The Swiss Broadcating Corporation is considering shutting down WRS, its English-speaking radio. It would be a grave mistake writes François Nordmann in influential Swiss newspaper Le Temps.
“No other language has ever been spoken by so many people in so many places. A billion and a half people communicate in English on five continents. For 375 million of them, English is their mother tongue. For another 375 million, it’s their second language.In the US, in India, in Great Britain, in many of the Commonwealth countries, English is the official language. It is the universal language of scientific research, of the business world, of sport, of air and maritime transport. English is the international language “par excellence”. A third of Europeans use it daily, a quarter of Swiss speak it. Technically speaking, Mandarin is the most widely spoken foreign language in the world, but it has a much more limited geographical footprint.
Transmitter of culture and of liberal values, paradoxically, English is subjected to a strange fate: there are more English-speaking people around the world who have learned the language – or who are learning it – than people for whom English is their mother tongue. And so, it is often this new English-speaking population which influences the way English evolves, sometimes to the very detriment of the quality of traditional English. In any case, the days when the expansion of English was perceived as cultural imperialism are long gone.
This factual reminder is necessary to cast the debate around World Radio Switzerland in its proper context. Is the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation right in questioning its place in public service, a place granted in 2007 by the Federal Council? Why now? Is this move the result of a weakening of the spirit of openness that so characterized Switzerland ten years ago? Is it a further sign that Switzerland is becoming more inward-oriented? Or a symbolic rejection of a language that deepens our ties with the rest of the world and that, even if it is not branded with the Swiss Made label, is the third most spoken language in this country?
Public service is a political set of principles defined by the Federal Council as a basic quality service whose access is guaranteed to all sections of the population at an affordable price, in all linguistic regions and according to identical conditions.
WRS’s audience is not limited to the Lake Geneva region. As a matter of fact, the station has more listeners in the Swiss-German part of the country than it has in western Switzerland, thanks to DAB distribution. WRS’s offer ought to be developed in German-speaking Switzerland by the addition of an FM frequency. The station’s mission goes well beyond what is included in its operating license. It talks simultaneously to an international audience, to Anglophones living both inside and outside Switzerland, and to Swiss listeners who study the language, use it at work and during their leisure time.
It offers programs that allow listeners to better understand the workings of Swiss politics, society and culture, as well as debates, news and information of a broader interest.
Actors of International Geneva, heads of multinational corporations and the English-speaking community in Geneva are not the only ones that WRS reaches.
Bern, Basel, Zurich, St Gallen also listen in and they should it make it known. Zurich which promotes English before French in its own schools…
The station has its own style; some quibble with its schedule, the interest of some of its programs, the music it plays, the fact that it airs news and information from its foreign public radio partners.
Others, in turn, see it as an opportunity to listen to news and information of universal value. And what about the educational aspect of the radio, stressed by the teachers who testify that they use WRS as a teaching tool for their students in Switzerland?
The SBC has to oversee the quality of its programs. That is part of its mandate. But to do so, it would be better not to throw the baby out with the bath water and not to confuse quality assurance with an abandonment of its public service mission.
Should the SBC disengage itself from WRS, it is an illusion to think that the private sector could step in and assume the SBC’s role. To exclude WRS from public service is to kill it. It would be irresponsible given the role of English in the world and in Switzerland. It would be irresponsible to willingly shut down such a source of information and culture, and to close an open window on Swiss politics, society and culture.
Even if the Board of Directors were to accept the existence of the station without committing itself to its development, the station would lose flavor and substance. If the Board thinks it is necessary to overhaul WRS, then fine. But without deciding to shut it down in the first place!
Not long ago, the Federal Council redefined its foreign policy priorities and focused on its relationships with our immediate neighbors. It specifically added Great Britain to that list, acknowledging the historical partnership between the two countries and recognizing how often Britain has come to the aid of Switzerland against the actions of such and such a neighbor. This is the wrong time to spectacularly cut ourselves off from Britain and from the “English-speaking people” so dear to Winston Churchill.”
(Adapted from French by WRS) © Le Temps, 2012
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