Television in Switzerland

Television in Switzerlandwasintroduced in 1950, with regular broadcasts commencing in 1953. People who live inSwitzerlandare required by law to pay atelevision licencefee, which is used to finance the public radio and television serviceSRG SSR. Since 1 January 2021, theLicence feecost in all thelinguistic regions of Switzerlandis 335CHFper year or 83.75 CHF quarterly (with a 2 CHF fee if paid via LSV+, Debit Direct, or e-billing, and the invoice is sent via email), counting both radio and television licences.All licence fee payers are entitled under the law to services of equal quality. The fee is charged per household and not per person, with empty dwellings being exempt. The fee is determined by the Federal Council.
The history of television in Switzerland began in 1939 when the first test transmissions commenced. Regular transmissions started in1953, at first only one hour a day for five days a week, and only inGerman: transmissions inFrenchstarted in 1954 and inItalianonly in 1958.
Romansh-speaking Swiss had to wait until 1963 for the first programme in their language, a full decade after regular television transmission were initiated.  To this day, there is no dedicated Romansh-language channel; instead the German and Italian channels air a few hours of Romansh programming per day.  The 1960s also saw the arrival oftelevision advertisingin 1964 andcolour televisionin 1968.
Télévision suisse romandebroadcast their first evening programme incolourin 1968.1968 was also the first year where more than one million Swiss households had a television.
In 1984, the Swissteletextservice,SWISS TXT, was started. In 1993 a fourthSRG SSRchannel was created, first namedS Plusbut in 1995 was renamedSchweiz 4(Switzerland 4). However, this was short-lived: during its existence the channel constantly suffered low ratings and was hence shut down in 1997. In the same year, as a result, all theSRG SSRsubsidiaries started a second channel, andSRF zwei,RTS DeuxandRSI La 2came into existence.
Analogue television was phased out starting July2006, whenTSI(nowRSI) began the analogue switchoff. The process continued until January2008, when the end of analogue broadcasting inValaisandChablaiscompleted thedigital television transitionin Switzerland.
In September 2018, SRG SSR announced that it would discontinue over-the-air broadcasting inDVB-Tin 2019, citing costs, rather than implementDVB-T2. The services will remain available via IPTV and encrypted free-to-view satellite, which offers all SRG SSR channels inhigh definition.
The following is a list oftelevision channelsbroadcast in Switzerland:
Switzerland receives some domestic cable networks from Germany, which may involve the substitution of German advertising with domestic Swiss advertising by the local provider.
The channels with the largest viewing share in 2023 (1. Semester) are:
Switzerland receives some domestic cable networks from France, which may involve the substitution of French advertising with domestic Swiss advertising by the local provider.
Switzerland receives some domestic cable networks from Italy, which may involve the substitution of Italian advertising with domestic Swiss advertising by the local provider.
There are no television channels broadcasting exclusively in theRomansh language; instead,Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha's productions are transmitted onSRF 1,RSI La 2andSRF infofor a few minutes daily. Programming includesTelesguard(anewscast),Cuntrastsandl'Istorgia da buna notg(bedtime story).
Local radio and television networks in Switzerland are entitled to 4% of the licence fee every year (about 50,000,000CHFfor 2007). The number of subsidised television broadcasters is limited to 13, one for each designated coverage area. Also, the support share cannot exceed 50% of the operating costs of each network.
A vast majority of the country is covered bycable networks; the majorcable televisionoperators isSunrise LLC(formerlyUPC Switzerland).
In 2007, theFederal Office of Communications(OFCOM) applied amust-carryregulation, requiring the local cable companies to transmit all theSRG SSRnetwork stations and the following foreign channels:arte,3sat,Euronews,TV5MONDE,ARD,ORF eins,France 2,Rai Uno.
All public and most commercial channels from the neighbouring countries are widely available in Switzerland through digital television services.