The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG) announced Monday that it would cut some 900 jobs over the next three years as it strives to reduce costs “amid upheavals in the media landscape”.
The broadcasting group, which operates channels in Switzerland’s four national languages, said it needed to save 270 million Swiss francs ($334 million) by 2029, equivalent to 17 percent of its 2024 budget.
This, it said, would require it to “eliminate 900 fulltime-equivalent positions” out of about 7,100 currently.
“We regret these job cuts,” SRG chief Susanne Wille said in a statement, explaining that “the political decisions and the context in which our company operates leave us no other choice”.
SRG pointed to “major challenges”, including the Swiss government’s decision to cut the public media licence that provides a large chunk of its revenue, as well as falling commercial revenues.
“The public is increasingly turning to digital media,” leading to “a profound upheaval for the media, both in Switzerland and abroad,” SRG said in a statement.
“Faced with the upheavals in the media landscape, the company must reinvent itself.”
In June 2024, the Swiss government decided to lower the licence fee, which currently stands at 335 francs per household annually, to 300 francs by 2029, deeming that SRG had sufficient resources.
And next March, the Swiss will be called on to vote on an initiative to slash the licence fee to just 200 francs, put forward under the country’s direct democracy system.
Back in 2018, another initiative that called for the total elimination of all public funding for public broadcasting was rejected by nearly 72 percent of voters.
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