Watch Live TV from Switzerland

Television in Switzerland was introduced in 1950. People who live in Switzerland and receive television services are required by law to pay a television licence fee, which is used to finance the public radio and television service SRG SSR. Licence fee-payers in all the linguistic regions of Switzerland all pay the same amount (462 CHF for 2008, counting both radio and television licences) and, in return, are entitled under the law to services of equal quality.

The history of television in Switzerland began in 1939 when the first test transmissions commenced. Regular transmissions started in 1953, at first only one hour a day for five days a week, and only in German: transmissions in French started in 1954 and in Italian only in 1958. Romansh-speaking Swiss had to wait until 1963 for the first programme in their language, a full decade after regular television transmission were initiated. To this day, there is no dedicated Romansh-language channel; instead the German and Italian channels air a few hours of Romansh programming per day. The 1960s also saw the arrival of television advertising, in 1964, and of colour television, in 1968.




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