Europe's third public radio station started broadcasting from
Lausanne in 1922, from the start based on a licence fee system. 980 licences were bought in 1923. Within a few years radio cooperatives working along the same principles had started throughout the country. In 1930 it was decided that radio was an important public service that should not be allowed to become a money maker for private interests, and that it needed to be structured on a federal basis. In 1931 SRG SSR was founded (see original names above), as a co-ordination organisation for the regional broadcast associations, and received the only licence to broadcast from the
Federal Council. The same year it was agreed that all news reports in the new medium had to be provided by the Swiss news agency
SDA, a decision that remained unchanged until 1971. The first national transmitters began operating in 1931: Radio
Sottens for French, Radio
Beromünster for German, and 1933 Radio
Monte Ceneri for Italian. In 1938 Romansh was recognised as the country's fourth national language, and the
Zürich studios began broadcasting programmes in Romansh in between those in German. During the
Second World War, SRG SSR filled an important function as a neutral, unbiased supplier of news, reaching far outside Switzerland's borders through
shortwave transmissions. Radio Beromünster and Radio Monte Ceneri became known as the only free German and Italian-language radio stations in Europe. In 1950, SRG SSR was one of 23 founding broadcasting organisations of the
European Broadcasting Union. In 1939 television test transmissions started in Zürich. In 1953 regular TV transmissions started in German (from Zürich) – one hour per evening, five days a week. A year later, in 1954, French transmissions were broadcast from Geneva. For the Italian-speaking region, the programmes were re-transmitted with Italian subtitles until dedicated Italian studios were built in 1961. In 1960, the company was renamed
Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft (and the equivalent names in the other languages - see above) to reflect the addition of television services. In 1965, the Federal Council allowed television advertising, as a means of keeping licence fees down. In 1966, the three main language communities were each given a second radio channel, in order to counter the effects of new commercial broadcasters outside the country, whose strong signals were reaching the Swiss population. In the same year, a dedicated Romansh broadcasting unit was created in
Chur, using some of the new German-language second channel's broadcasting time. In 1968, colour television was introduced. In 1978, the radio channels started stereo transmissions. In 1983, the Federal Council relaxed the Swiss media legislation to permit local private and commercial radio channels. SRG SSR countered this threat by launching its third set of channels, aimed at a younger audience. In 1991, SRG SSR underwent a wide-ranging restructuring. The enterprise organised itself as a private industry association, structured as a holding company under Swiss company law. The name, SRG SSR idée suisse, was introduced in 1999. In 1992, Radio Rumantsch was separated from the German-language radio broadcaster that had housed the Romansh broadcasting activities since 1938, and in 1995, the Romansh TV activities were moved over as well and the Romansh company renamed itself Radio e Televisiun Rumantscha. In 1997, SRG SSR started digital broadcasts via the
Hot Bird (13 degrees East) satellite. It is encrypted from satellite due to copyright restrictions. SRG SSR Sat Access information channel stopped broadcasting in 2005. Since 2016, all channels have been broadcasting via satellite only in HD quality. All radio and SRF info TV channels are free-to-air via satellite. On 3 June 2019, SRG SSR terminated digital terrestrial (
DVB-T) broadcasts of all of its television channels due to the extremely low usage of digital terrestrial signals on television sets in Switzerland, which was part of a series of cost-saving measures partly brought about as a result of the 2018 "
No Billag"
popular initiative. The corporation estimated that 1.9% of the public used the DVB-T broadcasts, nearly all of which was for viewing on secondary devices. Television broadcasts remain available through cable, IPTV and DTH satellite. SRG SSR recommended DVB-T viewers switch to satellite. SRG SSR shut down its FM transmission infrastructure on 31 December 2024. The corporation concluded that maintaining FM broadcasts along with
DAB+ and Internet streaming was no longer cost-effective, as due to widespread adoption of DAB+ the share of the public relying exclusively on FM was under ten percent and decreasing. This was to be followed by a general switch-off of FM broadcasting by 31 December 2026. In December 2025, however, the Swiss parliament decided to indefinitely postpone the full switch-off. SRG SSR will thus restart its FM transmissions, though a concrete timeframe for doing so has not been named. ==Organisation==