Latvian Television (Latvijas Televiīzija, LTV), Latvia’s public broadcaster, runs two channels: LTV1 (focused on news and current affairs, children’s and cultural programs) and LTV7 (focused on sports, youth programming and entertainment as well as programs in Russian).
Media assets
State Media Matrix Typology: Independent State Funded and State Managed (ISFM)
Ownership and governance
LTV had been operated as a state-owned limited liability company regulated by various legal acts and policies, including the Electronic Media Law, the Law on Archives, and the National Strategy for the Development of the Electronic Media Sector for 2018-2022. According to the Public Electronic Mass Media and Their Management Law adopted in 2020, LTV was transformed into a capital association whose capital shares are owned by the state. The newly-created Public Electronic Mass Media Council (SEPLP), a body of three members, was created to hold the state capital shares in public media.
The highest governance body at LTV is a Board of Directors who, according to the Public Electronic Mass Media and Their Management Law adopted in 2020, are appointed by the SEPLP. Incidents indicating the politicization of the LTV’s body have been quite frequent in recent years. Yet, the creation of the SEPLP was expected by some observers to lead to more independence. On the other hand, other journalists said that because of its composition (three members, appointed one the Saeima, one by the President and one by civil society), SEPLP will allow politicians to interfere with the editorial independence of the station. SEPLP has the right to also appoint the head of editorial at LTV, In April 2022, SEPLP appointed two of the three members of the LTV board.
Source of funding and budget
LTV is majority funded by the government. In 2021, LTV operated with a total budget of €25.5m. Some 92% of that was accounted for by state funding (a combination of a state subsidy and additional grants from various state authorities), according to the company’s annual report. The rest was generated by other sources including donations, sponsorships or revenue from rental of technical equipment and television facilities. According to a decision by the Saeima (Latvia’s parliament) made in 2018, LTV has stopped airing commercials as of 2021. The fall in funding generated by ad sales has been covered by the government.
In 2022, LTV had total income of €28.4m, some €26.7m coming from a state grant, according to the latest annual report issued by the broadcaster.
Editorial independence
LTV is perceived by Latvians as a state-controlled body. The trust in the country’s public media is low, according to a recent study. Less than 40% of the respondents in the study agreed that the public media (including LTV) are independent. However, the study associated the public skepticism towards public media with the overall distrust among Latvians of the Saeima. In practice, in spite of political pressures on LTV, there is no specific incident in the past few years that would indicate that the government had control over the LTV’s editorial agenda. No domestic statute that would establish LTV’s editorial independence has been identified during the latest round of research. With the new public media law adopted in 2020, the office of the Public Media Ombudsman was created. The first Public Media Ombudsman, an independent expert, who works as an academic, was appointed in December 2021.
October 2023