Historical radio and television broadcasts of the SRG can now be researched more easily than ever: Via Memobase.ch, the national portal of Memoriav, interested parties can access 1.5 million television and radio broadcasts from the RTR and SRF archives. More than 650,000 documents can be listened to or viewed directly online. For researchers, media professionals, and the interested public, this step means significant added value: They gain access to a wide range of historical content, including news broadcasts, sports coverage, and cultural contributions dating back to the 1930s. In the long term, the collections of the RSI and RTS archives are also to be integrated into Memobase.
As a national portal, Memobase bundles audiovisual content - that is, radio and television broadcasts, photos, films, and audio documents - as well as metadata from around 160 Swiss institutions. Thanks to the multilingual, media, and institution-spanning search, audiovisual sources from different collections can be newly discovered and related. With the current expansion, Memobase soon includes more than two million audiovisual documents from Swiss institutions.
The opening of the SRG archives is the result of intensive collaboration between the SRG and Memoriav. Together, the two organizations pursue the goal of making Switzerland's audiovisual heritage more broadly accessible through the fundamentally renewed platform Memobase in 2021. In doing so, SRG fulfills its legal mandate to make its archival holdings accessible to the public. For SRG's television and radio broadcasts have uniquely documented the social, cultural, and political development of the country since the early 20th century.
InteractiveCafe on the new SRG holdings on Memobase on August 20
Those who want to learn more about the new research possibilities can do so at the InteractiveCafe: Daniel Hess, responsible for Memobase at Memoriav, will present selected television and radio documents from the newly integrated SRG holdings in the context of a virtual café - from historical 'Tagesschau' editions to sources on the Schwarzenbach initiative to the climate debate. In addition, search and research strategies will be shown with which the new holdings can be used specifically for journalistic, scientific, and curatorial questions.
The InteractiveCafe takes place on Thursday, August 20, 2026, from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. via Zoom, presentation language is German.
Registration is possible until August 18, 2026, via info@memoriav.ch.
Press contact:
Media Office SRG SSR
Nik Leuenberger, Media Spokesperson
058 136 21 21
media@srgssr.ch
Memoriav
Cécile Vilas, Director Memoriav
cecile.vilas@memoriav.ch
Daniel Hess, Head of Memobase
daniel.hess@memoriav.ch