Radio-Television of Slovenia (RTV Slovenija, RTVSLO) is the national public broadcaster of Slovenia. Headquartered in the capital city of Ljubljana, RTVSLO has studios in Koper and Maribor, two other major cities in Slovenia. The broadcaster runs three nationwide television channels and two regional television channels. It also runs eight radio channels, one of which airs internationally.
Media assets
Television: National- TV Slovenija 1, TV Slovenija 2, TV Slovenija 3; Regional- TV Koper-Capodistria, TV Maribor
Radio: National- Prvi, Val 202, Ars; Regional- Radio Koper, Radio Capodistria, Radio Maribor, MMR; International- Radio Slovenia International (RSi)
State Media Matrix Typology: Independent Public (IP)
Ownership and governance
The activity of the RTVSLO is governed by the Radiotelevizija Slovenija Act, according to which RTVSLO is organized as a non-profit public broadcast organization. The Mass Media Act also makes references to RTVSLO.
According to the RTVSLO’s statute, RTVSLO has been governed for decades by the Programming Council and a Supervisory Board.
The Programming Council was the supreme managing body in RTVSLO. Consisting of 29 members coming from various fields of activity, the Council had the power to appoint the RTVSLO’s General Director and to oversee the broadcaster’s editorial line. The law put forward a set of provisions aimed at preventing conflicts of interests for these board members (such as rules barring politicians who held office during the past five years to be appointed on this board). The Supervisory Board consisted of 11 members. It had powers mainly in overseeing the economic efficiency of the broadcaster.
This governing body structure has allowed RTVSLO to protect its operational independence in the past. However, the 2005 Law on RTV Slovenia enhanced the role of the government in the RTVSLO’s affairs by excluding various civil society groups from the composition of the Programming Council and giving instead the state authorities more power in appointing those bodies. The then newly introduced legal provisions were sharply criticized by international organizations such as the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Council of Europe (CoE). However, the Slovenian authorities went ahead and adopted the law, ignoring external criticism. Thanks to those newly approved provisions, the government gained the power to appoint the majority of members of both the Programming Council and Supervisory Board of RTV Slovenia as well as, indirectly, influence the appointment of the broadcaster’s Director General (who also has the power to appoint all the directors of various radio and television departments and channels).
In the following years, thanks to this new set of appointment rules, the cases of political interference in the editorial coverage of RTV Slovenia have increased, affecting its credibility.
The political assault on RTV Slovenia’s governing bodies peaked in 2020 after Janez Jansa, a right-wing politician, became prime minister for the third time following elections in early March 2020. Jansa openly expressed his distaste for RTV Slovenia’s programs, naming them a “media killer” and accusing them of a pro-leftist bias.
In April 2020, the government sacked three members of the RTVSLO’s Supervisory Board, replacing them with pro-government candidates. The following month, six candidates known for their support of the government were appointed to the RTVSLO Programming Council. The changes in the governance structures of RTVSLO were part of a concerted attack by right-wing political forces aimed at defunding the station and securing editorial control.
However, following the adoption of amendments to the RTVSLO law approved by the new ruling coalition in July 2022, and a subsequent confirmation of the law’s validity by the national Constitutional Court, the management of the RTVSLO has been restructured and its two governing bodies were merged into a single, 17-member decision-making structure. Members of this body will be appointed by civil society groups and the broadcaster’s employees rather than the National Assembly. This restructuring is expected by local analysts and international experts to secure the broadcaster’s independence. (see Editorial independence below).
Source of funding and budget
RTVSLO is funded through a combination of license fee, commercial revenues (mainly advertising and sales of other commercial products) and state budget allocations. Every year, the revenue from license fees (a levy that all households in Slovenia are obliged to pay) accounts for 70% to 80% of the broadcaster’s total budget.
According to the outlet’s latest annual budgetary plans, in 2022, the license was to account for over 77% of its budget while revenue generated by advertising sales was planned to contribute nearly 13%. The contribution of the state budget allocation to the total budget of RTVSLO is thus marginal.
In 2022, RTVSLO had a planned budget of some €126m. Attacks against RTVSLO by the Slovenian government (see Ownership and governance above) included an attempt to cut the broadcaster’s budget and to share some of the broadcaster’s revenue with other media outlets in the country. Those plans were likely to hurt the independence of the station. Moreover, the attempts of the former Prime Minister Janez Jansa to dismantle the funding model of RTVSLO further increased the pressure on the station in 2021. Jansa publicly said that he personally refused to pay the license fee, a form of funding that has so far proven to insulate the broadcaster from the government’s control.
Editorial independence
There are no legal norms that impose editorial rules on the RTVSLO’s management or journalists. On the contrary, the station’s activity is governed by a set of rules nailed down in law that are aimed at protecting the station’s editorial independence. For example, RTV is legally required to be independent and to comply with various rules including impartiality, truthfulness and pluralism of opinions. The broadcaster is legally obliged to comply with a series of legal provisions that govern its programming including obligation to produce programs for ethnic minorities (Hungarians and Italians) and devote time to cultural and children’s programs.
On top of the legal provisions that impose a set of programming obligations, RTVSLO operates in line with an RTVSLO statute that describes in detail all the principles that should guide the activity of RTVSLO, including its management, organization, financing and editorial affairs. At the same time, the broadcaster’s journalists have to follow a set of professional standards, a requirement that further bolsters their independence.
RTVSLO also has a Listener and Viewer Ombudsman who was first appointed in 2008, in line with the legal requirements stipulated by the RTV Slovenia Law. The Ombudsman’s main task is to independently assess complaints, comments and suggestions from viewers and listeners and instruct the RTVSLO’s General Director on how the station should improve its editorial coverage as a result of the complaint.
However, the editorial safeguards in place at RTVSLO were badly endangered during the Jansa government, which planned, through cementing their control on the station’s governing structures and financially destabilizing the station, to gain control over the broadcaster’s editorial decision-making.
In November 2021, RTVSLO Program Council approved a significant reform of the station’s programming that included cancelation of various talk shows and changes to some news programs. The plan, which was seen as a confirmation of the government control at RTVSLO, attracted sharp criticism from media freedom NGOs.
Although Jansa’s populist party, the enemy number 1 of RTVSLO, lost elections in April 2022, the station remained under government control, a situation that prompted the broadcaster’s staff to strike at the end of May 2022.
Nevertheless, the amendments to the RTVSLO law, which took effect in June 2023 (see Ownership and governance above) are expected to stave off attempts to influence the broadcaster’s editorial independence in the future. According to the Slovenian prime minister Robert Golob, the newly adopted law means “that politics is withdrawing from managing RTV Slovenia and giving its employees the necessary autonomy.” Media freedom NGOs such as the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) and Article 19 in the U.K. also saluted the newly introduced legal provisions.
October 2023