Online Newspapers, Live TV Channels, Radios

Switzerland has the best developed and most complete media sectors in Europe. The media consists of print media, broadcast media, and social media. When talking about the Swiss print media, there are 104 daily newspapers and 124 non-daily newspapers. Swiss citizens on average spend approximately one-half hour per day reading newspapers. The Swiss newspapers generally cover local, national, and international news on a regular basis. Business, opinion-editorials, sports, and cultural sections are often grouped in separate sections for focused reading.

Though the number of newspaper decreased after World War I, there are still a good number of newspapers. Some of them are 20 Minuten, Basler Zeitung, Blick, Der Bund and many more. These newspapers are all published in the German language. There are also other newspapers that are published in other languages like French, Italian, Romansh, Russian and English.

The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (Schweizerische Radio und Fernsehgesellschaft; SBC) is charged with the production and broadcast of radio and television programs. The management and organization of radio and television are based on Article 93 of the Swiss Federal Constitution which states that:

“Radio and Television shall contribute to education and cultural development, to the free formation of opinion, and to the entertainment of the listeners and viewers. They shall take into account the particularities of the country and the needs of the Cantons. They shall present events factually, and reflect diverse opinions fairly and adequately. … The independence of radio and television and the autonomy of their programming are guaranteed. … The situation and the role of other media, in particular, the press, shall be taken into account. … It shall be possible to submit complaints about programs to an independent authority.”

There are 119 radio stations in Switzerland. There is a huge competition among the national public radio and regional commercial radio. Almost 60 percent of the market share goes to SRF radio stations, about 30 percent to regional commercial radio stations. The stations are divided according to the language they are broadcasted in. Some of the radio stations are broadcasted in German language (SRF 1, SR4 News, SRF Musikwelle, etc.), some in French language (La 1ère, Espace 2, Couleur 3, etc.), some in Italian (Rete Uno, Rete Due, Rete Tre, etc.) and many more.

There are 115 Television stations run by three television studios of the public broadcaster SRG SSR in Geneva, Lugano, and Zurich. Compared with other countries, Switzerland has a low TV consumption, with an average of 118 minutes (German-speaking part) respective 135 minutes (French-speaking part) per day. The SBC also maintains partnership and programming relationships with cable television stations, including CNN, 3SAT, Eurosport, TV5, and arte. About 30% of the market share is given to public TV broadcasters. The broadcast of the television channels is also divided into the six different languages. Some of the channels are SRF zwei, CHTV, TeleZüri, etc. broadcasted in German language and other channels are broadcast in other languages.

A recent report of 2016 shows that 47 percent of the respondents say that they use social networks for information at least once a week. Most of them are young persons. About 22 percent of young adults rely on social networks as their main source of information. There are 3,600,000 individuals with internet access. The most popular site Facebook is used for consumption of news by 36% of the respondents. There is also other information, but they don’t profit to the same degree from social media.