Radio y Television Nacional de Colombia (RTVC) Sistema de Medios Públicos

Launched in 2004 as Colombia’s public service broadcaster, RTVC replaced Inravisión, a television station founded in 1964.

RTVC is an “indirectly decentralized entity” that runs the television channels Señal Colombia (with generalist programming including movies, documentaries, culture and entertainment) and Canal Institucional (that mostly covers government events, presidential speeches and activities of other state authorities such as the Congress); as well as the public national radio channels Radio Nacional de Colombia (that has been in operation since 1940 and now airs mostly news and music) and Radiónica (a rock music channel targeting young audiences). Following a series of legal changes in 2019, RTVC was also required to launch new web channels (Señal Clásica, Señal Digital, Radiónica 2 and Radiónica 3) as well as to open up to the public all its radio and television archives.


Media assets

Television: Señal Colombia, Canal Institucional; Radio Nacional de Colombia, Radionica

State Media Matrix Typology: State-Controlled (SC)


Ownership and governance

RTVC was created by decree 3525 of 2004 as a public media enterprise controlled by the government. The government appoints the director of RTVC, according to the Law 1978 of 2019. The director is a “manager” in charge of running the national public radio and television, according to Article 45 of the law. RTVC has a Board of Directors and a Board of Partners (in charge mostly of the corporate governance of the station). The President of the Republic is the main regulator of RTVC through the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications. The President appoints the broadcaster’s general director. In February 2020, a new RTVC director was appointed.

Source of funding and budget

The public media in Colombia receive funding from the government through a state fund (FONTV) whose structure was changed following a series of legal provisions adopted in 2019.RTVC had a budget of COP 253bn (US$ 72m) in 2020, more than 66% of which was accounted for by state subsidies and the rest from other sources including commercial revenues. The fund that is used to finance RTVC draws on revenues from levies paid by private radio and television broadcasters and, as of 2019, also by telcos.

In 2022, the RTVC had a total income of COP 226bn (US$ 58.3m), the state contributing more than 70% of that, according to a company report.

Editorial independence

RTVC has detailed internal regulations and manuals. Moreover, the Law 1978 adopted in 2019 stipulates that the government has to “guarantee the promotion of public interest content on multiple platforms” and to allow for citizen participation in the public media. However, in practice, RTVC is closely controlled by the government as it has been shown in a series of incidents in the past few years. In December 2018, for example, journalist Santiago Rivas saw his program Los puros criollos (meaning “creole cigars” in Spanish) removed from RTVC following his criticism (during the program and on various YouTube videos) of a law on technological convergence promoted by the President Iván Duque. Although officials at the station stated that the decision to remove the program was not censorship, a recording that appeared later showed that the decision to bin Rivas’ program was a deliberate move aimed at castigating the journalist for his criticism. The manager of the broadcaster, Juan Pablo Bieri, was heard as saying that the journalist’s behavior was like “biting the hand that feeds you.” Following a wave of criticism in the media, Bieri had to resign. In his resignation letter, he confirmed the close links between the President and the general director of RTVC, thanking the president for the job given to him and for his trust.

RTVC has a “code of integrity” that is overseen by a collegiate body of the station’s directors. However, this code refers only generally to RTVC’s public service mission, not specifically to its editorial independence.

RTVC has various external “control entities” that monitor the programming of the broadcaster. One of those is a citizen oversight body that monitors, in line with existing legal provisions, how the broadcaster spends the state resources. However, the broadcaster doesn’t have a mechanism focused on overseeing its editorial independence.

August 2023