Digital SRF archive with valuable audios and videos – Radio SRF Musikwelle

Over a million hours of audio and around 250,000 hours of video material are stored in the basement of the SRF in Zurich. These also include speeches and interviews from the 19th century – i.e. from a time before Swiss radio existed. A special robot has access to it.

Swiss radio was founded in the 1930s and Swiss television was added in the 1950s. Since then, programs have been archived. What used to be stored on tapes in cupboards in the basement is now stored in a single cupboard: the archive robot.

Today, every radio and television broadcast is archived. In the past, this was only the case sporadically. The tapes were expensive and some were dubbed over.

Countless audio and film documents are stored in the SRF archive. They show what was important at a certain time and what moved people’s minds. What is also interesting is how people spoke, how they were dressed and how Switzerland was perceived abroad.

Archive robots as a true miracle

Today, every SRF employee can search for the archived programs from their own laptop. They will be “transferred” to the computer within minutes. This is made possible by the archive robot in the basement of the SRF in Zurich Leutschenbach. A cabinet around ten meters long that contains all of the SRF archive material on cassettes.

Legend:

The robot sifts through the existing material on command.

SRF

However, Zurich Leutschenbach is located in a former swamp area. Water damage cannot be ruled out 100 percent. If the archive material is damaged or even destroyed, a copy of it will also be stored in Bern.

SRF archive is accessible to everyone

Large parts of the SRF archive, old radio and television broadcasts, are already open to the public here. For example, all “Echo der Zeit” programs should be available online by next year.

Legend:

Shellac records are rarities that require special care so that they do not become damaged.

SRF

A special case is music that is played on the radio. This is stored in a national, digital music database with around six million titles. The SRG radio stations from all four language regions have access to this.

Uncaptured audio documents

However, there are still many shellac and vinyl records that are not recorded digitally. Specifically, there are still around 70,000 records from the 30s, 40s or 50s stored in the SRF basement, which are only digitized when someone wants to play a title.

This is the case, for example, if a request concert explicitly asks for such a title.