Actual
About us
RTR Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha
RTR Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha is the only electronic media organisation to provide public service output for Romansh-speaking Svizra rumantscha, one of Switzerland’s four language regions. Romansh has been recognised as a national language in Switzerland since 1938 and was given partially official status at Confederation level in 1996. Today, Romansh is understood by over 100,000 people in Switzerland, is spoken regularly by 75,000 and is the main language of around 40,000. RTR performs a bridging function in the linguistically fragmented canton of Graubünden and reaches out to the scattered Romansh-speaking communities throughout Switzerland and beyond its national borders.
Staff numbers
~ 125 full-time equivalents
spread among ~ 160 individuals
RR programme output (hours)
Own productions: 2,000
Third-party productions: 6,500
Repeats: 300
Total: 8,800
TR programme output (hours)
Own productions: 70
Third-party productions: 10
Repeats: 20
Total: 100
Executive Board
Mariano Tschuor, Director of RTR
Maurus Dosch, Head of Finance, HR and Business Development RTR
Gian Ramming, Editor-in-Chief, RTR
Erwin Ardüser, Head of Programme Services, RTR
Pius Paulin, Head of IT and Technology, RTR
Radio Rumantsch
Radio Rumantsch (RR) broadcasts around the clock in Romansh. It borrows some news and current affairs programmes, including “Rendez-vous”, “Echo der Zeit” and news updates between midnight and 5 a.m., from Schweizer Radio DRS. The RR schedule is aimed at a broad audience, offering varied entertainment as well as a combination of local and international news and sport embedded in a 24-hour music mix encompassing contemporary pop, Swiss Schlager and folk music as well as oldies. RR also specialises in authentic Romansh music in all its forms, from choral to brass to rock and pop. Many of the recordings played were produced by RR itself and are thus exclusive to the station.
Televisiun Rumantscha
Televisiun Rumantscha (TR) can be seen every day on SF1. “Telesguard”, which airs at 5.40 p.m. from Monday to Friday (with repeats between 6 and 7.30 p.m. and at 10 p.m. on SFinfo) is an up-to-the-minute daily news and current affairs programme about the canton of Graubünden and Romansh-speaking Switzerland. The children’s current affairs show “Minisguard” airs every Saturday at 5.40 p.m. and is repeated on Sunday at 5.15 p.m. On Sundays at 5.25 p.m., the magazine programme “Cuntrasts” lives up to its name, meaning “Contrasts”: the film features are as colourful and varied as the canton itself. Several times a year, “Cuntrasts” is replaced by the politics show “Controvers”, featuring lively debate on political life in Graubünden and Switzerland as a whole. In addition, TR produces four editions of “Pled sin via” (Word on Sunday, a short religious/spiritual programme) a year.
TR programmes are broadcast nationally on the main channel of Schweizer Fernsehen (SF), SF1. They are subtitled in German and offer the rest of Switzerland a regular opportunity to get to know more about the country’s smallest language minority. Subtitles can be called up on TXT page 777. TR’s films, as well as having a strong following among the Romansh-speaking Swiss, have even won national and international awards.
Multimedia
The website www.rtr.ch has provided information to complement RTR’s radio and television programmes since 1997. The online offering is being added to all the time. Since the start of 2005, for example, all RR and TR news and current affairs programmes have been available in audio and video form on the Internet. A dedicated editorial team was placed in charge of online content in 2006. The youth portal www.battaporta.rtr.ch was launched in 2007, followed in 2008 by www.simsalabim.rtr.ch for younger children.
RTR market shares
A representative survey conducted at the end of 2010 proves that RR is by far the favourite radio station among Romansh speakers with a 6% share of the total audience. One in five listeners listens to RR for more than two hours on an average working day. Some 37% of respondents said they had listened to RR for at least a quarter of an hour the day before, representing a steady increase over the long term. The average market share for the entire broadcast territory, measured by Radiocontrol/Mediawatch, is 22%.
On average, two thirds of the Romansh-speaking population are regular TR viewers, with most watching the main broadcasts on SF1. Of these regular viewers, 38% always or nearly always watch “Telesguard”.
RTR’s output, like that of other broadcasters, is being influenced by changing audience habits. More and more people are using its websites, listening to the radio via the Internet and downloading podcasts. Visits and page impressions for some sections of www.rtr.ch have more than doubled since launch.
