Zurich is sulking. The elimination in the race to organize the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 hits the self-proclaimed Downtown Switzerland right in the heart.
And the fact that at the end of August the favorite enemy from Basel could be awarded the contract only exacerbates the SRG’s negative attitude towards the maximum penalty.
For the Klein Report, Thomas Renggli from a Zwinglian perspective Roger Schawinskis Text and is already looking forward to the next FCB guest appearance at Letzigrund.
The savior in need is already here: Roger Schawinski, radio pioneer for life and proud son of the “Kreis Cheib”. No one has internalized the patina of the Zurich working class as much as he has, no one manages the balancing act between eternal class struggle and the red carpet so elegantly.
And now “Schawi” is breaking a lance for Zurich in a guest commentary in Thursday’s “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” – at least indirectly. He does it in a subtle way by holding up a mirror to the Basel team. And at the moment, that is at least as clear as a look at the table of the football Super League, where the once proud FC Basel is struggling to catch up with the midfield.
Schawinski reminds the people of Basel that even Roger Federer to the greater Zurich area – and he lists how Basel’s media splendour is fading. The Radio 24 inventor writes how it was (with emphasis on “was”): “In the 1960s and 70s, the first big stars of television came from Basel. The legendary radio correspondent Heiner Gautschy (“This is Heiner Gautschy from New York”) became a key TV figure. He later hosted the SRG’s first talk show, “Link”. Heidi Abel was an electrifying TV talent who shone in a variety of entertainment formats. The dazzling-looking Mäni Weber In turn, with his quiz and medical shows, he became a celebrity the likes of which the country had never seen before.
Hardly anything of that remains – and the Basel dialect in Leutschenbach has become a foreign language. Things could have turned out very differently, says Schawinski: “The then new medium of television was supposed to be created in Basel. But on March 2, 1952, the people of Basel-Stadt rejected a government grant of 55,000 francs for a first TV project – that was too much for the people of Basel.”
Nevertheless, a first, hesitant television trial was launched in Münchenstein on a private basis. But after just three months, broadcasting was stopped due to a lack of money and public interest. And so Schawinski’s conclusion is not without glee: “The SRG’s German-Swiss television did not come to Basel, but a year later to Zurich.”
It has remained that way to this day – something that even the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 cannot change. It may take place in Basel. But that does not change the most important fact. The show and media capital is called Zurich. And it will stay that way forever – also because a certain Roger Schawinski is still behind the radio mixer there.
