From the army to the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) to the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), hardly any federal department has missed the opportunity to launch its own podcast in recent years years, reports “NZZ am Sonntag”. Produced by external agencies, these audio formats cost around one million francs. The problem: almost no one listens to them, as shown by the figures obtained by the German-speaking Sunday newspaper. Individual episodes have only been listened to twenty times in total.
An audio format from the FDFA intended to promote development aid stands out in particular: it cost around 300,000 francs and, despite years of broadcasting, only reached 300 listeners per episode. In some podcasts, spokespersons interview their own bosses, in others, federal officials present their departments in an overwhelmingly positive light.
However, the undisputed queen of federal podcasts is clearly the Swiss army. La Grande Muette is the only unit of the federal administration to have succeeded in seriously establishing a podcast on the market. The “Swiss Army Podcast”, hosted by a career officer and staff colonel, is listened to 5,400 times per episode.
The Confederation is increasingly resorting to communication campaigns through its own channels to give it the best possible image, “instead of providing the public with bland and factual information”, notes the “NZZ am Sonntag. All of this obviously comes at a cost. At the turn of the millennium, the federal administration had fewer than 200 press officers; last year, it had more than 400 full-time employees. And since 2017, public relations spending has increased by 40% to reach 110 million francs per year.
