History of the radio in Switzerland

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Medium wave transmitter Beromünster ( Blosenberg tower )

The history of radio in Switzerland began at the beginning of the 20th century. After test broadcasts from several stations in the years 1920 to 1922, the two stations at the time, Lausanne , followed in 1923 with the first regular broadcasts in February and Bern in June , and the first commercial uses of radio in Central Europe .

In Switzerland , the very high proportion of high mountain landscapes resulted in a special feature, a second transmission channel for programs . In addition to the terrestrial broadcast of the radio broadcast , from 1931 onwards, with the construction of the telephone broadcast , radio could also be heard over wire .

term

At the time of the emergence of the first electronic medium until the 1960s, today's term radio was still called Rundspruch , an expression of the Swiss language variety , according to Duden .

history

  • In 1920 a League of Nations transmitter was set up in Bel Air, a district of Chêne-Bourgs near Geneva , on which press reports were broadcast from the assembly of the member states of the organization, which took place in September 1921.
  • Switzerland's first radio club was founded in 1921.
  • In October 1922, a federal law came into force that regulated telephone and telegraph operations that the Upper Telegraph Directorate (OTD) as the supervisory body and the issuing of permits, e.g. B. Receipt authorizations , the postal department (now part of DETEC ) is responsible. Also in 1922 several airfield transmitters began, u. a. in Lausanne, test broadcasts with a mixed program of news , weather information and music.
  • Opened on January 10, 1923, following approval from the OTD by regional broadcasters
    • From February 26th, regular operation with 0.4 kilowatts of power for the Lausanne airport transmitter mentioned above. The program included music from records , interrupted by news and information on weather and sports.
    • In June, business news began to be broadcast from the Bern- Münchenbuchsee station with an output of 8 to 10 kilowatts. In addition to a live broadcast of the international football match against Uruguay from Paris to Zurich, programs were also broadcast in 1923
    • in April from a 20 watt transmitter in Basel's Bernoullianum ,
    • in September via the telephony supplement of the 1 kilowatt station from the airfield transmitter Kloten - Dübendorf by the Zurich radio club and
    • in December from the airport station Geneva- Cointrin (as in Lausanne). Furthermore took place
    • on December 17th - for the first time in Switzerland - the establishment of a national radio company, Broadcasting Romand or Société Romande de Radiophonie .
  • In 1924 and in the following years, the Zürcher and other radio cooperatives were founded. This was followed by the Berner, Basler and Eastern Switzerland radio cooperatives. Today the cooperatives are integrated into the structure of the Swiss Radio and Television Company , French Société suisse de radiodiffusion et télévision (SRG SSR).
  • In 1925, the European International Radio Union / Union Internationale de Radiophonie was founded in Geneva .
  • In 1931 the Swiss Broadcasting Company, today's SRG SSR, was established. In this and the following years the broadcasting of programs on medium wave began in German ( Radio Beromünster via the Landessender Beromünster ), French ( Landessender Sottens ) and Italian ( Landessender Monte Ceneri ) and in 1938 in a Rhaeto-Romanic language.
  • In 1935, Schweizer Radio International (SRI) started operations as a foreign service for the SRG.
  • The weekly reports in the "Weltchronik" by Jean Rudolf von Salis on the station Beromünster were considered by millions of listeners in Central Europe during the Second World War as an objective assessment of the political and military situation in Europe.
  • In the 1970s the PTT and SRG expanded a nationwide FM transmitter network . On November 23, 1978, the new international medium wave plan came into force. As a result, the Beromünster regional transmitter had to be turned off in the evening. Therefore, in 1978, the young actress Birgit Steinegger toured through German-speaking Switzerland as a UK Fee on behalf of PTT and SRG and successfully advertised with the slogan “UK Fee brings UKW” that radio listeners would switch from the outdated medium wave to FM.
  • In 1982 the Swiss Federal Council issued the Radio Trials Ordinance (RVO for short) with the aim of issuing so-called radio trials in Switzerland for private radio and television stations. Until then, the Swiss radio and television company SRG held the monopoly in the production of television and radio in Switzerland. With the RVO, private media providers should now also have the opportunity to host electronic media. These attempts should be limited to local radio and TV projects. The RVO became obsolete with the introduction of the Federal Act on Radio and Television (RTVG) in 1991.
  • In 1998 the telephone broadcast was discontinued. The three music programs will be continued via satellite, cable and DAB as Radio Swiss Pop , Radio Swiss Classic and Radio Swiss Jazz .
  • The DAB era began in Switzerland in 1999 . At the end of 2009 DAB could be received throughout Switzerland. Between 2012 and 2015, all DAB stations were converted to the better DAB + format. All SRG radio programs and many private radio stations are broadcast not only via VHF but also via DAB + . All VHF transmitters are to be switched off in 2024. From then on, radio programs in Switzerland should only be received via DAB +.
  • In 2004, the broadcasts of Schweizer Radio International (SRI) were discontinued in favor of a media representation on the Internet on swissinfo .

See also

literature

  • Schweizer Radio DRS : The history of radio in Switzerland from 1911–2008 ( PDF , accessed on September 18, 2014).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry Rundspruch , Bibliographisches Institut / Dudenverlag. Berlin, 2013. Online publication, accessed September 26, 2014.
  2. ↑ Markus T. Drack: Radio and television in Switzerland . Publishing house here + now. Baden, 2000. Page 52. ISBN 978-39064-1912-1 . '
  3. ^ Jean-Jacques Lagrange: 1922-1930: Les balbutiements . In: Mon Histoire de la Radio Suisse Romande . Publication of the web project notrehistoire.ch , 2012 , accessed on September 28, 2014 ( French )
  4. ^ Swiss radio (German and Romansh Switzerland - DRS): The history of radio in Switzerland . Publication of the Swiss Radio DRS pdf ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 18, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.srf.ch
  5. ↑ Switzerland publications of the Foundation Radiomuseum Luzern ch-radiomuseum , accessed on 19 September 2014
  6. ↑ Roger Jean Rebmann: Beginnings of Basler Rundfunk and the Studio Basel Radio-Studio Basel , accessed on September 19, 2014
  7. ↑ See article Jean Rudolf von Salis in the NDB
  8. ↑ Erich Aschwanden: "Looking back" on the 1978 radio reform: The UK Fee brings UKW In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of August 14, 2017
  9. ↑ Farewell to FM - digital radio on the rise Up: SRG