La Empresa Pública Medios Públicos de Comunicación del Ecuador-Medios Públicos EP is the official state media company in Ecuador. As of September 2020, the company operates as Empresa Pública de Comunicación del Ecuador EP, following a decree adopted by the president Lenin Moreno. As of 2021, the company, with a new website, is known as Comunica EP.
The newly created company runs the television station Ecuador TV, a radio broadcaster (Pública FM) and the news portal of the newspaper El Telégrafo, which appeared in print until summer 2020. During the previous administration of Rafael Correa, the state was directly in charge of the El Telégrafo and El Tiempo newspapers, RTVE Ecuador (which included Ecuador TV, Pública FM and the Andes Ecuador Agency: the latter stopped operating in 2018), La Cadena Ecuatoriana de Television (TC Television), the Pacific Teledos Television Company (Gamavisión), the National Assembly of Ecuador (Legislative TV) and the Educa channel (run by the Ministry of Education). Today, following the changes introduced by Moreno, the state media laid off most of their staff and they were all merged into the newly created group that is now undergoing a major reform process.
Media assets
Television: Ecuador TV
Radio: Publica FM
Publishing: El Telegrafo
State Media Matrix Typology: State-Controlled (SC)
Ownership and governance
The company was created by President Lenin Moreno on 26 September 2020 through the executive decree 1160 that liquidated the previous group (Empresa Pública Medios Públicos de Comunicación del Ecuador-Medios Públicos EP) along with almost all the state media that had operated before. Under the management of this new national media group, a television station (Ecuador TV), a radio broadcaster (Pública FM) and a digital newspaper that for decades before had also been printed (El Telégrafo) were kept.
According to article 315 of the Ecuadorian Constitution, the State can set up public companies to provide various services and the country’s Organic Law of Public Companies establishes that these types of companies are created by executive (presidential) decree. The last law also states, in its article 6, that public companies, such as the one in charge of the state media, must have a board of directors and a General Manager.
Article 78 of the Organic Law of Communication refers to state media companies as “legal entities under public law, with their own assets, endowed with budgetary, financial, economic, administrative and management autonomy; they will be destined to function in strategic sectors, the provision of public services, the sustainable use of natural resources or public goods and in general the development of economic activities that correspond to the State.”
According to article 5 of the 1160 decree, the board of directors should consist of: a) The head of the Presidency’s General Secretariat for Communication or his/her permanent delegate; b) The president of the board of directors of the Public Companies Coordinating Company or his permanent delegate; and c) A delegate from the presidency of the republic.
Source of funding and budget
Following a period of major restructuring and reform, Comunica EP had a budget of US$ 2.8m in 2022, an increase of more than US$ 1m compared to the previous year, according to a company report. Some US$ 1.59m was represented by a subsidy from the government budget and the rest from revenues generated by the company itself.
Editorial independence
The presidency and management of the Ecuadorian public media group depends directly on the president of the republic and its editorial content is notoriously favorable to the government. There was no criticism in the past against former president Lenin Moreno and most of the journalists hired during Rafael Correa’s administration to work for the company’s media outlets were fired. For the outlets run by the public media there is only room to praise and highlight the activities of the president. With Lenin Moreno, the Ecuadorian public media have undergone many changes: its staff was cut but the editorial control by the government remained unchanged. The editorial control of the public media company continued after the election of Guillermo Lasso. The company’s media outlets have since been undergoing a massive reform process that has led to the sacking of thousands of employees.
An important development was the adoption of a new Communications Law in November 2022, which eliminates restrictions from a previous law signed by the former president Rafael Correa, known as the “gag law”. The most important achievement of the new law, promoted and signed by Lasso, was the elimination of legal provisions allowing for “prior censorship”. Although this is a very important development, we have not yet upgraded Comunica EP from the State-Controlled (SC) category in our matrix as we need to gather more evidence that journalists at the outlets operated by Comunica EP are indeed allowed to practice their job autonomously.
The decree 1160 represents the legal basis for the foundation of the recently established group that manages all public media that currently operate in Ecuador. The former media company, now in liquidation, had an Organic Statute where its functions and operating rules were detailed. The group also had a code of ethics. However, none of these documents established the editorial independence of the group’s outlets.
No independent assessment or oversight mechanism to validate the editorial independence of Empresa Pública Medios Públicos de Comunicación del Ecuador has been identified.
August 2023