My experiences around the Swiss elections

Background info

Those of you who have been following me a bit longer now, know that I’ve only gotten the Swiss nationality back in November last year. During the winter there were no referendums or elections, so the referendum of last Sunday was the first one I was allowed to participate in. This was also a very weird election to be allowed to participate in, as I was also deciding about the future of my wife!

_{Me the first time after I've voted}

My wife had been working for more than 9 years for the national TV: SRF (for people in other countries it is best comparable with the BBC UK, NOS Netherlands or RAI Italy as a news editor (online). Last year after she came back from maternity they made the situation almost unbearable for her to stay, they came back on previous agreements and also gave her more and more weekend and early or late evening shifts. She found a job with another company and left in April.

This company was fantastic … her direct boss was a real #$@!!!! My wife was being bullied from day one. She was told in her face ‘can’t you do that? Why can’t you do that, are you useless?’ and more stuff like that and also in front of other people. My wife came home close to tears every day. Off course the kids noticed this change in her behaviour. I told her not to discuss this around the kids and if the situation was really that bad then she should resign. She lasted 2 months in the end, but eventually she threw in the towel and resigned.

The biggest problem was that my wife was hired without approval of her direct boss, for a job that didn’t even require her to report into THIS boss, to do something new in this company, but without the proper support. It’s a real pity that it worked out this way as it’s a fantastic Swiss company, but she never had the support that she needed to do this.

In the end my wife spent the better part of 6 months looking for a new job that suited our family life. Eventually she got to learn about this job with her old employer in a different department, where they make a consumer programm (Kassensturz). She was the ideal candidate and she was hired back with SRF. From that moment we also both knew that this could be temporary as this referendum was coming up and the ‘No-Billag’ initiative was a big topic. This was a running ‘joke’ from the first moment that she got the job, that she could be out of it again 3 months later.

the No-Billag Initiative

The initiative is called after the company that is tasked by the government to collect the radio and television taxes. I know in the UK this is a relatively small amount and in the Netherlands they've changed it not so long ago to be paid from the general taxes. In Switzerland this is still a separate amount of CHF 451 a year for both radio and television. However if you have internet this is classified as radio, so even if you don't have a television you'd still have to pay CHF 165 if you have internet.

The initiative is very abrupt, there are no alternatives. 'No-Billag' in general, so no more money for radio and television. Although the campaign is aimed at 2 things 1 the amount in general and 2 the Swiss national television station, many smaller stations, new and upcoming artists and others will also be affected by this initiative. In a nutshell, this is what the initiative was about.

_{All these channels are affected by the 'No-Billag' initiative as well. These are both radio and television.}

Living up to the elections

You can imagine that the past several months have been very nerve-wrecking for us. On the one hand I am all for this initiative. There is no doubt in my mind that the way that billions of Swiss Francs are being spent need to be controlled much better and there needs to be better supervision. On the other hand, programs that serve the public like the news, weather, etc have a national service and need to remain in national hands. Only that way can you guarantee an impartial service to the audience.

I’ve witnessed first hand what happens with the news when it goes in the ’wrong’ hands. As I mentioned in the beginning, my wife had been working for the national TV for 9 years prior to this break. So when we met she was already there. In those days the NEWS was still being reported as it came in and based on priority.

Over the following periods they were put more and more in chains. They were only allowed to report specific topics that had been with their colleagues on the radio already or only articles that contain audio and/or visual files. This was to control/limit the news that comes from the national news channel and give more freedom to private channels.

‘So private channels are not asked to report facts and focus on the quality of the news they produce/print , but consumers of the national news who find it limited are forced to use these channels that are not obliged to print/produce impartial news!!! How sick is that! I bet they will suggest as a next referendum that they don’t allow competition from abroad to display their sites in Switzerland. Competition like the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post or even the BBC.

Maybe that goes a bit far, but I believe competition is there to make each other stronger. If you’re not up for it, then leave it to those who are good at something. Yes, the national TV has to be controlled, but they also have to produce unbiased and qualitative news.

So there you have my opinion on this initiative. Despite supporting the idea behind it, I had to vote against it as it would mean that my wife would be out of a job if the initiative went through.

Election Day

On the day itself I went for a run again with my neighboor and we’ve been discussing this topic many times between us. This day the subjects were more around our own work, the snowy conditions that we faced during our run, my marathon plans and other topics. When I got back and had my shower and breakfast was when I first dared to glimpse on my phone for the first indications.

I think in hindsight it was very clear as the first indication was 70% against the initiative and never really changed, but you have no idea how things can still go as long as the big ‘provinces’ still had to publish their results. In the end the initiative failed with 72% of the population voting against it.

_{The outcome of the vote by province}

Why did the initiative fail?

These are the 'official' reasons as they were announced after a survey:

• The National TV will need to get money from other sources and thus could its independence brought in jeopardy, potentially even by foreign companies
• Switzerland is a country with 4 official languages, only the national TV can maintain this with this money and guarantee a variety of products for everyone in the language they choose
• The quality will go down as only programs will be shown that make money

Further to these reasons I also believe that there is another factor that caused this initiative to fail: 'The initiative was too broad and too many jobs and channels would be affected by this. If you don't agree with something you can't take it out on everyone, as was the case with this initiative.

the Future

Yesterday my wife had her ‘end of probation-period chat’ and they told her that for now she still has a job, but there are still more initiatives to come as the national TV needs to cut on their spending.

I just hope they consider their cuts more intelligently in the future. Programs that provide the news or inform the viewers should remain (if they pull enough viewers, although that also depends on how much you keep cutting at these). They are currently already discussing what/where they are going to cut more and the news seems to become a victim again. Just because this service doesn’t bring any income doesn’t mean that it doesn’t pull an audience. If you’re cutting on the quality and substance of the news, soon you have nothing to fall back on (News is a and in my opinion THE service the national channel has to rely on).

I keep seeing this in companies, they cut and cut until there’s just the bare bone left. How can you expect a quality service if there is nothing left to provide that service with. Public service even more so, you want a service, you have to pay for it!

In my opinion (from someone who works in the private sector), produce more qualitative programs that suit your core audience (surely you know who they are), stop with the rubbish that no one watches and those programs that cost you an arm and a leg to produce … are they really worth it? Also stop paying huge salaries to ‘stars’, you have no obligation to produce or keep them, you have an obligation to your audience and finally remain impartial (report on which side of the political spectrum you’re serving with a specific article/item).

I apologise if this post has come across as a rant, but I felt that I had a point to make with this post so that we can close this topic for once and for all.

Doron