Savings hammer SRG director announces job cuts in the "high three-digit range"
SRG must make savings. On Monday afternoon, the broadcasting company presented several centralization measures. SRG's top management also announced its intention to cut jobs.
The company behind the public radio and TV stations SRF, RSI and RTS must make savings. Specifically: 270 million francs. This is not only due to falling advertising revenue. Politicians are also demanding savings from the broadcasting company.
On Monday afternoon, the SRG management provided the first facts on how this amount can be achieved. New details on SRG's "new organization" were announced.
Insiders at SRG had previously described the project to blue News as a "huge box": "For us, it's a huge box. It's not enough to cancel individual programs like '10 to 10'. It needs far-reaching changes and a comprehensive reorganization."
Centralization planned, job cuts announced
Shortly after 2 p.m., it was clear that SRG wants to make savings, especially within itself. "We have to become an SRG," said Chairman of the Board of Directors Jean-Michel Cina. What was meant was a comprehensive centralization step.
Specifically, it was announced that SRG would be merging the sports newsrooms and the fiction department, production and distribution as well as numerous functional areas such as HR, finance and IT.
This will also affect the editorial teams. It is not only the sports and fiction departments that will work more closely together across SRG. The regions must also move closer together and use the same tools in their work. However, SRG management emphasized that "regional roots remain the DNA and strength of SRG". SRG Director General Susanne Wille, for example, said: "We remain an SRG of the regions."
It is clear that this will not be enough. The press release also indicated that there will be "effects on employees". Although the exact number of redundancies was not specified, it is expected that a three-digit number of jobs will be cut. The first short-term cost-cutting measures are already threatening staff tomorrow: information has been announced to employees for July 1.
