Bolivia TV (Empresa Estatal de Televisión)

Bolivia TV is Bolivia’s state television broadcaster, run as a state-owned public-law company under the Ministry of the Presidency. It operates the main channel, Canal 7, which carries newscasts, educational programming, concerts and documentaries, and a second signal, 7.2. The broadcaster traces its origins to the state Televisión Boliviana (Canal 7) service launched in 1969 and was reconstituted in its present corporate form in 2009.

Ownership and governance

Bolivia TV is a state-owned public-law company with administrative, financial, legal and technical autonomy on paper, but its governance places it under direct government control. The present company was created in April 2009 by supreme decree, after the previous state broadcaster, the Empresa Nacional de Televisión Boliviana (ENTB, Canal 7), was liquidated. Under the founding decree, its board of directors is composed ex officio of government ministers and chaired by the Minister of the Presidency, and its general manager is appointed by ministerial resolution; oversight runs through the Ministry of the Presidency, and appointment of the general manager has at times been exercised through a dedicated communications ministry. Both the board and the executive of the broadcaster are therefore government appointments, with no arm’s-length structure insulating management from the executive.

Because control runs through government appointment rather than any fixed political ownership, the broadcaster’s direction changes with the government. This has been visible at each change of administration: incoming governments have replaced the management of Bolivia TV and the other state media. Bolivia TV was for many years the broadcaster of the governments of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), which dominated Bolivian politics from 2006, interrupted by the 2019-2020 interim government, and the company was created under the MAS administration to convey the perspective of the Plurinational State. Following the general election of 2025, in which Rodrigo Paz won the October run-off and ended the long MAS-dominated period, the government changed hands, and the state media, Bolivia TV among them, passed under the direction of the new administration, sworn in on 8 November 2025.

Source of funding and budget

Bolivia TV’s founding decree allows for a mixed funding model combining commercial advertising and other services, but in practice the great majority of its income comes from the state, principally through government advertising and direct budget allocations. Earlier SMM data showed a 2021 budget of about 83.8 million bolivianos, with roughly 92 per cent of its funding coming from the state, split between state-paid advertising (about 54 per cent) and direct budget transfers (about 37 per cent).

Its 2024 final accountability report shows an annual programmed budget of about 78.4 million bolivianos against executed spending of about 57.2 million, and its 2025 report a budget of about 80.9 million bolivianos. Official audit material confirms losses and weaknesses in financial planning: the Comptroller General found an actual 2023 result of about -7.1 million bolivianos, an improvement on a larger loss the year before, and identified deficiencies in the broadcaster’s financial management. Its heavy dependence on state advertising and public funding, rather than commercial revenue, is itself a structural tie to the government.

Editorial independence

Although Bolivia TV is nominally autonomous, in practice its editorial line follows the government that controls it. Its management is appointed by the executive and its finances depend on the state, and academic research on its output has documented a pronounced pro-government skew, with markedly more airtime given to government officials than to opposition voices. The European Union Election Observation Mission to the 2025 elections found that the state media, including Bolivia TV, operated under the government’s communication structures and that most of their coverage went to the government and the president, and it recommended a law on public media to establish principles of pluralism, impartiality and independence from the executive. Notably, the same mission found that during the presidential run-off Bolivia TV’s coverage mostly favoured the government but gave little campaign coverage overall and treated the two candidates in a largely equal and impartial way, so its alignment is better described as institutional favouring of the incumbent than as uniformly partisan candidate coverage. This pattern is not tied to a single party: it reflects the broadcaster’s structural subordination to the executive, so that its alignment shifts with changes of government rather than standing apart from them.

That subordination is not offset by any effective external safeguard. Bolivia’s constitution requires that information disseminated through the mass media adhere to principles of truthfulness and responsibility, and the country has a National Press Tribunal (Tribunal Nacional de Ética Periodística) composed of journalists’ appointees, but SMM found no independent, binding mechanism empowered to assess or enforce the impartiality of Bolivia TV specifically, and the EU mission noted the continued absence of a public-media law guaranteeing such independence.

AI and digital policy

SMM found no comprehensive AI law in force in Bolivia as of mid-2026, though AI-related legislation has been under consideration, with a draft bill reported to have advanced from the Senate to the Chamber of Deputies, and SMM found no published editorial AI-governance policy for Bolivia TV. As a state company, its digital and any AI operations follow its institutional and governmental communication objectives. Bolivia TV distributes its signals online and through social media alongside its over-the-air, cable and satellite transmission.

Classification rationale

Bolivia TV is classified State-Controlled because it is a state-owned company whose board is composed ex officio of government ministers and chaired by the Minister of the Presidency, whose general manager is appointed by ministerial resolution, which depends on the state for the great majority of its funding, and which has no binding guarantee of editorial independence, with output that consistently favours the government in office. It is not an independently managed public-service broadcaster.

The change of government in 2025 does not change the classification; it illustrates its basis. Bolivia TV’s alignment moves with whoever controls the executive, from the long MAS-dominated period since 2006 to the administration sworn in on 8 November 2025, precisely because its governance and funding are structurally tied to the state rather than protected from it. Its classification is unchanged as State-Controlled for 2026.

July 2026