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Swiss Voters Reject Bid to Halve Public Broadcasting Fee

Attention now turns to mandated savings with fees scheduled to fall to 300 francs by 2029.

Overview

  • Initial projections from gfs.bern for SRF show about 62% voted against the “200 francs is enough” initiative.
  • The proposal aimed to lower the household levy from 335 to 200 francs and to eliminate payments by most companies.
  • The campaign was driven by the SVP and libertarian allies, while the government, most parties and academics warned of harm to nationwide, multilingual service.
  • Separately from the referendum, the Federal Council has set a staged cut to 300 francs by 2029 and will exempt about 80% of firms by raising the turnover threshold to 1.2 million francs from 2027.
  • SRG is proceeding with a major restructuring, targeting roughly 270 million francs in savings and about 900 job reductions by 2029.