“No other choice”: SRG cuts 900 full-time positions
https://www.watson.ch/schweiz/medien/920668374-srg-streicht-900-stellen-weitere-entlassungen-bei-srf
Posted by as-well
“No other choice”: SRG cuts 900 full-time positions
https://www.watson.ch/schweiz/medien/920668374-srg-streicht-900-stellen-weitere-entlassungen-bei-srf
Posted by as-well
18 Comments
I linked the non-paywalled watson article, more details over at Tamedia: https://www.derbund.ch/srg-900-stellen-fallen-dem-sparzwang-zum-opfer-922724397697
As per Tamedia, more info translated with Deepl:
> As already communicated in the summer, the current savings targets will inevitably also affect employees. Subject to the consultation process, SRG is expected to cut 900 full-time positions across all regions by 2029. Director General Susanne Wille comments: “We regret these job cuts. The political decisions and the environment in which we operate as a media company leave us with no other choice. SRG is handling the job cuts as responsibly and socially acceptably as possible.”
> One-third, or around 300 of the total 900 full-time positions, will be cut as part of the ongoing cost-saving program. These job cuts have already been consulted on and are underway. A further 600 jobs will have to be cut by 2029. Layoffs are unavoidable. Some of the 600 jobs will be cut through natural attrition and retirements, subject to the results of the consultation process. The SRG’s social plan will be applied to the planned job cuts.
> **This is how the savings amount is calculated**
> The Federal Council has decided to reduce the media levy for households from CHF 335 to CHF 300 until 2029 and to exempt further companies from this levy. This decision will result in a loss of revenue of CHF 120 million for the SRG until 2029. In addition, there will be CHF 90 million less in commercial revenue and an inflation-related increase in operating costs of more than CHF 60 million. According to current assumptions, the SRG will therefore have to save CHF 270 million by 2029. This corresponds to around 17 percent of its 2024 budget.
SVP and FDP – yay!
Are reforms needed? Yes! Perhaps change the licensing fee to taxpayer funded one with progressive taxes.
There is already a lack of trustworthy media. We are just accelerating our fall as a society.
Two things can be true at the same time:
– We need objective media
– People get informed from other sources than SRF
If anything, I would say people need to read less the news. It is undeniable, though, that social media nowadays replace many news sources.
Good luck to democracy. Nevertheless, I am not sure what is the solution.
Let’s change “state run broadcast channels” to “state run newspaper” and see if any of the arguments in favor of this still hold.
It’s an idiotic concept and making people pay for it is absolutely wrong.
Cool.
Can’t wait to see hockey games on TV in between conspiracy theory ads and debates between people who all agree with each other about how immigrants and ecologists are a problem.
I’m baffled that there are still more than 900 people working at srf
The SRG has a fundamental problem: young people don’t watch its programmes. Furthermore, I cannot understand why sports broadcasting is still an SRG offering. There are many private providers who cover football, tennis, cycling and the Olympics, among other sports. By simply cutting sports programmes, the SRG could easily achieve the necessary savings without affecting programmes of real journalistic value.
For the quality of the journalistic and biased service, 200 CHF is way too much.
With the current AI tools, one journalist can easily produce the content of 3-5 people from the past with the comparable or higher quality. With the resultant efficiency, the media levy should have been cut a lot more than 10%.
Please keep the Mona Mittendrin on YouTube
The proper question here should be why SRG has 7100 employee. The NZZ, which is a high quality newspaper and provides more detailed analysis than SRG in most cases, has 850 employees. Assuming you would need regional coverage (German, Italian, French), that means max 3×850 employees. So either SRG is inefficient and/or TV as a medium is inefficient.
Additionally, as I have already said in other threads, I don’t understand why SRG has so many channels. Most of the things they broadcast is just entertainment for the proletarians. If you want a public broadcaster with ”neutral“ and “quality” news, then the proper thing to do is to apply pressure on SRG to actually deliver that. Actions movies, Glanz und Gloria, Pop channels or Formula 1 for example are not news.
900 people gone, and I bet not much will change. Makes you wonder what those people did there in the first place.
good, we need to keep the budget balanced
How many people work at the SRG ? I don’t like people loosing their job but it kinda seems to me like the organization is oversized compared to the needs of Switzerland. Also, I am sorry but why are we buying the rights to all the TV shows that go on to be watched on the French TV the same week ? I think SRG needs to downside their operations to reflect the current media landscape. If you asked me how many people worked there I’d say close to 1000. But now you say that 900 are cut ? That means that there are thousands of positions… Is that really needed nowadays.
Neither immigrants nor ecologists took away these jobs. Remember this people!
Outdated model.
Can be and will be pushed down the road for a few years but live tv is dead below a certain age.
I can see a justification for a much reduced web offering but it really can’t and won’t survive in its present guise for decades.
It’s like defining the horse and cart in 1910. The time is up.
Few things worry me more than the death of journalism.
we already have over 10k unemployed highly educated people in bern alone struggling to find a job in this offshoared economy but sure lets add a few hundred more because uhh… reasons?