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    Important: if you don’t want to build what the usa currently has become, vote no on this. Weakening neutral media is one of the worst things you can do for democracy
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    Important: if you don’t want to build what the usa currently has become, vote no on this. Weakening neutral media is one of the worst things you can do for democracy

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    38 Comments

    2. Sufficient-History71 on

      Yes, we need more SRG funding not less.

      We can talk about the funding mechanism (progressive taxes) but SRG needs to sustain itself.

      Also tbh 335 is not a lot when compared to increasing rents and medical insurance costs!

    3. Heyokalol on

      You bet I’m going to vote yes on that one. Less funding for the SRG, and I get to keep more of my hard earned money? Damn boy, give me more of that.

    4. BigMechanicBoi on

      Ich find d Grundidee vode SRG guet, aber s Geld wird usem Fenster usegschosse und teils würki de grösst Brunz publiziert, so züg wie Watson und Schrottheftli wie de Blick z finanziere findi danebe. Ich wür dete apacke

    7. poemthatdoesntrhyme on

      It’s a result of the polls in Tamedia. Can it be that it’s not fully representative? I assume that the polls at SRF will show a different result and the reality will be somewhere inbetween.

    9. momentumisconserved on

      Why not fund it directly through taxes instead of having a separate serafe bill?

    11. SegheCoiPiedi1777 on

      I will vote yes, because I don’t want my taxes to fund media outlets, even if they are neutral. I understand your point but I don’t think we are becoming the US.

    12. policygeek80 on

      The costs just exploded. It used to be 140.- and it was delivering the same if not better public service. The reason of the explosion of cost is money to buy rights for Champions League or, even worse, F1 and Motorsport. Those are not public services, it is me paying for sport fans. They can cut while keeping the robust information services they are providing

    13. ShaneAnnigan on

      No, thank you. I don’t want to pay for american TV shows and World Cup or F1. I also don’t want to pay for “investigative” pieces on alternative medicine or why GMOs are bad despite the scientific consensus being that they are safe for human consumption.

      Presenting state sponsored media as “neutral” is dishonest. For example, they are less likely to criticize high tax rates as they receive funding from tax money.

      A large number of US media (CNN, ABC, CBS), for example, have a left-wing bias. Claiming that the US are in the situation they’re in because they don’t have state sponsored media is dishonest too. If the US had state sponsored TV channels, at the moment they’d be broadcasting Trump bullshit all day.

    14. MrDeoBook on

      I am quite dissatisfied with RTS. They live in their left-progressist bubble. Wouldn’t mind paying less

    16. k1rbyt on

      I have so many issues with the title of this post.

      Starting with: “if you don’t want to build what the USA currently has become, vote no on this.”

      The US has been always what is has been, it’s changing, things are happening, but let’s be real and honest, it’s not the media’s fault. There are enough media outlets in the US leaning both ways and there isn’t some monopoly on media by one side or one individual. I understand you don’t like the media landscape in the US, not a lot of people do, but it’s the US and the same way Switzerland is different than the US on many things, it’s also going to be different on the media issue. So somehow extrapolating the issues in the US into Switzerland makes absolutely no sense.

      “Weakening neutral media is one of the worst things you can do for democracy”

      First of all, SRG is not neutral (no matter how much you or the SRG claim otherwise). It’s not extremely biased to one side, but like all state funded medias in Europe it has a left bias, and it’s showing. The only thing that actually weakens a democracy is concentrating the power in media into a smaller and smaller number of outlets (like what Hungary has done). Having a huge SRG with a huge budget is not really ideal, since any other media outlet or player has to compete with this giant.

    17. Miserable_Ad_8695 on

      Absolutely. Democracy is in danger if I can’t watch samschtig jass, a boring movie from a mediocre zhdk student, tatort or tennis/football anymore.

    18. SaneLad on

      I am not in favor of scrapping SRG altogether. But I would like to see a reduction to the core principles of informing the public and supporting local culture. There is no need to collect quasi-taxes to broadcast the UEFA Champions League, for example. I like watching it, but that stuff is extremely expensive and readily available on private media.

    19. SnooBooks3514 on

      Make it donation based. As looks like a lot of people from this thread would pay more. Let us decide.

      I’m pro not paying as always and also not use or care about the mass media. Use your own judgement. There’s no general media.

    21. couple_suisse69 on

      I’m always so amazed how Swiss people are so gullible. Do you guys really think giving a private company money will avoid politicians telling the national media company what to say?

    22. Winter_Current9734 on

      I disagree. The way it is today, it’s a super-left circlejerk as well.

      One example: The content on GMO alone makes me so angry, because it ignores 99% of research, stating the importance of GMO research and plants. This btw is also valid for German public broadcast, where I used to live.

      I agree on the importance of neutral, non-private media. But this current mechanism is not it.

    24. BastiatLaVista on

      State funded media is a predictably horrible idea – look at what happens when bad actors are in charge like in China or Russia. We need to legislate with the objective of limiting the damage of what the worst leaders could do, this is called Maddisonian constitutionalism and has been written on a lot by Karl Popper, John Rawls, and of course James Maddison among others.

      In Switzerland the state media is as biased as you’d expect: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/srf-schweizer-radio-und-fernsehen-bias/

      Guardrails for media accuracy don’t come from government decree – they come from a rich civil society that is able to filter out the nonsense. We need more and better information, from a variety of structures including for and non profit. Extending the power of the state even more, which is in reality what the current model does, is demonstrably bad.

      Edit: Taking the strongest example of state funded media in the world, the BBC, it’s evident to anyone familiar with the perennial shitshow around its neutrality, oversight, and constant scandals how this model works exactly as well as you’d think. From the horse’s mouth: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vn25d5dq7o

    25. MOTUkraken on

      Ah yes, let’s force the people to pay money for a media company that 100% relies on the state forcing people to pay money.

      Surely we will get neutral info from them.

      Then employ almost entirely people who got their entire education solely in state-funded and state-controlled institutions and where 100% of the teachers have their entire income reliant on the state and who also got rheir entire education in state-owned and controlled media by other people who themselves where also entirely reliant on the state.

      Then let’s have state-funded and state-educated scientists conduct a study about if state-funded media has any biases.

      There will be no bias, right?

      A state-funded news-source is correct. But let’s not be so naive and think they are “neutral”

    28. EmergencyKrabbyPatty on

      I was gonna vote yes yet I’m not so sure. I hate the fact that the fat pig wins money over Serafe collect but we also need a financed service. If NO passes nothing change if yes it change for worst but in the end we might have a reshape of how this money is collected in the future

    29. SickNoise on

      i really don’t see how the srg is helping with democracy.. they barely ever have their own view on things and mostly just report the same stuff other media reports. i do think it’s important to have media that doesn’t need to turn a profit but i just can not justify paying for promi crap or sports events.. that has nothing to do with democracy. i want srg to only do important things and i know they could do that with half the budget easily.

    30. Quorbach on

      I’m not too worried. Initiatives tend to be more popular at the beginning of the camapaign. Hut yeah : saying yes to this insanity is dangerous.

    31. hayakumi on

      This comment section really does not make me hopeful for the future.

      People in Switzerland really lost sight of the value of collectivism. A philosophy that built the fundamental mentality of our beautiful nation. All I read here now is a lot of egotistical individualism. Which sadly sort of mirrors the recent voting results.

    32. Obsidian_god on

      I think the SRG went a bit too far. The got more and more money with the increased population and produced some stuff that was not necessary. Meanwhile most of the costs are fixed costs. So a reduction to the core programs is good. Could also increase the quality. i always watch football or F1, but i think i should pay for it and not people that don’t watch it. Also the argument mentioned that that democracy is is danger does not really make sense since they won’t reduce the core programs where they inform the population.

    36. adeleze1 on

      The public television is getting really bad, they prefer to invest in sports right instead of true investigative journalism. It has become so bland (see how they treat the Crans Montana affair, no investigation into the money involved).

      They basically just became the spokeperson of the government and don’t talk me about their “neutrality”, its laughable. It’s gonna be a Yes for me.

    37. AdNervous9050 on

      I’m a swiss law student at HSG and I actually just finished a course about this topic this semester (from a very liberal/libertarian prof), and there are a couple interesting points to consider here, so let me scream them into the void that is this comment section:

      1. While SERAFE is indeed not a tax for the claimed purpose of being “not controlled by the state” it’s similar to a tax per definition (almost the same as a normal “Abgabe”, which is purpose-bound and specific) and the state has almost the same amount of control over it as it would if it was just a normal tax. The money gets collected by a private company, but guess who picks the company who is allowed to raise that money? who defines the amount of money that is allowed to be collected every year? If your answer to those questions is “it’s not the politicians, it’s the voters” – true, but the same goes for taxes.
      2. –> Don’t get me wrong, I am against the Halbierungsinitiative, but realistically, if the money were collected through regular tax collection efforts, the political influence on media wouldn’t change one bit.
      3. It is a common strategy of conservative parties in switzerland to destroy state institutions by reducing their funding, then pointing out that they aren’t doing their job well (because they can’t afford it due to lack of funding), and then use that fact to validate further budget cuts.
      4. Switzerland’s democratic system is heavily dependent on independent media. Now there is some basis to the claims that a couple of SRF formats are more left-leaning (for a few reasons, one of them being their rather young personnel), but there are Ombudsstellen where you can raise a claim against it, which, surprise again, not a lot of people actually do – complaining is a lot easier…
      5. The biggest issue is actually our laws about this whole thing. The constitutional articles that give the state the power to regulate media are simply too old, based on a time when radio and TV were a new thing and dominated the distribution of information, and social media wasn’t a reality yet. There is also a big distinction between the press (=print media) and radio/tv, where the state isn’t allowed to regulate (and therefore also fund) the press at all. I personally believe that creating equal footing between all sorts of media is where we need to start.
      6. last but not least, one of the biggest points of criticism is that the SRG has a lot of entertainment content, which hardly contributes to democracy. I somewhat agree with this viewpoint, but I do believe that entertainment should hold some place within SRG. E.g. the soccer World Cup should be accessible to everybody, not just people with a blue sports subscription. I think global events like that (or also the Olympics) have national value, and stuff like public viewings (which are also organized by SRG) are a plus for our society.

      In conclusion, we should start by correcting our old legal system and maybe rewrite the Leistungsauftrag for SRG to focus more on serving the democracy and reducing entertainment to events that have national value and hold a lot of public interest. Cutting the funding in half though is a very arbitrary and destructive measure that will do no good in the long run! I also believe that if the funding was collected via taxes the people of switzerland would fuss about it wayyy less…

      EDIT: damn my spelling and my grammar has gotten a lot worse, no material statements were changed tho.

    38. DVUZT on

      If people here are so worried about the media landscape, why don‘t we give every household a voucher for 300 Fr. that they can spend on domestic media as they see fit.

      I go onto the SRF website maybe once a week (don’t have a TV), and I honestly don’t see the added value of SRF vs for example NZZ or Tagi. Both newspapers offer more and more in-depth reporting…