David de Jong reports: The end of analogue broadcasting of TSI 1 in Ticino (the Italian speaking part of Switzerland) meant also the end of the possibility to receive the Swiss Italian broadcaster in northern Italy. The first channel of RTSI was available for decades for Italians, and is now gone.
Although RTSI - of which TSI 1 is part - is not officially broadcasting for Italy, Switzerland and Italy have an agreement about the possibility for Italians in Lombardia and Piemonte to receive TSI 1. The programme schedule of TSI 1 was even published until last week in the biggest Italian tv-guide: ‘TV Sorrisi & Canzoni’. The citizens of Ticino watch - besides TSI 1 & TSI 2 - a lot of Italian TV stations, including the seven main channels (Rai Uno, Rai Due, Rai Tre, Rete 4, Canale 5, Italia 1 and La 7).
The difference between Ticino and Italy is that in Ticino - being part of Switzerland - most households watch television through cable, while in Italy cable television is non-existent and Italian households rely on over the air reception. The DVB-T free to air transmissions of RTSI-channels are limited to the Ticino area, and only a few areas adjacent to the Swiss border in Italy are able to receive the RTSI-channels through DVB-T.
The Italian website DaxMedia 4 RTSI launched a campaign to maintain the possibility to receive the Swiss Italian channel in Lombardia/Piemonte, but the official Swiss institutions didn’t react to the appeal, although some political Swiss movements raised the subject without results. DaxMedia 4 RTSI claims that the ‘old’ analogue frequency of TSI 1, channel 36, can easily be reused by RTSI to broadcast the Swiss-Italian multiplex in DVB-T mode, so that people in Lombardia - including the main economic city of Milan - can continue receiving the Swiss Italian channel. Channel 36 is still empty in that region. As the Italian TV airwaves are crowded with analogue and digital signals, the fear is that in the long term this frequency will be used by other broadcasters, as Italy has always had a shortage of frequencies.
From the Italian perspective, RTSI is a completely independent broadcaster which also gives news from a different point of view - not necessarily bound to Italian politics - and reflects more on international news and discussions than most Italian broadcasts. Viewers in Italy who complained about the disappearance of TSI 1 say it’s a shame that, through digitalisation, broadcasts of a neighbouring area which are speaking the same language are ‘forbidden’ to be watched. Some are asking if this is the Europe without frontiers that Switzerland will be entering soon under the Schengen treaty, where the Swiss/Italian physical border will disappear.
Swiss Public TV begins transition from analogue to digital
on Aug 8th, 2006 at 10:03
I’m not surprised the web campaign got nowhere. The reality is that I haven’t been able to watch TSI in Milan for quite a few years - the channel was available for a brief period in the late 1990s, but then disappeared again.
on Aug 8th, 2006 at 16:52
Mike: well, my own experience visiting friends for the last years in Milano that most of my friends receive TSI 1 quite well when it was on channel 36. If the antanne was not installed well, reception was more difficult or impossible. Both in the Northern as Southern part of Milano I experienced with my own eyes the reception of TSI 1. It is now impossible like described.
The campaign as such was a success. What failed was the willing of Swiss authorities to change plans….See also the website http://www.daxmedia.net/tvsvizzera
for more information (in Italian).