No mandatory TV fee !

The Swiss Federal Council wishes to make the TV fee mandatory for all residents in the country, even those who do not own a TV nor watch TV programmes. Please allow 5 minutes to read and support our petition against this unfair project.

This modification of the law on radio and television is totally unacceptable to all those who have made the choice to live without TV or radio. It violates the right to be unlike of a part of the inhabitants of this country in binding a minority to subsidize a product it does not consume.

Those living without TV do not so by omission or under the effect of chance. It is a choice based on ethical and civic values that deserve respect.

The argument of the Federal Council concerning the difficulty to control the imposition of the fee in the current system is irrelevant and does not concern those who never watch TV: it is the problem of the SSR and Billag! With the same reasoning, namely a complicated and expensive control, we can expect in near future to have to pay for mandatory motorway sticker and parking taxes (who does not own a car?), mandatory dog tax (who doesn’t have a dog?), mandatory wifi subscription…

On the other hand, people who live without TV are not responsible for the “evolution” of technology. They did not ask to receive TV programmes on their phone, computer or soon on their fridge or toaster… This “evolution” is imposed on the whole of society by industry, finance, and operators, for the sole purpose of producing profit and provide more attention for the hype and the dissemination of a way-of-thinking dictated by the neoliberal “think tanks”.

Thus, many people chose internet, a free network, instead of TV. They did not request that the SSR broadcasts its programmes on this network, and therefore do not watch them. Internet must remain free and open : having a connection shall not require the payment of a fee! Paying content should be reserved for those who consume it : it is the responsibility of the SSR to secure the access to its programmes, for instance by providing an access code to its customers. By comparison, in France, only people with a TV or a device with “tuner” must pay the fee.

In addition, by imposing a mandatory fee, Swiss authorities actually create a new tax. Yet one of the essential features of the tax is that it is calculated in proportion to the income. With a single tax, everyone pays the same amount, which is totally unfair : for people with modest incomes, the mandatory fee will result doubling the amount of the annual tax! Beyond the purely financial aspect, it is unacceptable that the subsidizing of the media hype equals what we pay in taxes for education, health and solidarity…

If the Federal Council absolutely wishes a mandatory subsidizing of radio and TV, it must therefore include it in income tax, so that the amount paid by each taxpayer is proportional to his/her income. It is the only solution that we will accept.

Sign our petition on Avaaz website :

No mandatory fee for those who live without TV or without radio !

Thank you.