Federal Council to close tvsvizzera.it and cut Swissinfo funding

The Federal Council has decided to close tvsvizzera.it, the platform aimed at an international Italian-speaking audience. The portal is not included in the new service mandate for 2027-2030, which governs SSR's offering for audiences abroad and which the government announced on Wednesday.

Swiss law requires that, in addition to its domestic offering, SSR provide information services aimed at audiences abroad. According to the Federal Council, the goal is to maintain ties with Swiss citizens living abroad and to promote understanding of Switzerland around the world.

A year ago, as part of the federal savings package, the government had proposed scrapping funding for SSR's foreign offering entirely and no longer signing a new service agreement. Parliament rejected that proposal.

Swissinfo scaled back

The new agreement nonetheless confirms the other platforms, though with reduced resources, partly because of falling revenue from the broadcasting licence fee. Swissinfo's budget, SSR's multilingual online service, will fall from 18.8 to 10.5 million francs, financed as before half by the Confederation and half by SSR. Swissinfo will continue to be published in German, French and Italian, as well as in five international languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and Arabic. The Portuguese and Japanese editions will be discontinued, as will the tvsvizzera.it platform.

Switzerland's participation in TV5 Monde is also confirmed, with an annual budget of 9.8 million francs: 8 million from the Confederation and 1.8 million split equally with SSR. The share of Swiss content in the programme remains at 9%.

For 3sat, the planned budget is 3.7 million francs, financed equally by the Confederation and SSR, while the share of Swiss content will drop from 10% to 8%. The Federal Council has also instructed the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications to return, from 2031, to a 50-50 cost split between the Confederation and SSR, without increasing the federal contribution.