The 164 telephone number provided generations of Swiss people with sports information. At the end of the year, the number has to give way.
Fränzi Aufdenblatten in December 2005 with a telephone number as head sponsor.
The Swiss-Austrian film icon Maximilian Schell once said about the short code 164: “That’s the smartest number there is.” Schell, who died in 2014, was an Oscar-winning cosmopolitan who was interested in sports. He dialed 164 regularly, it was his connection to the universe of Swiss sports when he was jetting through the world again between Vienna and Los Angeles.
Like him, generations of Swiss people fared. Since it was founded in 1955, millions of people have dialed the number to find out who won the Lauberhorn or whether Bruno Risi won the Zurich six-day race. 164, the “sport” once wrote, is a tattoo in the long-term memory of everyone interested in sports.
Anyone who was hungry for news could be updated on a mostly three-minute tape. First recorded by ladies with melodious voices in Cadenazzo, later automated by computer.
Strolling in Havana, but with Servette on your mind: 164 offered a remedy
In the pre-Internet age, the 164, which was offered in three languages, was practically the only way to get valuable information about sports events in real time: a sports staccato for all those who didn’t want to wait until the newspaper was in the mailbox the next morning. And whose television did not yet have teletext. Or who, even from afar, pondered what was happening in the National League A.
It didn’t matter if you strolled along the Malecón in Havana free from worries. The soul could only rest when you knew that Servette had won against Basel at home. Sometimes you were unlucky and encountered the announcement of the totals, which always came directly after the football results. Then you had to search frantically for new coins for the telephone system because the tape could not be fast forwarded.
The service brought the PTT and later the news agency Sportinformation dream returns for years, it was so lucrative that the 164 appeared at times as the main sponsor for members of the national ski team. In the 1970s and 1980s, access was over ten million calls. Accordingly, the sports information fought decisively to get the short code. The 164 was to be switched off as early as the mid-1990s, but an intervention with the then communications minister, Adolf Ogi, brought about the turning point.
Peter Frei, editor-in-chief of Sportinformation from 1989 to 2009, remembers: “I knew Ogi from his time as director of the ski association. He also occasionally asked how the sports news agency was doing. I spoke to him in the Federal Building East and asked him to keep number 164 running in the interests of sport. As the best sports expert in the entire Federal Palace, Ogi immediately recognized the importance and found a solution for the continued operation of the number for the time being with the Federal Office of Communications, which reports to him. As long as at least six million calls are received each year, this should be guaranteed.”
The 164 has not reached this value for a long time. In 2008 there were still 1.8 million calls and in 2021 a remarkable 221,000, at CHF 1.40 per minute. The number is still very profitable for the new operator Keystone-SDA, not least the results of ski races and the football and ice hockey championships are still in demand. This is amazing in a country where, according to the Federal Statistical Office, 98 percent of the population used the internet on a mobile phone in 2021.
The “talking clock” must also give way
But at the turn of the year the number disappeared forever, after the revision of the Telecommunications Act it is no longer permitted to distribute information services via short numbers, from now on they are reserved for emergency services. In addition to the 164, the 161 also has to slow down, Swisscom’s “talking clock” which is obviously still in active use.
164 becomes 0900 164 164. Sandro Mühlebach, Head of Content Development at Keystone-SDA, says: “We have a very loyal clientele. The number of callers is still considerable, which is why we decided to continue the offer in an unchanged form. The number change is a big challenge, but we hope that the customers will come along.”