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A popular initiative seeking to abolish the public broadcasting license fee failed to impress the Swiss Federal Council. Supporters collected 112 thousand signatures, 100 thousand are required, for the “No Billag” initiative. A referendum, different legal procedure, calling for restrictions on license fee collections failed a popular vote in June 2015.
“The Federal Council is of the opinion that adoption of the popular initiative would have significant effects on the Swiss media landscape and would significantly weaken Switzerland’s position as a media center,” said the official statement. “Diversity of opinion-forming and diversity of electronic media service offerings would also be severely restricted. This fundamentally contradicts the Federal Council’s media policy approach which is why the popular initiative without a counter proposal was rejected.” (See full statement here - in French)
Swiss public broadcaster SSR-SRG collects CHF 1.2 billion (about €1.1 billion) annually from the household device license fee and about CHF 300 million (about €275 million) from advertising. Supporters of the “No Billag” initiative, unsurprisingly right-wing political parties UDC and PLR, have long complained about everything from market dominance and program “quality” to executive and staff salaries. Billag is the license fee collection agent, a subsidiary of telecom Swisscom in which the Swiss government holds a 51% stake.
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