27 novembre 2009 On the decline of shortwave transmissions in the digital era: the transformation of...

27 novembre 2009

On the decline of shortwave transmissions in the digital era: the transformation of Swiss Radio International (SRI) into an Internet site (www.swissinfo.ch) (1985-2009)

27 novembre 2009 Raphaëlle Ruppen Coutaz2

ISSUES The end of the Cold War leads, in general terms, to a veritable identity crisis for international radio stations in the West. What are they actually useful for in this international environment of détente? Many governments respond to this challenge by reconsidering their participation in the financing of this means of communication. Moreover, increasing competition due to the liberalisation of many audiovisual markets and to the development of new technologies does not make the task of international radio stations any easier. The latter must face up to an increased and diversified offer of programmes. As a result, the 1990s are marked by the fight international radio stations conduct in order to acquire a new legitimacy and to reinforce their presence on the international airwaves.


What, in this context, is the strategy Swiss Radio International(SRI) develops?The aim of this presentation is to analyse how a “traditional”international radio station transforms itself into a multimediaenterprise and to examine the extent to which SRI has servedas a laboratory for a more profound revision of the role of radiobroadcasting in the Swiss media landscape when it comes toInternet. This will mean studying the debates that haveaccompanied the move from shortwave transmissions to thedigital era. Subtending the different positions is a certainconception of the mission Swiss Radio International must fulfiland of the public it is supposed to reach. To end, we will seethat the radical strategic reorientation that this organisationopts for is to speed up the calling into question of the definitionof the Swiss audiovisual public service.


PLAN1. Introduction. Specificities of the Swiss media landscape and

the characteristics of SRI/swissinfo

2. 1985-1998 Swiss Radio International, a “drunken boat”?

3. 1998-2004 "Swiss Radio International finds its voice on the net"

4. 2004-2009 The Web, SRI’s saviour or enemy?

5. Conclusion. Towards a redefinition of the Swiss audiovisual public service


SPECIFICITIES OF THE SWISS MEDIA LANDSCAPE • In 1931 the radio broadcasting service is entrusted to the

Société suisse de radiodiffusion (SSR), a private company that, by virtue of a concession granted by the Federal Council, fulfils a public service mandate.

• Until 1953 this company is made up of six studios/enterprise units.

• Created in 1935, the Swiss Shortwave Service (SOC), the forerunner of Swiss Radio International (SRI), is institutionally recognised in 1953 as the SSR’s seventh studio.


Rapport annuel de la SSR 2002, p. 46.


• In the new 1953 concession the Swiss Confederation stipulates the twin task the SOC must fulfil: "Shortwave transmissions must tighten the bonds uniting Swiss people living abroad to their country and contribute to Switzerland’s influence throughout the world."

• The transformation of the Swiss Shortwave Service, instituted at the beginning of the 1970s, is formally expressed, on 5 November, 1978, in the new name it is given: "Swiss Radio international".


THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SRI/swissinfo• Number of languages: from 9 for SRI (German, French, Italian,

English, Spanish, Portuguese, Esperanto, Arabic, Romansh) to 10 for www.swissinfo.ch (German, French, Italian, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Arabic, Chinese and Russian).

• Number of personnel: 126 in 1985, 150 in 1995, 190 in 2000, 180 in 2005 and 148 in 2008.

• Volume of transmission: 15,000 hours in 1985, 50,704 hours in 1995 and 65,973 hours a year in 2000.

• Financing and budget: the Swiss Confederation is responsible for half the budget of this enterprise unit from 1985 onwards. The remainder is financed by the SSR and by the access fee Swiss listeners and viewers pay. Common revenue: 15,083,000 CHF in 1985, 27,060,561 CHF in 1995, 49,671,548 CHF in 2000, 33,731,000 CHF in 2005, 26,169,000 CHF in 2008.


1985-1998 SWISS RADIO INTERNATIONAL, A "DRUNKEN BOAT"?• It becomes more and more difficult for SRI to be heard and

to counterbalance the power of foreign transmitters, particularly active in the Cold War period. The decrepitude of the shortwave transmitter in Schwarzenbourg (Bern), which starts up in 1939, and the difficulties of reception that result from this, call the existence of Swiss Radio International into question.

• Improving the capacity of the Schwarzenbourg transmitter is seemingly unavoidable, then. In 1985, the Federal Post and Telecommunications Office, responsible for transmission infrastructures in Switzerland, presents a project for renovating this station. Fearing the harmful effects arising from magnetic fields, local residents and ecologist associations reject this.


• Other ways of compensating for these technical defects must, therefore, be urgently found. Swiss Radio International partially remedies the bad reception of its programmes by calling in particular upon relay transmitters and by reinforcing its transcription service. In 1987 it also launches out into television.

• In 1992 the more than 500,000 Swiss people living abroad obtain the right to vote and to passive suffrage.

• On 29 March 1992 SRI launches its programme on the Astra satellite and presents its new strategy ("SRI Futura") which consists of according a precise goal to each of its means of broadcasting: shortwave transmissions intended mainly for Swiss listeners abroad, for developing countries and for areas of conflict / satellite transmissions intended mainly for Europe and which enables programmes to be supplied to foreign stations anywhere in the world.


• In 1994 SRI launches two satellite programmes in French and English for Europe. Two other satellite programmes will follow in Italian and German, but they will be provisory owing to the lack of financial security. Among the set of economic measures it foresees, the Federal Council proposes to Parliament a significant reduction in the subsidy it was hitherto conceding to SRI. Fortunately for the latter, the Federal Assembly will finally not follow the government. For all that, one notes a progressive erosion of the federal aid granted to SRI.

• A project to launch an international satellite TV channel = first real danger for international radio broadcasting. This project will come to nothing, mainly for budgetary reasons.


• At the end of 1995 SRI takes its first steps on Internet by offering basic information = second real danger for international radio broadcasting.

The different protagonists hold the view that real alternatives to the use of shortwave transmissions do not exist as yet. Complementarity of vectors or "drunken boat"?

The idea gradually takes hold of turning Swiss Radio International into a "Swiss Media International" (a concept which appears in 1997) depending on the electronic media as a whole: radio, television and Internet.


1998-2004 "SWISS RADIO INTERNATIONAL FINDS ITS VOICE ON THE NET" • As the economic measures of the Confederation are put into

practice, SRI has to make considerable sacrifices in order to adapt to the situation. The shutting down of the transmitter in Schwarzenbourg, decided by the SSR at the end of March 1998, marks the disappearance of a huge part of the identity of Swiss Radio International.

• On 1 April 1998 the first radio transmissions are broadcast on line. SRI nevertheless wishes to go further by creating a comprehensive information portal about Switzerland containing, at one and the same time, text, sound and image.

• In March 1999, launch of the Internet site www.swissinfo.ch.


It seems increasingly clear to the actors involved in making strategic choices that the survival of SRI will lie in this new means of communication. However, the idea persists that Internet, as much as television and satellite, cannot take the place of shortwave transmissions in the international radio broadcasting sector.

• The pluridisciplinary approach that the different supports call for obliges SRI/swissinfo personnel to do a multimedia training course.

• The general directorate of SSR designates SRI/swissinfo as a centre that must amalgamate all the Web know-how of the entire public organisation. Creation in 2001 of the "Webfactory".


• Despite the success that ensues, the financial pressure exerted by the Confederation, which seeks to carry through its programme of budgetary restrictions, continues to develop. In 2003 the government proposes to the SSR to increase the access fee in exchange for halting the concession of the federal subsidy, which it refuses. No entity seems really to want to finance SRI/swissinfo, each one batting back the ball (the Confederation to Parliament, the SSR to SRI/swissinfo). The ending of the Federation’s participation in SRI/swissinfo will be re-discussed on the occasion of the formulation of the new 2006 law on radio and television. But from the point of view of this reduction, the SSR must make good the shortfall and SRI/swissinfo is obliged to make major cuts and to institute a partial restructuring.


• SRI/swissinfo must therefore reduce the number of workstations by 26 in 2003; then it is finally forced in 2004 to completely forgo, despite the promises made on that score, broadcasting on shortwave.

=>

1) Internet gradually becomes the main broadcasting support. This "recentring" on the net occurs at the expense of radio production, and then will put an end to the development on television and to broadcasting by satellite.

2) One has a presentiment here of an about-turn in the strategy of the SSR, which reduces its support for swissinfo in favour of the sites of other enterprise units.


2004-2009 THE WEB, SRI’S SAVIOUR OR ENEMY?

• Because of the financial difficulties that continue to assail the SSR, its Administrative Council proposes, in March 2005, to reduce swissinfo’s offer to a minimum service in order to put an end to duplicating SSR’s other sites. swissinfo would not be available except in its English version. For current events in the national languages of Switzerland, the international audience would be able to fall back upon the Internet sites of other enterprise units. An economic measure or a transferring of resources?

• French- and German-speaking newspaper publishers do not look favourably upon the backing given to the SSR’s regional sites. The SSR must therefore forgo advertising on its Internet sites from 2006.


• The Federal Assembly backs SRI/swissinfo and reproaches the SSR for wanting to unilaterally settle the matter of Switzerland’s external communications policy. By accepting this project, Switzerland would run counter to its neighbouring countries in the field of international communication.

• Finally, the SSR suspends its restructuring measures, largely because of major protests. The new 2006 law on radio and television reiterates the clause according to which the Confederation and the SSR must assume the financing of SRI/swissinfo on a fifty-fifty basis. This provision is a shot in the arm for SRI/swissinfo, at least until 2011, the date on which the mandate on services that binds it to the Confederation will be renegotiated.


=>

1) Is the Web a danger to SRI?

2) The recurrent debates about SRI/swissinfo have prompted the SSR and the Confederation to ask themselves about the place they were intending to give to Internet in the new 2006 law on radio and television.

3) Strong and weak points of the different means of communication: the question of reception, the question of cost, the question of the digital divide, the question of censorship.


TOWARDS A REDEFINITION OF THE SWISS AUDIOVISUAL PUBLIC SERVICE Positions of the different actors:• The Federal Council has always had an ambiguous position

towards SRI/swissinfo: financial difficulties, the multiplicity of existing organs to promote the image of Switzerland abroad, the question of the independence of the media.

• Since 2003, a hardening of the position of the SSR general directorate in opposition to SRI/swissinfo, seeing that it goes so far as to once more call into question the legitimacy of this service within the framework of the public service mandate it must fulfil. Shouldn’t it be down to the Confederation, instead, to entirely finance an offer intended for an international audience? This is a form of blackmail exerted by the SSR on the Confederation.


• Parliament has backed SRI/swissinfo up until now. It is true that this organ has a certain interest in defending the cause of Swiss people abroad, above all since they have the right to vote (1992)...

• The Conseil du public of SRI/swissinfo and the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad have always defended SRI/swissinfo tooth and nail. Their main argument: the need to produce a content that is aimed specifically at an international audience, more especially as Switzerland would have particular need of a considerable media presence in order to explain phenomena that are unique to it and which are not always understood beyond its frontiers.

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