In Switzerland, Pay For Broadband, Own A Mobile Phone That Receives TV Then Pay A TV License Fee, Too

Philip M. Stone July 15, 2008

Switzerland already has one of the world’s highest, if not the highest, TV and radio annual license fee – a total of 462 Swiss Francs ($454, €285, £228) divided into quarterly payments -- and about 95% of households pay the TV fee and 90% pay the radio fee, the money going to support the country’s public broadcasting system (TV is allowed advertising revenues in addition, radio is not). But are there those who slip through the net by using something other than a TV or radio? The regulators think so.

Public broadcasting is expensive in Switzerland because there are four official languages, three of which have their own “set” of public TV and radio stations – German (74% of Switzerland speaks Swiss German), French (21%), and Italian (4%) and they all seem to have some independence from one another – an American TV series may appear on the Italian language TV stations, for instance, but not on the others. The fourth language is Rumantsch spoken by about 1% of the population and it has its language programs at various times on the German language stations.

Canny Swiss regulators, therefore, want to bring is as much money as they can to support all of that – Parliament last summer approved a small license fee increase but not near as much as the broadcasters wanted. Now that more than 30% of the country’s adults have access to broadband the regulators are taking a more serious look at those who say they don’t have a television. Could it be they might be using broadband or mobile phones capable of receiving television, and not paying the 293 franc TV license fee, nor the 169 franc radio license fee liable on Internet radio reception since 2005. (Incidentally if you have only a car radio that’s enough to be eligible for the radio license fee).  

So, come September 1 the Swiss are imposing the TV license fee on those households that currently do not pay a broadcast license fee but who do pay to have broadband Internet. And if you are watching TV on your mobile phone via  DVB-H (high resolution digital broadcast) then there’s always the chance an OFCOM (Office of Communications) inspector could stop you on the street, or the bus, or wherever, and check out whether your household is paying the TV license.

Ofcom says it could stage surprise visits to homes (it already does that to ensure someone who says they don’t have a TV doesn’t actually have a TV) but now they may want to check the computer, too, and if there are such programs as Windows Media Player or Realtime or other similar video files software on the computer then that may be taken as evidence the computer is being used for TV although the investigator probably would look for more solid proof those software were actually used to enable TV watching.

But those players are not necessary to watch TV via the Internet. Companies like Zattoo and Livestation offer their own players to be downloaded to watch their programming. Of course, having those shortcuts show on the screen could be pretty decisive in showing the computer is used for watching TV.

In Switzerland alone, Zattoo, a free IPTV distribution system, already has  close to 700,000 registered users – how many of those pay the license fee? It operates in other European countries with the goal of expanding throughout the continent. It offers currently 75 channels in Switzerland – mostly representing the country’s official languages, but also in English (BBC1, ITV1 and others) – with the mix changing for each country.  

And then there is Livestation, also free,  that emphasizes international news providers such as BBC World, Al-Jazeera, France 24, and Russia Today. Bluewin TV, owned by Swissom, offers 120 TV channels and 80 radio stations for a fixed monthly fee ranging from 19 francs to 29 francs.

And companies now will have to decide whether they pay the license fee. Those firms that have rules forbidding staff to watch Internet TV while at work can escape the license.

The government currently can levy fines of up to 5,000 Swiss francs ($4,950, €3100, £2,500) on those homes that aren’t paying when they should. The public broadcasters get about 1.1 billion francs ($1 billion, €680 million, £550 million) from the license fees.

The Swiss are also getting tough on Internet users who try to sell illegally copied songs, and are imposing up to five-year prison term for offenders, an increase over  the previous three years. The government has been at the forefront at trying to protect artist fees and recently imposed a tax on audio and video recorders, mp3 players and the like – the revenues going to artists who have seen their royalty payments dip over the years as Internet piracy becomes more rampant.