SWITZERLAND Desire for Diversity without Regulation – A Paradoxical Case?

Abstract / Diversity is an important guiding principle of Switzerland’s overall policy and media policy since the country consists of different political and economic entities but also of three language regions. Surprisingly, only weak media concentration regulations were introduced to protect media diversity. This article looks for the reasons behind this paradoxical situation by examining parliamentary debates about media and competition regulations. It becomes apparent that decision-makers encour-aged cross-media ownership assuming that it would strengthen regional publishing houses in order to maintain regional diversity within the country. Alongside this goal was with the intention to estab-lish a strong public service broadcaster, which would enable comprehensive domestic programmes despite the high market shares of foreign broadcasting stations