Switzerland

SF1 and SF2 German Language

In a country where almost everyone has cable or satellite, the main public stations for the majority German-speaking population of Switzerland face stiff competition from the multitude of private stations across the Rhine, notably RTL and SAT 1. But they attract respectable audiences with big movies, authoritative news and long, earnest political discussions in the Swiss German dialect.

This clip, from SF1, is the main news, followed by a promo for a sports programme following on SF2, a promo for the discussion programme that follows on SF1, and the advert break bumpers.

TSR1 and TSR2 French Language

Public stations for "Romandie", the French-speaking region of Switzerland. The only stations still to feature in-vision continuity announcers.

TSI1 and TSI2 Italian Language

Public broadcaster for Ticino, the Italian region of Switzerland. Heavily subsidised through the TV licence fee by the other 90% of the Swiss population.

In common with the German and French language public stations, TSI broadcasts many imported programmes simultaneously in the dubbed and original versions, using the left and right stereo channels.

TV3 Private broadcaster

A national private station launched to minuscule audiences in 1999, TV3 has grown in strength with winning formats like Big Brother and Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

Tele24 Private broadcaster

The misleadingly- named Tele24 (which broadcast time-shifted news bulletins most of the day and weather-cam type material at night) had not proved a success since its launch in 1998 and soon closed.

VIVA Swiss and StarTV private broadcasters

VIVA Swizz is a Swiss-German MTV wannabe, while StarTV mainly shows movie trailers and "The Making of..."-type documentaries.

Local broadcasters

Generally consist of an hour or so of news and features repeated ad nauseam each hour.

These clips are from TeleBärn, the local station for the Swiss midlands and show, respectively, a section of local advertising, the 'HEADlines' and the main news.