In 2011, the General Law of Telecommunications, Information and Communication Technologies established that radio and television frequencies should be allocated as follows: 33% for each commercial use and state media, and 17% for each community media and outlets serving indigenous people. Sistema Nacional de Radio de los Pueblos Originarios (RPO) is a radio chain that serves the “indigenous people” category as defined by law. The chain consists of 51 radio stations that broadcast in several languages. The new Socialist government that has been in place since 2020 has promised to reinstate the licenses for a number of these stations that, according to state officials, had to cease their broadcasting in recent years.
Media assets
Radio: RPO
State Media Matrix Typology: Independent State-Funded and State-Managed (ISFM)
Ownership and governance
Like all state media in Bolivia, RPO depends on the Ministry of the Presidency headed by the country’s president. Following the change in the government in 2020, the newly elected authorities led by the Socialist Party (MAS) changed the management of all state media in Bolivia, including RPO, a clear sign that the government is planning to cement its control over the state media.
Source of funding and budget
According to our most recent data, for 2018, RPO received BOB 2.3m (US$ 340,000) from the state budget, which is RPO’s sole source of funding, according to our data from local journalists. In July 2023, the government announced a cash injection of BOB 25m (US$ 3.5m) to strengthen the operations of the RPO’s stations across Bolivia.
Editorial independence
RPO depends on the Ministry of Presidency, which has certain influence on the chain’s editorial independence. However, as RPO is a chain of many stations, each of them with their own autonomy, it is difficult for the presidential office to exert control over the editorial strategy of all these individual broadcasters. Moreover, there has been no recent evidence of incidents indicating that the stations are editorially under the control of the current or previous government.
No domestic statute and no independent assessment mechanism to validate the independence of RPO have been identified.
August 2023