Swiss taxpayers vote on plan to scrap £350 TV licence fee

SWISS voters go to the polls today in a referendum on scrapping their equivalent of the BBC licence fee, in a sign of mounting pressure on taxpayer-funded broadcasting in the internet age.

Switzerland’s unique system of direct democracy has allowed opponents of its £350 per year annual television and radio levy to trigger a vote that is being watched nervously by public broadcasters across the continent.

The “No Billag” campaign has been sponsored by free marketeers and the populist Swiss People’s Party. They argue that the licence fee makes the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) too powerful in the country’s small media market and that citizens should be free to choose how to spend their own money on entertainment.

The SBC’s defenders argue that its programmes for Switzerland’s minorities of French, Italian and Romansch speakers are crucial to maintaining the country’s cultural diversity. Programmes for the German speaking majority attract advertising that helps cross-subsidise the rest.

Outside Switzerland, public broadcasters are monitoring the referendum in the knowledge the taxes that sustain many of them are likely to come under political pressure in the coming years.

The rise of YouTube, Netflix and Amazon in the television market, along with a shift towards pay-TV from operators including Sky, is prompting soulsearching across Europe.