The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation[1] (German: Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft; French: Société suisse de radiodiffusion et télévision; Italian: Società svizzera di radiotelevisione; Romansh: Societad Svizra da Radio e Televisiun; SRG SSR) is the Swiss public broadcasting association, founded in 1931, the holding company of 24 radio and television channels.

Headquartered in Bern,[2] the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is a non-profit organisation, funded mainly through radio and television licence fees (79%) and making the remaining income from advertising and sponsorship.

Switzerland's system of direct democracy and the fact that the country has four official languages (German, French, Italian and Romansh) mean that the structure of Swiss public service broadcasting is rather complicated.

[1] The moniker "idée suisse" (French for 'Swiss idea'), which refers to the public service mission of the organisation, was adopted in 1999 and was removed from the name in 2010.

In 1930 it was decided that radio was an important public service that should not be allowed to become a money maker for private interests, and that it needed to be structured on a federal basis.

During the Second World War, SRG SSR filled an important function as a neutral, unbiased supplier of news, reaching far outside Switzerland's borders through shortwave transmissions.

In 1960, the company was renamed Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft (and the equivalent names in the other languages - see above) to reflect the addition of television services.

In 1966, the three main language communities were each given a second radio channel, in order to counter the effects of new commercial broadcasters outside the country, whose strong signals were reaching the Swiss population.

The television channels of SRG SSR are free to watch on the internet within Switzerland only due to broadcasting rights, except for its radio stations.

In October 2004, SRI ceased broadcasting on shortwave and satellite, and instead concentrated its efforts on its multimedia internet platform SWI swissinfo, which now takes most of the resources.

The Swissinfo website is produced in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Japanese.