Switzerland’s public broadcaster reorganises service on Hot Bird to counterbalance the rising cost of streaming online.
SRG SSR has begun the first phase of a scheme to combine all of its TV and radio services on to one transponder, in a move that will save costs.
Since 9th March, all channels have been combined on Hot Bird transponder 123. Services broadcast on transponder 17, including the free-to-air SRF Info channel, will be simulcast until 25th May with the prefix “old”. As part of the final phase of the scheme, the signal on transponder 17 will be turned off. All channels continue to be available in HD only.
The Swiss broadcaster says the move will “stabilise” the cost of distributing its services, offsetting the continually rising costs of distributing content online.
Only 4.9% of Swiss households still rely on satellite television. Since the abolition of digital terrestrial television in 2019*, satellite remains the fall-back option for viewers outside of the range of cable or IPTV networks. Anyone with a Swiss address but living or working abroad can request a viewing card to access Swiss television.
SRG SSR’s new encoders mean that, for the first time, it is statistically multiplexing (“stat-muxing”) all channels together. Until now, SRG SSR used a fixed video bitrate of over 10Mbps for each channel. The switch to stat-muxing allows the three HD TV channels and 26 radio stations from transponder 17 to move across.
Plans to switch SRG SSR’s services to the newest HEVC video standard at the same time were postponed due to the pandemic and resistance from the Swiss electronic equipment industry. It still plans to make the switch in 2024, which will make older TVs and satellite receivers obsolete. SRG-SSR is also making its services available directly to cable and IPTV platform operators, removing the need for them to take the satellite feed.
SRG SSR on Hot Bird
Satellite: Hot Bird 13ºE Frequency: 10971 (transponder 123) Polarisation: Horizontal Mode: DVB-S2 Symbol Rate: 29700 FEC: 2/3
*Digital terrestrial TV ended in June 2019. Since then, a number of private operators have launched their own digital terrestrial TV service in border areas. These deliberately create an overspill into small areas of Austria, Germany and France. As a result, local cable operators are able to restore access to Swiss TV. Foreign cable operators are forbidden to carry Swiss TV due to broadcast rights and licensing issues where overspill reception is not possible.