Online media in Switzerland: facts are stubborn, the masks are falling!

Nothing shows that public service online offerings directly harm the commercial performance of private media. After an extensive Scandinavian study conducted by the Norwegian regulator on NRK, the University of Zurich has now analyzed the situation in Switzerland. And what does this newly published study reveal?

Quite simply, users of SRG platforms are more likely to visit online news sites than those who do not engage with public service media! In other words, the appetite for news increases when there is a strong supply of quality content. The Scandinavians pointed this out; the Swiss now confirm it.

The Zurich study also shows that the use of SRG’s digital news offerings has no impact on people’s willingness to pay for online content. Once again, the Swiss findings confirm a large-scale survey conducted across 28 European countries.

Those advocating a different interpretation may attack the study’s methodology and credibility—as is often the case—but the truth is that public service media are neither the problem nor the solution for private media.

Weakening SRG or restricting its online activities would not help private media. On the contrary, it’s highly likely such measures would benefit international platforms, particularly American ones. We’ve already had a taste of this with online advertising. Remember: public service media are not allowed to monetize their online audiences. And who benefits from this restriction? Not the Swiss market, but the major international platforms, YouTube at the forefront. The figures on the shift of advertising investments to digital speak for themselves.

“If SRG didn’t exist, would we really be better off?”

Some people wonder: “Yes, but if SRG didn’t exist, or if it couldn’t do anything online, wouldn’t that create an opportunity for us?” Well, that’s far from certain. Today, in a hyperconnected, media-saturated world, you cannot force the public to use one offering over another. They need to want it, to see the added value. As some have rightly noted, media consumption time is not infinitely elastic, and a massive reduction in time spent on SRG’s online services does not mean that time will automatically transfer to Swiss private media. In reality, time spent on international streaming platforms is skyrocketing. This is not where the solution lies for Swiss private media.

Quarrels of Another Era

No, it would be far more intelligent to end these outdated quarrels and instead seek a constructive relationship between public and private media, so we can focus on real responses to the growing competition. The goal is not to prohibit but to look for added value. First and foremost in terms of content: locally rooted productions, the capacity to organize debates that are useful to society, and solid, verified information—these are the key ingredients to engage the public!

On the commercial side, why not explore innovative paths, such as joint commercialization of certain online inventories—for example, in sports or fiction? A combined Swiss offering in the online advertising market could certainly help slow the constant exodus of Swiss advertising revenues to international platforms, which do not reinvest their profits in Swiss production.

There Is Urgency!

This is all the more pressing because there is urgency. According to the Reuters international study, trust in Swiss media is at a low 41%. Thankfully, it is over 60% for major newspapers and over 70% for the public broadcaster SRG. The 2024 study also shows a downward trend in perceptions of Swiss media quality. Meanwhile, the proportion of people who primarily get their news from social media has risen to 45.7%! To this list of challenges, we can add increasing media concentration, leading to reduced diversity—a phenomenon likely exacerbated by the growing translation of German-language articles into French. Finally, there is significant and justified public skepticism about the expanding use of artificial intelligence in Swiss media.

So really, rather than clinging desperately to restrictions or outright bans on public service media, let’s focus on multiplying public-private collaborations. This is, in the end, the main recommendation of the researchers from the University of Zurich. And they’re right!