Far-Right Referendum Threatens Swiss Music Scene
A referendum seeks to cut the public broadcasting fee in half. It not only threatens independent journalism but also the opportunities for Swiss musicians.
Summer 2023: The committee for «200 Franken sind genug!» (200 Swiss Francs are enough!) submitted the necessary signatures for a new referendum in Switzerland.
The so-called «Halving Referendum» aims to slash the yearly fee for the country's public broadcasting service—from 335 Swiss Francs per household to 200 Swiss Francs.
If successful, it would have a significant negative impact on the Swiss music industry.
The fees fund the national public radio and broadcast «SRG» as well as several private media institutions. Around 1,3 billion Swiss Francs are collected yearly and distributed—with SRG receiving approximately 1,2 billion.
The new referendum is the second attack on the broadcasting fee after the «No-Billag» referendum that intended to eliminate the fee entirely. The referendum was rejected in March 2018 with 71,6%.
High Chance of Success
While «No-Billag» had no chance at the voting booth with its radical approach, times have changed since then. The «Halving Referendum» has significantly more potential for success for two reasons:
- Trust in journalism is at an all-time low.
- The referendum wants to reduce the fee, which is attractive to many.
In fact, a survey in October 2023 showed that 61% of participants favoured the referendum. Already in February 2022, voters rejected a package for media subsidies, which entailed the additional support of various types of outlets like digital publications.
Another Far-Right Push Against Independent Journalism
It is barely surprising that most of the leading figures behind the «Halving Referendum» are part of the far-right Swiss People's Party (SVP).
As part of the committee's co-presidency, there is Hans-Ulrich Bigler, who was already leading the «No-Billag» referendum, alongside Thomas Matter, a private banking multimillionaire and second-richest member of parliament. The latter had already demonstrated his clear intentions: He used a video by the public broadcaster for his YouTube channel and cut it in a completely misleading way to promote the new referendum.
Trump Fans, Islamophobic, Convicted For Racism: The Members of The Referendum Committee
The committee has even more members with highly questionable or even racist actions in the past and present:
- Jean-Luc Addor, an SVP parliamentarian, tweeted, «We want more of that» after a shooting in a Swiss mosque where a person was killed. Switzerland's highest court sentenced him for racial discrimination. In 2013, he suggested reintroducing capital punishment.
- Franz Grütter, millionaire and SVP parliamentarian, showed great affection for Donald J. Trump, stating that «he is credible because he puts the interests of his own country back at the centre.» He was doubting that Trump would build a wall.
- David Trachsel, president of the SVP's youth party, not only threw around dictatorship accusations during the pandemic but has an affection for right-wing extremism, supports limited access to abortion and installed a whistleblowing site for allegedly «woke discrimination».
- Walter Wobmann, a former SVP parliamentarian and part of the «Egerkinger Comittee» alongside members like Niels Fiechter, convicted racist, and Anian Liebrand, convicted for defamation. The «Egerkinger Comittee» was responsible for the referendum against «facial covers» and the construction of minarets. Wobmann is also a member of the far-right organisation Pro Schweiz, formerly AUNS, which lobbied against Switzerland's entry into the UN.
Even masqueraded behind moderate and surface-level reasonable arguments, the idea behind the referendum is a further destabilisation of independent journalism. It is only one side of a long-term project by Switzerland's conservatives and far-right.
On the other side, they started to buy into the market themselves with the shady purchase of the weekly magazine «Weltwoche» in 2001, the purchase of 25 free weeklies by billionaire and SVP overlord Christoph Blocher, and the takeover of the satirical magazine «Nebelspalter» in 2020.
More Than 900 Jobs On The Line
In November, the Federal Council, Switzerland's highest executive body, presented their counterproposal to the referendum. Albert Rösti, the responsible minister and former SVP party president, suggested cutting the broadcast fee step-by-step to 300 Swiss Francs until 2029. The referendum's committee is against the proposal.
The bizarre sidenote here is that Albert Rösti is still part of the referendum's committee, although they removed him from their website. He is not allowed to leave because his name was on the signature ballots for the referendum.
Later, the SRG published a press release stating:
«With the decline in advertising revenue and the cancellation of the cost-of-living adjustment, SRG would lose up to 240 million Swiss Francs from 2027. Around 900 jobs would have to be gradually cut across all regions.»
When speaking anonymously to SRG employees, they see the 900 jobs on the line with the counterproposal as too low. «For every job lost at SRG, one is lost in the private market,» explained one journalist. Many editors, camera operators, and filmmakers are individual contractors who would also lose their engagements with the radical cuts.
The job losses would obviously be even more severe if the referendum succeeds.
Devastating Impact on Swiss Music Journalism
There is undoubtedly necessary criticism one can direct towards the SRG and its offering. Switzerland needs an informed, transparent, and sober discussion about the value of independent journalism, public service broadcasting, and the responsibility of the SRG in today's digitised media landscape.
However, the last bastion of music journalism will likely receive a big blow. Public radio already had to cut back on its high-quality music specials. Generally a niche interest, music reporting is an endangered candidate for budget cuts.
Public broadcasting and independent, often volunteer-run radio stations are the only remaining publications covering music in depth. Commercial private radios, so-called format radio stations, mostly play the most popular songs and contribute very little to the diversity of Swiss music.
Switzerland's written music journalism is dominated by non-professionals and blogs like Negative White. Prominent newspapers have chopped down their cultural reporting long ago—because, again, it remained a niche interest and seemed non-essential to the business of selling ads.
Consequences For Artists Down The Line
While written music journalism is past its peak, radio still plays a significant role for musicians as airplay generates attention and real money through royalties, generating significantly more revenue than streaming. In 2022, the Swiss royalty institution SUISA paid a record-breaking 180,5 million Swiss Francs to publishers, songwriters, and composers.
On the national level, budget cuts will potentially impact the number of available radio stations. Fewer stations—for example, abolishing the music-only station «Radio Swiss Pop»—means fewer airplay opportunities for artists and, therefore, less revenue.
According to Albert Rösti, the SRG should «focus more strongly on the areas of information, education and culture.» However, this statement is rather vague.
The SRG counters that the counterproposal will impact «co-productions of Swiss films and music recordings as well as major popular events.» Therefore, music recordings like extensive festival reporting or maybe even formats with a significant live music portion like «SRF 3 Best Talent» or the «Bounce CYPHER» could be on the line.
And if the distribution of the broadcast fee money changes, non-commercial local radios might face a life-and-death situation. Smaller indie stations like Kanal K, Radio Lora, or Radio 3FACH are essential institutions on the regional level. They are part of a fragile independent music ecosystem that provides a platform to newcomer artists and an opportunity for discovery for their listeners.
Less radio exposure also impacts an artist's concert opportunities. Airplay is already a significant factor in booking an artist for a show, with higher chances for those with airplay getting chosen.
A reduced media landscape with fewer radio stations providing this valuable asset will lead to even higher competition—and ultimately damage the Swiss indie music landscape.
Consumer Ends Up With Less
While Switzerland will not vote on the referendum before 2026, saving a couple of bucks yearly might seem attractive to a regular consumer, especially when everything gets more expensive.
However, we can see what happens with the privatisation of sports broadcasts: If you want to watch every game of the Super League, Switzerland's highest soccer tier, the yearly subscription costs 418 Swiss Francs.
While sports provide a big enough target audience for such an offer, it is unimaginable to have a similar service for, let's say, festival streams. They would rather not exist anymore—narrowing the available content overall.
With its shotgun approach, the «Halving Referendum», while targeting independent journalism, will kill a significant portion of music reporting. And take away many opportunities for Swiss musicians—especially newcomers.
reLISTEN #19: Hidden Gems
In the final edition of reLISTEN, our editor shares five songs discovered in 2023 that didn't get their spotlight in other stories.
What started in January 2022 is now ending. The 19th edition of «reLISTEN» will be the last one. We say goodbye to the format that unearthed five mostly older songs around a specific topic.
And yes, it obviously feels somewhat strange to end «reLISTEN» with the odd number of 19 editions; however, the end of the year still marks an excellent way to end things here.
«reLISTEN» has been the curated playlist exclusively available to our paid subscribers. However, finding topics to centre only five songs around became ever more unsatisfying.
Furthermore, we are extending our playlist offer, especially for our cherished paying members. Over the coming months, we will launch exclusive playlists around specific genres, moods, and activities—accompanied by regular updates and responding posts.
The first of these playlists, «Capacitor», has already been launched and features 50 invigorating electronic tracks—from dreamy synth melodies to hammering techno beats. If that's not in your line, watch out for more playlists shortly.
Nevertheless, for this final instalment of reLISTEN, I would like to share five songs that I fell in love with in 2023 and became some of my favourite tunes of the year.
Nabihah Iqbal – The World Couldn't See Us
London-born Nabihah Iqbal released her new album, DREAMER, in the spring of 2023. Unfortunately, the work slipped through the cracks, and it was only a couple of weeks ago when I encountered the song The World Couldn't See Us from said record.
The World Couldn't See Us faces straight forward, pushes relentlessly in a contemporary post-punkish beat, and creates a stunning urgency. The melody then adds a spheric melancholy, underlined by Iqbal's spoken word performance.
Music Business Bros With An Extremely Bad Take
In 2024, Spotify will only pay artists if their song has more than 1000 streams—and some people defend it.
Last week, Threads launched in Europe, Meta's Twitter competition. Signing up with Negative White, the algorithm immediately recommended a lot of content from people in the music industry—artists, labels, promoters, managers. «Great,» I thought and read through profoundly intriguing conversations.
But then, there are so many bad takes—written mainly by men that fall somewhere between LinkedIn influencer type, crypto bro, and self-proclaimed business coach, just with a music business twist.
A trendy subject for those guys is Spotify's new policy to only pay artists for songs with more than 1000 streams. And yes, I know: By writing about it, I totally catch the engagement bait for the recognition they so desperately seek.
On the surface, these guys' claim that artists who can't reach 1000 streams for a song don't deserve money seems logical. Their argument that 1000 streams only equals 3 euros and doesn't do much anyway seems also solid. (Leaving aside that Spotify pays artists just horrendously bad, but let's not open this topic here.)
What these music business bros don't seem to grasp, proudly displayed in their conversations, is that the critique doesn't aim at the lost opportunity to earn these life-changing 3 euros but the crossing of a red line by one of the industry's most prominent players.
What's next? Artists only get paid if a song has 10,000 or 100,000 streams? Or if they have 10,000 monthly listeners? Or if they release a new track each month? Crossing that red line is a potential floodgate opener to all sorts of dystopian ideas not to pay the people who deliver the platform's content. That's what we should be worried about—not the number of 1000 streams itself.
And if you're still unable to understand the issue here, let me illustrate it in a different context: Imagine a concert organiser only pays artists for a gig if they sell out the venue. One ticket short? Sorry, but you don't get anything.
Again, it's not about the money: It's about a company that pays artists already horribly exerting a powerplay because its business model isn't sustainable and continues to bleed money.
A Year of Transition
A letter from the editor.
The Top 20 Songs of 2023
We have written about many songs this year. Now, we present our 2023 best-of list featuring 20 of the best tracks.
Over 200 songs have been featured at Negative White in the past twelve months, from our Weekly5 curations to album reviews and exclusive premieres. The artistic talent displayed in all of them is great.
However, some of the artists and their work stood out more than others. Nevertheless, ranking the songs posed a great challenge. While best lists are always highly subjective, we made an effort to include diverse genres and origins, but highlighting musical excellence remained the main focus point.
Today, we present our top 20 songs of 2023.
Exclusive Premiere: HARTES PORZELLAN – All In Your Head
Today, you can exclusively listen to HARTES PORZELLAN's new track, «All In Your Head»—a rumbling and psychedelic rock song.
Attention. It is what All In Your Head commands with every inch of its existence. The rumbling bassline, the gnarly trap beat, the shrieking guitar. It's a noisy affair.
The new single, officially released tomorrow by Berlin-based artist Markus Nikolaus and Simon Kaiser under the name HARTES PORZELLAN, boasts a loud and overwhelming composition like an underground construction site—filled with smoke and reverbs, clanking, hammering, and sawing.
Singer Markus Nikolaus, who found international success as the singer of Lea Porcelain, started with new solo endeavours in 2022. After the intimate and acoustic Never Let You Go, he now turns the volume up.
All In Your Head draws from early psychedelic rock; you'll find trace elements from the likes of The Velvet Underground. There's a flavour of krautrock, post-punk, and dark wave, all hiding and peeking quickly behind the towering sound construction.
While instrumentally, HARTES PORZELLAN wraps in many influences, All In Your Head is ultimately made complete by his vocal performance. The delivery almost seems detached, but his soft voice juxtaposes the brutal sound. And when he almost shouts the repetitive chorus, «It's all in your head», Markus Nikolaus conjures the image of Joy Division's Ian Curtis.
Together, sound and voice create a trance-provoking experience that fans of acts like Depeche Mode or the Beastie Boys might enjoy.
All In Your Head will be officially released on December 15 via the Berlin label Porzellan Bar, which is known for its unique parties at Funkhaus and other venues.
Bias And Outside Influence in Music Journalism
Biases heavily impact journalism. While music journalism is not as high stakes as other topics, biases still have an influence.
In the last few decades, today’s world seems as polarised as ever. Information cycles spin ever faster while trust in journalism is continuously declining. The tendency to actively avoid news is rising in Switzerland and many other countries.
In the tension between traditional journalism, blogging, and influencers, we also meander with Negative White.
However, our subject—music—is often less controversial than your daily news. Nevertheless, we need to address specific topics within our realm of work as we believe that transparency is crucial to help assess our reporting and decision-making in general.
Definition of Bias
Bias is the inclination to favour or maintain a particular perspective or opinion, often without considering other viewpoints or evidence. Bias can be conscious or unconscious and can take various forms, such as racial, gender, or political bias. It can also be influenced by personal experiences, cultural background, and societal norms.
Bias can have significant consequences, particularly in decision-making processes, where it can lead to unfair treatment or discrimination. Recognising and addressing bias is crucial to ensure fairness and equity in all aspects of life.
With that said, we also can conclude that music reporting certainly has way lower stakes when it comes to biases than, for example, political or business journalism. However, biases are still affecting our reporting nonetheless.
Edition #100
The 100th edition of Weekly5 brings another year to closure with new songs by Stu Larsen, BLEU REINE, Adna, Isaac Roux, and a Martin Kohlstedt rework by Mollono.Bass.
