2021 SRG SSR radio program analysis: Developments in western Switzerland’s radio stations

Among other things, the Swiss Federal Act on Radio and Television (RTVA) and the license issued to the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG), obligate the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) to ensure comprehensive, diverse, and factual reporting, to promote Swiss culture and to support communication between the regions and language communities. Each year, with an alternating language-regional focus, the Swiss Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) has external agencies review how these requirements are taken account of in the radio programs of SRG SSR. After LINK completed an analysis of Swiss German radio programs (in cooperation with the Media Institute Prof. Vlašić) in 2020, attention was turned to radio programs in western Switzerland in 2021.

The focal points of the analysis were drawn from the performance indicators defined by the broadcasting act and the license. They included the percentage of airtime devoted to information, thematic diversity, diversity of opinion, diversity of journalistic formats used as well as regional content. The SRG SSR radio program analysis was conducted on the basis of the methodologies of quantitative content analysis used in communication studies. The sample is made up of the program content broadcast on each of the four RTS radio stations, analyzed on seven sample days in the period between 5:00 a.m. and midnight. The random samples were taken in the form of an artificial week.

Constant performance of the RTS radio station

The programming service of the RTS radio stations has remained largely unchanged over time. However, one key metric showed a downward trend: The average information content in RTS programs has declined by 2 percentage points since 2018 and is now at 27%. This decline can be traced to changes in two RTS programs: Option Musique saw a slight decrease in information coverage, and Espace 2 saw a significant decrease. The cultural station reduced its information coverage by 9 percentage points and increased its music content. This reorientation is likely associated with the recently restructured programming of Espace 2, but also fits seamlessly with the observation of the 2018 analysis, which found that the station’s information content already declined considerably between 2015 and 2018.

According to its broadcasting license, SRG SSR radio stations must provide information “in particular about political, economic, societal, cultural and social contexts”. These subject areas are covered in the RTS programs to an extremely high degree (88%). Compared to the results from 2018, these “hard topics” even hold an increasing share. There is a strong emphasis on the areas of culture, society and politics; on the other hand, economic issues are rather rarely addressed. With regard to the selection of topics, changes can once again be seen with Espace 2: The strong emphasis placed on cultural topics earlier has decreased significantly. As a result, the station has lost its previous top position among SRG radio programs: As a percentage share, Espace 2 now broadcasts (slightly) fewer cultural topics than its German-language counterpart SRF 2 Kultur, but still slightly more than the Italian-language cultural station Rete 2.

The long-standing distinctions related to the thematic focus of the language-regional station families are also evident in 2021: As a whole, cultural topics continue to play a significantly greater role in RTS programs than in the German-language SRG programs and a somewhat more important role than in the Italian-language programs. In 2021, economic topics continued to have significantly less attention on RTS stations than on RSI and especially SRF stations.

Almost a tenth of all information content concerned COVID-19

As part of the topic analysis, there was a differentiated evaluation of selected thematic aspects, which is considered particularly relevant within the scope of the license; these include the exchange between the Swiss parts of the country or between different cultures within Switzerland as well as Swiss cultural production. The latter is given at times very extensive and multifaceted coverage on all stations. Espace 2 reports most extensively on domestic cultural content. However, along with reducing airtime for information content, the station has also reduced the time it devotes to informing the audience about this topic relevant to the broadcasting license. The other individual aspects under evaluation only appear sporadically in RTS programs – as they did in the previous studies.

Although 2021 was less affected by the coronavirus pandemic than the previous year, RTS journalists devoted relatively more attention to the pandemic and its impact on society, the economy and culture. Almost one tenth of all RTS information content addressed aspects related to the coronavirus crisis. The pandemic was mentioned as a side note in almost another tenth, but it was not the main topic.

Looking at the RTS program in terms of the variety required by the broadcasting license, there are hardly any changes over time in the variety of topics: In 2021, RTS stations continued to present their listeners with a wide range of topics with respect to their informative content.

Other results of the study and the complete final report can be found on the OFCOM website. The results from 2020 and 2021 can also be found in an interactive dashboard.