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Global Brief
The latest news from the international broadcasting industry
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Switzerland: new radio and television law
The Swiss parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the new radio and television
law, which took four years to draw up in consultation with over 200 parties. The
changes, if approved by the Senate, are not expected to come into force before the
middle of 2005.
The broadcast bill is intended to reflect changes in the Swiss media landscape and
take into account changing viewer habits. Almost 90 per cent of Swiss are now hooked
up to the cable network and have access to almost 50 different television channels.
With the advent of digital technology this could rise to over 100 different stations.
The huge choice of international channels has led the country’s multilingual viewers
away from domestic broadcasters to neighbouring television stations in France,
Germany and Italy. This has hit the SBC, Switzerland’s main domestic broadcaster.
The current law makes it hard for private television stations in Switzerland to survive.
In recent years, three private stations, Tele24, TV3 and RTL-PRO7, have all closed
down. Supporters of the new law had argued it was time for Switzerland to catch up
with neighbouring countries, where deregulation took place in the 1980s. However,
analysts have warned that Switzerland - with a population of seven million - is too
small to sustain numerous television channels.
Meanwhile, Swiss Radio International - part of the SBC - has announced its intention
to cease shortwave broadcasts in Q4 2004. The station will rely on internet delivery to
its audiences around the world.
New Swiss-German TV station
A new Swiss private television station, U1,
launched on 1 March. Broadcasting in
German, U1 offers information,
entertainment and sports programming. The
schedule also features reality TV,
documentaries and talk shows. Programmes
are produced by a staff of 45 from the
studios of former private channel TV3 in
Schlieren. The Federal Council has granted
U1 a ten year licence. Co-productions are
also planned with some channels in
Germany. Initially 1.2 million households
in German-speaking Switzerland can receive
U1. By the end of the year, this should
increase to 1.7 million. The annual budget
is CHF20 to 25m francs [between US$15.8
- 19.8m]. The channel hopes to break even
within four years.
AP takes on Reuters
The Associated Press (AP) has launched a
new business, AP International (API),
aimed at organising, developing and
expanding all its non-US operations
covering text, photo and video services.
In doing so, it aims to take on its last
remaining global rival, news and
information giant Reuters. Reuters was hit
hard by the global downturn and has only
just begun reporting an upturn in its
fortunes. API may not be seeking to
compete on financial data, but the
competition has still been cranked up. Ian
Ritchie who is heading the API expansion
concedes that the two are very different
businesses - AP is a co-operative, while
Reuters is a FTSE 100 company and, unlike
AP, a well-known brand outside the media
sector - but both are fighting for space in
the same, competitive market. With
extensive resources already to hand - AP
has got 242 bureaux around the globe -
the plan is to build on this infrastructure.
“This is about growth rather than cost
cutting,” says Mr Ritchie. AP Television
News is a Member of the AIB.
Changes at Radio Romania International
As part of a major reorganisation at Radio
Romania International (RRI), two
international channels started
broadcasting from Bucharest on 28 March.
RRI 1 targets the Romanian diaspora and
all Romanian speaking audiences living
abroad; while RRI 2 broadcasts in English,
French, German, Russian, Arabic, Chinese,
Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian and Serbian,
“building and consolidating bridges to
the world.” Shortwave broadcasts in
Hungarian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek and
Portuguese ended on 28 March. The
overhaul of the foreign language services
is a result of the end of the Cold War, and
the fact that Europe is growing closer
together. RRI is a Member of the AIB.
European pay-TV – figures will double
According to a report by independent market analyst Datamonitor, European
consumers spent almost $18 billion on pay-TV services in 2003 and this figure will
more than double by 2007. However the report, European Pay-TV Strategies, says
new subscriber acquisition to pay-TV services will slow due to competition from
basic and free-to-air (FTA) digital television (DTV) services. On the one hand,
operators will have to increase average revenues from their existing customers to
generate greater financial return. On the other, they must seek to operate profitable
services. Enter substantial cost cutting, the most effective way to achieve this.
Acquisition of content is the most costly element of a pay-TV service thus reductions
to programming expenditure will be crucial in this regard. Scale will also be an
important part of the mix. Recent mergers, for example that of Telepiù and Stream in
Italy and an agreement reached between Via Digital and Canal Satellite Digitale in
Spain, highlight this. DTV broadcasters will have to reduce their carriage fees. VoD
whilst an important differentiator for cable operators, will not make a significant
impact in the short-term due to the high levels of investment required. Instead they
should use TV as an incentive to attract customers to other, higher-margin products
such as telephony and, increasingly, broadband.
Are adverts louder than programmes?
What manyTVviewers have long suspected turns out to be true. The French broadcasting
regulator, CSA, has had many letters of complaint
from viewers over the years about the volume of the
TV rising during ad breaks, and so decided to
investigate.
Last June the watchdog asked the Ecole Nationale
Superieure des Telecoms in Paris to study the relative
sound volume of 160 advertising sequences and the
preceding programmes on the four main terrestrial
stations (TF1, France 2, France 3 and M6) over a
five day period in September. Analysing the results,
the Ecole found that in over half of the adverts the
sound level exceeded the average level of the preceding programme, in contravention
of a 1992 decree. Whilst in 35 of the ads the volume was only 1 dB louder than the
programme, in far more cases it was a good deal louder. In a handful of cases the
difference in volume reached 7 dB or even 8 dB.
The study does not name which channels are the biggest offenders. “The purpose of
the exercise was to find out whether or not the problem is real,” said CSA Councillor
Elisabeth Flury-Herrard, “so it would not be appropriate to name the channels. Now
that we know that the problem is real, we can start discussions with the broadcasters.”
