Radio and Television of Montenegro (RTCG)

Radio and Television of Montenegro (Radio i Televizija Crne Gore, RTCG) is Montenegro’s national public broadcaster, which the law governing it since 2024 designates as the Public Media Service of Montenegro (Javni medijski servis Crne Gore). The law names the state as its founder, defines it as comprising a radio, a television and an internet publication operating under the short name RTCG, and prohibits its privatisation. Its radio traces its origins to Radio Cetinje, which first went on air on 27 November 1944, and Television Titograd began continuous broadcasting from its own studio in 1974. An Ipsos survey for the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services (AMU) conducted in late 2025 found that TV Vijesti was the main source of information for more than 40 per cent of respondents, followed by TVCG 1 with almost 30 per cent. Boris Raonić has been its Director General since August 2021.

Media assets

Television: four programmes, TVCG 1, TVCG 2, TVCG 3 and TVMNE. RTCG presents TVCG 3 as its Parliamentary Channel, launched on 25 March 2021, and describes its satellite programme as a bridge between Montenegro and its diaspora.

Radio: Radio of Montenegro (RCG) and Radio 98, the second programme of Radio of Montenegro.

Digital: the rtcg.me portal, which RTCG says has operated as a multimedia platform since 2013, with Android and iOS applications, and the MNE Play OTT platform.

Ownership and governance

Parliament adopted the Law on the National Public Broadcaster – Public Media Service of Montenegro on 7 June 2024, as part of a package of laws linked to the European Union’s interim benchmark assessment report (IBAR) for Montenegro’s accession negotiations. President Jakov Milatović returned the law to Parliament, saying that it called RTCG’s editorial independence into question, and Parliament adopted it again on 19 June. Published in the Official Gazette on 24 June 2024, it replaced the law adopted in July 2020.

The law requires the state to ensure RTCG’s institutional autonomy and editorial independence, and its bodies are the Council and the Director General. The Council has nine members appointed by Parliament for five-year terms, renewable once. Universities; the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU) together with Matica crnogorska; national cultural institutions together with cultural non-governmental organisations (NGOs); the Chamber of Economy together with employers’ associations; media NGOs; trade unions; and the Olympic and Paralympic committees each nominate one member, and human rights NGOs nominate two. Members must be recognised experts, and members of Parliament and of the Government, political party officials and RTCG employees, among others, cannot serve. The Council appoints and dismisses the Director General after a public competition for a four-year term, which can be held at most twice, and the Director General appoints the directors of the radio, the television and the internet publication; the directors of the radio and the television appoint the programme editors, and the director of the internet publication appoints its content editors. The 2024 law requires the Director General to have at least five years of management experience, replacing the 2020 law’s requirement of at least ten years of work experience.

Local experts and journalists interviewed by State Media Monitor in 2023 and 2024 said that some of the NGOs nominating Council members depend on government funding. In June 2026, 16 NGOs said that the ruling parties had decided to elect their own candidates to the Council contrary to the law, with the support of NGOs that did not meet its financial criteria.

The Council appointed Raonić, then a member of the Council of the Agency for Electronic Media, as Director General in August 2021. The Basic Court in Podgorica annulled the appointment on 4 January 2023, and the Higher Court in Podgorica upheld the ruling on 10 May 2023. On 1 June 2023 the Council elected Raonić again from the candidates of the 2021 competition; the Basic Court annulled that decision on 30 April 2024, and the Higher Court upheld the ruling, finding that he had not met the work experience requirements. Raonić resigned in July 2024 but continued to serve as acting Director General, and on 31 August 2024 the Council appointed him, with the votes of five members, for a term running to 31 August 2028. The Media Institute of Montenegro’s June 2025 shadow report on media freedom states that the lower experience requirement allowed Raonić to be appointed. The Basic Court annulled the August 2024 appointment in three separate cases: on 11 July 2025, in proceedings brought by Andrijana Kadija and Žarko Božović; in a ruling reported in October 2025, on a lawsuit by Slaven Knezović; and in February 2026, on a lawsuit by Časlav Vujotić, ordering a new selection procedure. Subsequent appellate decisions produced different outcomes. On 20 March 2026 the Higher Court in Podgorica set aside a Basic Court judgment of 3 October 2025 and returned that case for retrial, and on 24 March it reversed the 11 July 2025 judgment in Kadija and Božović’s case and dismissed their claims to annul the appointment. Raonić remains Director General.

In November 2024 the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica filed an indictment against the Council chair and four Council members for abuse of office over the June 2023 vote. On 23 September 2025 the Basic Court in Podgorica convicted the Council chair Veselin Drljević, the members Filip Lazović and Naod Zorić and the former member Amina Murić, giving each a seven-month suspended sentence, and the Higher Court upheld the verdict, which concerns the June 2023 vote rather than the August 2024 appointment, on 15 June 2026, making it final. Drljević’s mandate expired on 11 June 2026 and he withdrew his candidacy for a new term, and RTCG reported on 29 June that Zorić had resigned from the Council. In August 2026 Portal Analitika reported that Murić had been engaged by RTCG.

Parliament elected Marijana Camović Veličković, Janko Ljumović and Nikola Tatar to the Council on 30 July 2025. The European Commission’s 2026 rule of law chapter states that Parliament launched the procedure to appoint four Council members whose terms expired in June 2026 after a considerable delay, and reports stakeholders’ concerns that such delays point to political interference in the Council. On 26 June 2026, 18 NGOs, including the Centre for Civic Education (CGO), the Media Institute, Human Rights Action and the Trade Union of Media of Montenegro (SMCG), wrote to the EU Delegation that the process was largely politicised and conducted contrary to the RTCG law. Parliament elected Pavle Radovanović, Amar Škrijelj and Radenko Lacmanović on 27 July 2026, after which four NGOs said that the parliamentary majority had deliberately violated the RTCG law by voting on candidates one by one, and the EU Delegation said that transparent appointment procedures remain essential. Miroslav Milanović and Nebojša Asanović were elected on 13 October 2026.

Source of funding and budget

RTCG is funded predominantly from the state budget. The 2020 law allocated 0.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to its core activities. On 28 December 2023 Parliament amended the law to set the allocation at 1.34 per cent of the current state budget, a change the European Commission warned could introduce uncertainty into RTCG’s budget allocations. The 2024 law retains the 1.34 per cent allocation and provides that, if the current budget falls, the amount cannot be lower than in the previous fiscal year. Its other sources of revenue include advertising, sponsorship, the sale of audiovisual works and donations from international organisations. Neither the 2020 nor the 2024 law provides for a licence fee.

RTCG’s revenue was EUR 20.39 million in 2022, of which EUR 15.92 million, about 78 per cent, came from the state budget. Its revenue rose to EUR 21.11 million in 2023 and EUR 22.72 million in 2024, and its sales revenue rose from EUR 1.74 million in 2022 to EUR 4.37 million in 2025. In 2025, RTCG reported revenue of EUR 26.19 million, expenditure of EUR 25.08 million and a net profit of EUR 1.11 million, with 743 employees at year-end. RTCG’s financial plans projected state budget funding of EUR 18.71 million for 2024 and EUR 20.08 million for 2025.

The State Audit Institution (DRI) audited RTCG’s 2021 financial statements, and in its final follow-up in April 2026 found that 14 of its 18 recommendations had been implemented and four partly implemented. In findings reported in July 2026, the Ministry of Finance’s Budget Inspection established that EUR 26,600 of Raonić’s pay for 2025 had been paid without the required salary decision. CGO filed a criminal complaint with the Special State Prosecutor’s Office, while RTCG said that the inspection had not found that anyone was paid outside their employment contract and described the issue as procedural. In September 2026 the Council approved a variable pay component of more than EUR 2,000 for Raonić’s work performance in September, which Borba reported would take his monthly earnings above EUR 4,000.

Editorial independence

The 2024 law states that RTCG is independent in editing its programmes, protects journalists and other staff who create programme content from dismissal or reduced pay for the views they express, and requires a public debate of at least 30 days on its annual programme plans. It also provides for an Ombudsman, appointed by the Council after a public competition for a three-year term, who is independent in their work.

The European Commission’s 2023 report on Montenegro stated that RTCG continued to produce politically balanced content, including during election periods, and its 2024 rule of law chapter described the broadcaster’s editorial policy as largely balanced, giving a broad range of political stakeholders opportunities to present diverse political views. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) found that the public broadcaster provided balanced coverage of the June 2023 parliamentary elections but offered limited news coverage of the campaign, airing interviews with contestants and free airtime mainly on its less popular Parliamentary channel.

The Commission’s 2025 report on Montenegro recommended safeguarding the political independence of RTCG and the AMU, including protecting their editorial, institutional and financial independence from any form of undue influence, and noted concerns raised by RTCG union representatives over perceived undue management pressure, anti-union discrimination and delayed collective bargaining. SMCG vice-president Camović Veličković said in January 2026 that at least 100 employees of RTCG and RTV Podgorica had left the union under pressure, and a new collective agreement for RTCG was signed in June 2026.

In a podcast published by CGO in February 2025, Camović Veličković said that “the public broadcaster has been hijacked by political parties, with Boris Raonić at their service”, citing unprofessionalism, unverified information and censorship. The Media Institute’s June 2025 shadow report states that the experts it consulted do not see the public broadcaster as able to criticise the government or as a source of investigative journalism. CGO’s monitoring of 122 editions of RTCG’s Dnevnik 2 news programme broadcast between August and November 2025 found a pattern of reliance on official sources, with NGOs and independent experts under-represented and, in August and September, opposition parties also given less space, and concluded that the programme primarily acts as a transmitter of institutional activities rather than as a critical corrective of the authorities. In its coverage of President Jakov Milatović’s October 2025 decision to award an order posthumously to Metropolitan Amfilohije, Dnevnik 2 reported the decision without analysing its legal basis and gave no space to civil society views criticising it. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) states that concerns about possible government attempts to interfere with RTCG’s independence have resurfaced, and that the parliamentary majority adopted a new law allowing the Director General to stay in power despite multiple court rulings deeming his appointment illegal.

In March 2025, 101 civil society organisations opposed proposed amendments to the media laws under which political parties, rather than NGOs, would choose the NGO representatives on the Councils of RTCG and the AMU; 19 NGOs, including CGO, stated in July 2025 that the attempt had been thwarted thanks to the EU’s timely reaction. In a survey conducted by Damar for CGO in December 2025, 24.1 per cent of respondents said they fully trusted RTCG’s news, 55.2 per cent partly and 13 per cent not at all.

AI and digital policy

RTCG’s Rules, Ethical Principles and Standards for the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are dated 3 December 2025, and their adoption was reported on 4 December. They make human judgment the final authority at every stage of content creation and keep AI-assisted content under editorial supervision. They prohibit using AI to generate news, analyses and commentaries, while permitting its use in technical tasks such as transcription, subtitling and translation. They also require disclosure when AI plays a significant role in creating content and prohibit entering personal or confidential data into publicly available AI systems. In a NarativAI assessment of the transparency and digital and AI readiness of Western Balkan public broadcasters, conducted in October and November 2025, before the rules were adopted, and published in December 2025, RTCG scored 60 out of 100 and was working on a new Code of Ethics integrating AI-related principles into journalistic practice. No statutory requirement to label AI-generated content was identified in Montenegrin law. A working group to draft Montenegro’s AI strategy for 2026 to 2030 held its constitutive session in October 2025, and the Code of Journalists of Montenegro, presented on 7 July 2026, requires AI-generated content to be clearly labelled where it could mislead the audience and prohibits its publication without human verification and approval.

Classification rationale

RTCG was classified Independent State Funded and State Managed (ISFM) in 2023 and 2024, a period in which the European Commission and ODIHR assessed its coverage as politically balanced, and was reclassified as State-Controlled (SC) in 2025, a classification retained in 2026. RTCG is funded predominantly from the state budget and governed by a Council appointed by Parliament, and NGOs have described the parliamentary majority’s handling of the 2026 Council appointments as politicised. The Council reappointed the same Director General after the courts annulled his 2021 appointment and his 2023 reappointment, and four current and former Council members were finally convicted of abuse of office over the 2023 vote. Because the Director General appoints the directors of the radio, the television and the internet publication, and the directors of the radio and the television appoint programme editors, control over the Council and the Director General extends to editorial management.

The typology reserves the SC category for media that follow an editorial line imposed or approved by state authorities, and the evidence reviewed indicates that this influence reaches RTCG’s coverage: CGO’s monitoring of Dnevnik 2 between August and November 2025 found reliance on official sources, uncritical reporting on the authorities and limited space for critical civil society voices; the experts consulted by the Media Institute do not see RTCG as able to criticise the government; and union representatives have reported perceived undue management pressure on staff. Together with RTCG’s dependence on state funding and the political control of its appointments, these findings support retaining the SC classification.

October 2026