Romanian Television (TVR) is the country’s public service television broadcaster. It runs three nationwide channels, an international channel (TVR International) and a channel that caters to the public in the neighboring Republic of Moldova (TVR Moldova) where most of the people speak Romanian.
Media assets
Television: National- TVR1, TVR2, TVR3, TVR Cultural, TVR Info; International- TVR International, TVR Moldova; Local- TVR Cluj, TVR Craiova, TVR Iasi, TVR Targu Mures, TVR Timisoara
State Media Matrix Typology: State-Controlled (SC)
Ownership and governance
According to the law 41 of 1994, the main governing structure at TVR is the Board of Directors, consisting of 13 members who are appointed by Parliament. The board chair is also appointed by parliament for a four-year mandate. The members are nominated as follows: eight by parliament, two by the TVR staff and one by each the presidency, the government, and the political parties representing ethnic minorities.
The Commission for Culture and Media is preparing major amendments of the legislation that regulates the operations of the Romanian public television and radio. One of the possible changes is the separation of the position of Director General (the CEO of the company) from that of President, a provision that is expected to diminish the concentration of management power at the station, which makes TVR more vulnerable to pressures, especially political ones.
Source of funding and budget
TVR used to be funded through license fees, a tax worth less than €2/month per household and €7/month for companies. But in 2016, the government approved the cancellation of 102 non-fiscal taxes, including the “radio and television tax” (as license fee was known in Romania). That source of funding was replaced with resources from the state budget.
In 2022, TVR had a total budget of RON 501.8m (US$ 100m), over 85% of that being accounted for by a state subsidy, according to a company report. In the previous year, TVR had a budget of RON 416.4m, roughly RON 368m of that being a state budget allocation.
Editorial independence
Although every government in Romania has tried to control TVR, various mechanisms aimed at insulating the station from political and other types of pressure have been introduced during the past decade, securing, if not TVR’s full independence, its semi-autonomy.
However, in the past four years, the station’s leadership, in hock to the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which has a majority in parliament, has created a harsh culture of censorship where any criticism of the PSD’s interests and people is totally unacceptable.
The station has also been embroiled for nearly two years in a series of scandals involving TVR’s president and executive director Doina Gradea who is accused of unprofessional work conduct, swearing at journalists and editorial censorship. Although journalists have been pushing back, suing the management and calling for Gradea’s resignation, the broadcaster operates in a very restrictive, highly politicized environment. In the end, Gradea was fired from the executive director position by Parliament in May 2021 (but remained a TVR employee in a project manager position with the HR department). Cases of censorship continued to be reported at TVR in the past year.
TVR has the statute of an autonomous, editorially independent public service broadcaster, according to the law 41 of 1994 and the station’s operational rulebook. The editorial independence is defined as “the right of TVR to decide on its own about the programming policy in line with its legal mandate.” TVR’s autonomy and editorial independence are guaranteed by law, and its programs are protected from interference from any political party, trade unions, commercial entities and lobby groups. Censorship is forbidden in TVR.
However, these rules are ignored in practice as TVR’s management imposes a series of strict editorial restrictions on its journalists.
There is no independent oversight mechanism to validate the independence of TVR.
October 2023