Radio/TV Legislativas

The radio and television outlets of El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly are the parliament’s own broadcasting channels, dedicated primarily to carrying legislative sessions, parliamentary debates, commission meetings and updates on the Assembly’s work. They comprise Televisión Legislativa / Televisión Legislativa Salvadoreña and Radio Legislativa, distributed through open broadcast signals, the Assembly’s website, YouTube and social-media platforms. Their purpose is institutional communication of the legislature’s activities rather than general public-service broadcasting.

Media assets

Television: Televisión Legislativa Salvadoreña

Radio: Radio Legislativa

Ownership and governance

The legislative broadcasters are entirely controlled by the Legislative Assembly. They operate as institutional media of the parliament, under the Assembly’s communications structure and the authority of the Assembly’s leadership. There is no independent governance structure, public-service board or editorial-oversight mechanism insulating the outlets from the legislature’s political leadership; their direction is set by parliamentary authorities.

The legal basis for Radio Legislativa’s official frequency was established through a 2012 reform to the Telecommunications Law, which declared 88.1 MHz an official-use frequency for the Legislative Assembly and authorised its use by the Assembly. The same reform stated that the legislature should have mass communication media to inform the population and make it aware of legislative activities. The system was therefore created as an institutional communications service of the Assembly, not as an autonomous public broadcaster.

In practice, parliamentary control is closely aligned with the executive’s political project. President Nayib Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party holds an overwhelming majority in the current Legislative Assembly, with 54 of 60 seats in the 2024-2027 legislature, while allied parties add three more seats and the opposition is reduced to three deputies. The Assembly is presided over by Ernesto Castro, a former private secretary and close ally of President Bukele. The legislative media are therefore controlled by the same governing movement that controls the presidency, which is the central reason they are treated as state-controlled rather than as a pluralistic parliamentary service.

Source of funding and budget

The legislative radio and television outlets are funded from public money allocated within the Legislative Assembly’s budget and administered through its communications structure. They carry no independent or ring-fenced financing, and their resources are controlled by the same parliamentary authorities that direct their institutional output. Public salary and organisational documents identify posts and structures for Radio Legislativa and Televisión Legislativa within the Assembly, reinforcing their status as budgeted institutional media rather than independent broadcasters.

Editorial independence

The legislative media’s editorial direction falls under the governing authority of the Assembly. Their programming is centred on institutional coverage: plenary sessions, committee work, interviews with deputies, legislative updates and Assembly activities. A 2012 legal reform referred to a “Protocolo de Principios y Funcionamiento Operativo de los Medios de Comunicación Masivos de la Asamblea Legislativa,” and later research on Salvadoran state media found that Radio Legislativa and Televisión Legislativa define their editorial agenda according to the activities of the Assembly.

This institutional remit does not amount to editorial independence. Any pluralism built into the outlets is tied to the composition and working practices of the Assembly itself. In the current legislature, that composition is overwhelmingly dominated by the governing party and its allies, so institutional coverage cannot be assumed to provide balanced political representation. There is no impartial external mechanism to assess or enforce the broadcasters’ editorial autonomy, and their coverage centres on the institution and its leadership.

AI and digital policy

SMM found no evidence that the legislative broadcasters had published a dedicated public editorial AI-governance policy as of mid-2026. At the national level, El Salvador approved a Law for the Promotion of Artificial Intelligence and Technologies in 2025, creating a national AI framework and a national AI agency under the Presidency. The law was passed by the Legislative Assembly itself, but it is a national promotional framework rather than an editorial standard for the Assembly’s own media.

At outlet level, the legislative media operate through the Assembly’s website and social-media channels, streaming sessions and parliamentary content. SMM found no disclosed framework governing the use of AI by Televisión Legislativa or Radio Legislativa in editorial production, verification, attribution, synthetic-media labelling, recommendation systems, audience analytics or human oversight. Any AI adoption would therefore be governed by the Assembly’s communications management rather than by a published editorial policy.

Classification rationale

Radio/TV Legislativas is classified State-Controlled (SC), unchanged across SMM cycles. The outlets are owned, funded and directed by the Legislative Assembly through its communications structure and political leadership, with no independent governance, no ring-fenced funding and no enforceable editorial autonomy. Although they are formally a parliamentary service rather than an executive one, the Assembly is dominated by the president’s own party and allies, so in practice the legislative media are controlled by the same governing project as El Salvador’s executive-run state outlets. Their institutional-communications role, public-budget dependence and absence of independent editorial safeguards place them squarely in the State-Controlled category. The classification is unchanged for 2026.

June 2026