PSB System of BiH

The public broadcasting system of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) comprises three broadcasters: Radio and Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHRT) at state level, Radio-Television of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RTVFBiH) and Radio-Television of Republika Srpska (RTRS). The Law on the Public Broadcasting System of 2005 also established a Corporation of the three broadcasters, which was never set up. BHRT is the only one of the three that is a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). BHRT had 775 employees in February 2026, and RTRS had 603 in August 2026.

Media assets

Television: BHT 1 (BHRT), FTV (RTVFBiH), and TV RTRS and RTRS PLUS (RTRS)

Radio: BH Radio 1 (BHRT), Radio FBiH (RTVFBiH) and Radio RTRS (RTRS)

Digital: the bhrt.ba, federalna.ba and rtrs.tv portals

Ownership and governance

Under the 2005 law, licence-fee and advertising revenue is to be paid into a single account, and a System Board made up of the 12 members of the three broadcasters’ boards is also to act as the board of the Corporation. The Constitutional Court’s decision of 27 March 2025 records findings that the Corporation was never established and that the System Board was not functioning. RTRS’s board members do not attend System Board meetings, preventing the quorum required by law. On 24 September 2026, two members of the Parliamentary Assembly proposed amending the law to allow the Board to make decisions with at least seven members present, without requiring representation from all three broadcasters. The European Commission’s 2025 report on BiH states that political influence over public broadcasters persists and that their financial sustainability is to be urgently ensured, pending the adoption of a new law on the public broadcasting system.

Each broadcaster is governed by a four-member board, which appoints its Director General. BHRT’s board is appointed by the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH from a ranking list drawn up by the Communications Regulatory Agency (CRA), RTVFBiH’s by the Federation Parliament, and RTRS’s by the National Assembly of Republika Srpska after a public competition run by its competent body. The Commission found that no steps had been taken to protect the state and entity broadcasters from political influence exerted via their politically controlled steering boards.

The mandate of BHRT’s board had expired by June 2025, when the House of Representatives appointed four new members, but a House of Peoples session to confirm them was halted on 17 February 2026 for lack of a quorum after three delegates of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) stayed away. Belmin Karamehmedović, acting Director General of BHRT from May 2015, was appointed by July 2015 and re-elected in September 2020; in 2026 he was described as acting Director General.

RTVFBiH’s board operated with only one of its four members for more than 10 years until the Federation Parliament appointed a full board on 22 April 2025; BH Journalists said that the House of Representatives’ vote on the appointments was contrary to the law on RTVFBiH. The board dismissed Director General Džemal Šabić on 15 May 2025 and on 30 June appointed Bakir Hadžiomerović for five years. Hadžiomerović had been a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 2014–2015 and its candidate for the Bosniak member of the BiH Presidency in 2014. In April 2025 the Federation Prime Minister, Nermin Nikšić, said that he had asked Hadžiomerović to apply and that, if he could influence it, Hadžiomerović would be director. The Federation Parliament approved a new statute for RTVFBiH in October 2025. One of the four board members, Zoran Krešić, was appointed for one year; after his term expired in May 2026, the Federation Parliament’s appointment committees decided to announce a competition for his seat. On Hadžiomerović’s proposal, the editor of FTV’s news programme, Željko Tica, was replaced in July 2025.

Dijana Milanković, acting Director General of RTRS from 8 March 2021, was appointed on 27 December 2021. The United States Treasury sanctioned her on 17 January 2025 as one of the organisers of the Republika Srpska Day celebrations and removed her from its sanctions list on 17 October 2025. RTRS’s 11-member Programme Council has an exclusively advisory function; the board issued a repeated public call for its members on 17 September 2026.

Source of funding and budget

The law envisages financing the three broadcasters principally through a monthly licence fee of KM 7.50 (EUR 3.83), supplemented by advertising and other revenue. The fee has not changed since March 2013, although the law requires it to be adjusted every year to the official inflation rate. The law allocates 50 per cent of licence-fee and net advertising revenue to BHRT and 25 per cent each to RTVFBiH and RTRS. In the Federation, Elektroprivreda BiH collects the fee through its electricity bills in the areas it supplies, slightly more than half of the entity; in Republika Srpska RTRS collects it through its own service and Pošta Srpske. BHRT submits annual financial and programme reports to the Parliamentary Assembly; its 2025 report was on the agenda of the House of Representatives in July 2026.

RTRS stopped transferring BHRT’s share of the fee collected in Republika Srpska in 2017. BHRT put the resulting debt at KM 104.1 million (EUR 53.2 million) at the end of 2025, and the Commission’s 2025 report at some EUR 50 million. On 27 March 2025 the Constitutional Court of BiH found that judgments of the Supreme Court of Republika Srpska had violated BHRT’s right to property; in July 2025 the Supreme Court confirmed that BHRT is entitled to its share of the fees collected in the entity. In April 2026 the Higher Commercial Court in Banja Luka ordered RTRS to pay BHRT KM 5.4 million. On 12 May the same court ordered BHRT to pay RTRS KM 17.76 million, mainly for the use of transmission links; in September the Supreme Court of Republika Srpska reversed the ruling in the part concerning the transmission links.

Enforcement of the KM 5.4 million judgment froze RTRS’s accounts from 7 July 2026, and they were blocked again in September after a ruling by the Supreme Court of Republika Srpska. BHRT’s account was blocked for more than a month until 25 September 2026. In October 2026 the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo issued the first final ruling in BHRT’s claims against RTVFBiH, ordering payment of KM 304,598.

In February 2026 BHRT listed debts including KM 56 million in taxes and contributions and KM 22 million to the EBU, which has applied sanctions to BHRT since December 2016. On 26 February BHRT replaced its programme with a black screen to warn of an imminent shutdown. On 2 July the Council of Ministers allocated BHRT KM 6 million from the CRA’s surplus for development, modernisation and digitalisation; the BHRT workers’ union said that no funds had been allocated for employees. The European Parliament said in June 2026 that it was alarmed by the persistent shortfall in funding for BiH’s public broadcaster.

RTRS reported revenue of KM 33.17 million in 2024, including KM 20.26 million from the licence fee. RTVFBiH paid BHRT KM 22.8 million in licence-fee revenue between 1 May 2025 and 21 September 2026. In March 2026 the Federation Government adopted a KM 10 million subsidy programme for radio and television from the Federation budget, under which RTVFBiH was awarded KM 6.98 million in June for its programming, production and technological system. The allocation was made through an agreement with the Federation Ministry of Transport and Communications.

Editorial independence

The Commission’s 2025 report states that RTRS continues to spread Russian disinformation, including on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and on BiH’s EU path. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) found that RTRS displayed bias in favour of SNSD in the 2022 general elections, and a clear bias in favour of the ruling party in the early presidential election in Republika Srpska of 23 November 2025, in which only SNSD placed paid political advertisements on RTRS.

In its preliminary findings on the general elections of 4 October 2026, ODIHR reported that the three public broadcasters largely excluded contestants’ campaign activities from their regular news programmes, concentrating instead on election preparations and extensive coverage of incumbents in their official capacities. The entity broadcasters also aired dedicated election programmes, although these were not always scheduled during prime time. Incumbents received some 68 per cent of news coverage on BHT 1, 54 per cent of FTV’s news coverage was dedicated to state and Federation incumbents, and RTRS allotted 43 per cent to entity authorities and another 30 per cent to SNSD, with an almost exclusively positive or neutral tone. Despite a legal requirement, the CRA did not systematically monitor the media during the campaign.

The CRA opened proceedings against RTRS over a December 2025 segment about Bosniaks buying flats in East Sarajevo and over a complaint by five victims’ associations about a 31 July 2026 news item on Srebrenica survivors and the Mothers of Srebrenica. On 17 August 2026 the District Commercial Court in Banja Luka said that media commentary on procedural steps in BHRT’s enforcement case against RTRS, questioning motives and prejudging the outcome, constituted direct pressure on the presiding judge. In September 2026 BH Telecom and then, on 7 September, Telemach suspended the RTRS signal over its broadcast of the funeral of the convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić, and the OSCE Mission to BiH and the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media warned that public broadcasters must not amplify the glorification of convicted war criminals.

BHRT employees protested in front of the Parliamentary Assembly on 27 November 2025, accusing members of parliament of betraying them. In July 2026 their union said that about 80 per cent of employees earned the minimum wage and that pension contributions had not been paid for more than 10 years.

The Office of the High Representative’s report to the United Nations for October 2025 to April 2026 states that BHRT, unlike its entity counterparts, had so far managed, despite serious management problems, to maintain a certain degree of political independence.

Local journalists interviewed by State Media Monitor in April–May 2024 and March 2025 said that all three broadcasters remained heavily politicised, with party-controlled governing structures and financing arrangements providing additional avenues for influence.

AI and digital policy

An assessment by the NarativAI project published in December 2025 found that BHRT’s existing documents contain no explicit guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence tools. In August 2026 BHRT said that it had not adopted any written guideline, rulebook or internal procedure on the use of AI tools, although employees occasionally used them for transcription, translation, research, summaries, photos and headlines. It said that, because of its financial crisis, it had no paid business versions of AI services, that journalists used free tools through their own accounts, and that responsibility for published content remained with programme editors and sector directors.

Classification rationale

The PSB System of BiH is classified as State-Controlled (SC) at the system level because the three broadcasters’ governing boards are appointed by political institutions, while repeated independent assessments have documented political influence over their operations and editorial coverage. The failure to implement the joint governance and revenue-sharing mechanisms established by law has also exposed the broadcasters to political and financial pressure. The extent of interference differs among the three organisations, with particularly strong evidence of partisan editorial alignment at RTRS and some continuing political independence at BHRT.

October 2026