Television in Switzerland
Television in Switzerland was introduced in 1950, with regular broadcasts commencing in 1953. People who live in Switzerland are required by law to pay a television licence fee, which is used to finance the public radio and television service SRG SSR. Since 1 January 2021, the Licence fee cost in all the linguistic regions of Switzerland is 355 CHF per 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. History. The history of television in Switzerland began in 1939 when the first test transmissions commenced. Regular transmissions started in 1953, at first only one hour a day for five days a week, and only in German: transmissions in French started in 1954 and in Italian only 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 of television advertising, in 1964, and of colour television, in 1968. Télévision suisse romande broadcast their first evening programme in colour in 1968. 1968 was also the first year where more than one million Swiss households had a television. In 1984, the Swiss teletext service, SWISS TXT, was started. In 1993 a fourth SRG SSR channel was created, first named "S Plus" but later  renamed Schweiz 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 the SRG SSR subsidiaries started a second channel, and SRF zwei, RTS Deux and RSI La 2 came into existence. Analogue television was phased out starting July 2006, when TSI (now RSI) began the analogue switchoff. The process continued until January 2008, when the end of analogue broadcasting in Valais and Chablais completed the digital television transition in Switzerland. In September 2018, SRG SSR announced that  it would discontinue over-the-air broadcasting in DVB-T in 2019, citing costs, rather than implement DVB-T2. The services will remain available via encrypted free-to-view satellite, which offers all SRG SSR channels in high definition. List of channels. The following is a list of television channels broadcast in Switzerland: German-speaking 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. Most-viewed channels. The channels with the largest viewing share in 2021 (1. Semester) are: French-speaking Switzerland. Switzerland receives  some domestic cable networks from France, which may involve the substitution of French advertising with domestic Swiss advertising by the local provider. Italian-speaking Switzerland. Switzerland receives some domestic cable networks from Italy, which may involve the substitution of Italian advertising with domestic Swiss advertising by the local provider. Romansch-speaking Switzerland. There is not a television channel broadcasting exclusively in Romansh language; instead, Radio Television Rumantscha's productions are transmitted on SRF 1, RSI La 2 and SRF info a few minutes a day. Programming includes Telesguard (a newscast), Cuntrasts and l'Istorgia da buna notg (bedtime story). Regional channels . Local radio and television networks in Switzerland are entitled to 4% of the licence fee every year (about 50,000,000 CHF for 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. Cable television. A vast majority of the country is covered by cable networks; the major cable television operators is UPC Switzerland. In 2007, the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) applied a must-carry regulation, requiring the local cable companies to transmit all the SRG SSR network stations  and the following foreign channels: arte, 3sat, Euronews, TV5MONDE, ARD, ORF eins, France 2, Rai Uno. International channels. All public and most commercial channels from the neighbouring countries are widely available in Switzerland through digital television services.