The Media and Entertainment Law Review | 2nd Edition

Overview

The Swiss media landscape faces fundamental structural changes owing to the worldwide digitalisation trend. The population is increasingly informing itself through alternative online media offerings, such as Google, YouTube or individually tailored online content offerings, with a rather low willingness to pay. Against this background, the Swiss Federal Council issued a preliminary draft of a new Electronic Media Act (EMA) in June 2018. The EMA aimed to widen the scope of regulation from traditional media providers (such as radio and television broadcasters as regulated under the current the Swiss Federal Act on Radio and Television of 24 March 2006 (RTVA)) to online media offerings with similar audio or audiovisual programmes. However, the outcome of the consultation proceedings on the EMA turned out to be so controversial that the Swiss Federal Council decided, on 28 August 2019, that it will not propose the enactment of the EMA, but will instead revise the RTVA. Stakeholders claimed that the EMA did not improve the difficult economic situation of the press and that it lacked a constitutional basis. In this context, the Swiss Federal Council announced its will to implement measures to financially support online media with editorial content providing high journalistic standards and newspapers, owing to the digital shift. A package of recommended measures will be submitted to parliament in the first half of 2020.

Radio and television broadcasters with a public licence are under a constitutional obligation to contribute to education, cultural development, opinion-forming and entertainment in Switzerland (public services). Since self-financing through advertising is not considered sufficient to fulfill this mandate in an independent manner, a public radio and television fee is charged in Switzerland. Prior to 2019, this fee had to be paid by every holder of a television or radio device. In the course of the revision of the RTVA, this fee has been detached from the ownership of a television or radio device. The underlying rationale of the enacted statute was that almost every other electrical device (such as mobile phones or computers) is now capable of receiving and viewing broadcasted content. The new radio and television fee amounts to 365 Swiss francs for each private household per year and, for businesses with an annual turnover of over 500,000 Swiss francs, it ranges from 365 to 35,590 Swiss francs per year, depending on the turnover.

The chapter for Switzerland was written by Dr Dirk Spacek. Please find below the complete article to download.

Accreditation: Reproduced with permission from Law Business Research Ltd. This article was first published in The Law Reviews (Published: January 2021). For further information please visit https://thelawreviews.co.uk/.