those invited was Roger Schawinski, head of Radio 1, who has advocated the continued operation of FM for years. On the other hand, SRG Director General Susanne Wille spoke in favor of the new DAB+ technology. Media Minister Albert Rösti opposed a further expansion of FM radio in the National Council arguing that existing resources should be better used for journalistic content. He announced that if parliament adopts the proposal, the Federal Council will re-auction the FM licenses, which is justified by the requirement of equal treatment.
If private broadcasters continue to broadcast on FM, the SRG does not rule out a return to FM broadcasting. Susanne Wille herself fueled the hopes of FM enthusiasts in an interview on Radio SRF. When asked how far along SRG's planning for a return to FM is, if parliament actually approves new FM licenses, she said: If you have careful management, you consider all options. And that's what we are doing. But first we need to know what the current situation is.
A spokesperson for the SRG writes that currently, FM broadcasting has been extended one last time until the end of 2026. If these conditions change, we will have to reassess the situation. This means that if the Council of State, like the previous National Council, approves new FM licenses from 2027, the SRG will have to reconsider its plans.
In the past, SRG has communicated unequivocally: there is no going back to FM. They were convinced that digitalization could only be successfully implemented in this way. In addition, SRG can save a total of 30 million Swiss francs by switching off its FM transmitters in 2025 and 2026.
The SRG decided to phase out FM from January 2025, not least because they assumed that private radio stations would also have to abandon FM broadcasting from 2027. This decision was taken jointly by SRG, the private broadcasters and the federal government.
However, since the SRG switched to digital-only broadcasting, it has lost around a quarter of its listeners in German-speaking Switzerland, and the losses are significantly higher in French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino. Over the same period, private radio stations such as Radio 1, Radio 24, Energy and Pilatus have seen double-digit percentage gains. These figures have prompted private media companies to reconsider their strategy in recent months. They intend to continue broadcasting both on the Internet and terrestrially (FM and DAB+).
The fact that private radio stations have now taken the fight for FM frequencies all the way to the federal parliament is a source of irritation for the SRG, according to well-informed sources. They believe that the SRG paved the way for the private broadcasters by prematurely shutting down the SRG FM transmitters – and now these private broadcasters are not respecting the agreement.
The SRG can usually count on a broad and relatively stable center-left alliance in the federal parliament, which even extends to part of the FDP (Liberal Party). This has so far protected the public broadcaster from drastic budget cuts. However, the battle lines are different on the FM radio issue, as the National Council's vote in September shows: By a clear margin of 124 to 62, the National Council approved the motion demanding that the federal government should not cancel FM radio licenses as planned from 2027, but instead re-auction them – against the express wishes of the SRG.
The majority was also achieved with votes from the center and left-green camp. Many politicians, especially in French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino, fear that radio listeners will not buy expensive new DAB receivers, but will simply switch to foreign competitors. The reception of FM stations from Germany, France or Italy is excellent, especially in the border cantons.
Baptiste Hurni, a Social Democratic member of the state council from Neuchâtel, says that such a development is indeed a political problem: People who no longer listen to Swiss radio are also less informed about events in Switzerland.
Our comment: Norway will remain as the only country in the world to have closed its national FM network. At least for the time being...
Sources:
Kommission will UKW-Radio verlängern (persoenlich.com)
Ständeräte wollen UKW-Sender weiterlaufen lassen (Tages Anzeiger)
SRG: Rückkehr zu UKW-Radio nicht ausgeschlossen (Tages Anzeiger)
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The Final Countdown - The Future of DAB Radio Is Over