Radio Television of Serbia (RTS)

Radio Television of Serbia (Radio-televizija Srbije, RTS) is Serbia’s national public service broadcaster, a public media institution that runs 12 television channels and nine radio stations, the record label PGP-RTS and a music production with its own orchestras and choirs. Its history goes back to the Radiophonic Station Belgrade–Rakovica, which began broadcasting on 1 October 1924, to Radio Belgrade, which began regular broadcasting on 24 March 1929, and to Television Belgrade, which first went on air on 23 August 1958.

Media assets

Television: RTS 1, RTS 2, RTS 3, RTS Svet, RTS Nauka, RTS Drama, RTS Život, RTS Klasika, RTS Kolo, RTS Trezor, RTS Muzika and RTS Poletarac.

Radio: Radio Beograd 1, Radio Beograd 2, Radio Beograd 3, Beograd 202, Radio Pletenica, Radio Rokenroler, Radio Džuboks, Radio Vrteška and Radio Džezer.

Music: the record label PGP-RTS, whose roots go back to 1951, and RTS Music Production, which comprises the Symphony Orchestra, the Choir, the Children’s Choir, the Children’s Choir Kolibri, the Folk Orchestra, the Folk Ensemble and the Big Band.

Ownership and governance

Under the Law on Public Media Services, RTS is an independent, autonomous legal entity with institutional autonomy and editorial independence, while its capital is in state ownership and the assets it uses are owned by the Republic of Serbia. Its bodies are the Managing Board, the Director General and the Programme Council. The Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) appoints the nine members of the Managing Board for five years by a two-thirds majority of its members; the Board appoints the Director General for five years, after a public competition, by a two-thirds majority; and the Director General appoints the editors-in-chief, after a public competition, for four years. Members of the Managing Board may not hold public office or a post in a political party. The Programme Council has 11 members, chosen by the parliamentary committee responsible for public information for a single four-year term.

The members of the REM Council are elected by the National Assembly, where each candidate needs the votes of a majority of all MPs, that is, at least 126 votes. After the Assembly failed to elect a new REM Council by the legal deadline of 4 November 2024, students blockaded RTS’s buildings for two weeks in April 2025, which led to the relaunch of the call for the election of the REM Council. The Assembly elected eight of the nine members on 12 November 2025; four of them, regarded as independent, submitted their resignations in December and took up their posts only after the Assembly adopted an authentic interpretation of the Law on Electronic Media in July 2026, and the Council elected its president, Stevica Smederevac, on 22 September. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) noted that the prolonged absence of a constituted REM Council created a legal vacuum that affected, among others, the governance of the public service broadcasters. The five-year terms of five members of RTS’s Managing Board ended in July 2026, and, as a sixth member’s term had expired in December 2025, only three of the nine members retained unexpired mandates; the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications took the view that the six members whose terms had expired could continue working, which REM Council member Rodoljub Šabić called a gross violation of the law and a very dangerous precedent.

Dragan Bujošević, first elected Director General in May 2015 and re-elected in February 2021, reached the end of his second term on 3 February 2026. On 11 February RTS announced that the Managing Board had appointed Manja Grčić as Director General for five years. Grčić had been general director of the news agency Tanjug and held stakes in Minacord Media, the publisher of TV K1, which part-owns Tanjug’s operator Tačno; according to the business register, she gave up her management posts and ownership interests in these companies after her appointment, and the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS) said she does not hide her ties to government representatives. A rival candidate, Slađana Ivančević, filed a lawsuit against the appointment in March 2026, alleging serious irregularities that call into question the legality of the entire procedure.

Amendments to the Law on Public Media Services adopted on 16 June 2025 introduced a Commissioner for the protection of the rights of listeners, viewers and readers, to be elected by the Programme Council. The European Commission’s 2025 report on Serbia states that the amendments were intended to make the public broadcasters more institutionally and functionally independent, while journalists’ and media organisations said that the key problem remains the concentration of power in the hands of the Director General. The members of the Programme Council, elected on 21 June 2022 for four years, had not been replaced by August 2026, and the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) reported in August 2026 that there had been no conditions to elect the Commissioner.

Source of funding and budget

RTS’s core activity is financed from a fee paid, subject to statutory exemptions, by every individual and legal entity using an electricity meter, per home or business premises, and collected through electricity bills. The fee, introduced in 2016 at RSD 150 a month, rose from RSD 299 to RSD 349 a month from 1 August 2024, and an amendment of August 2026 set it at a minimum of RSD 349. In January 2026 it was reported that the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications had refused to approve the increase to RSD 387.32 proposed by the managing boards of RTS and RTV to match inflation. Fee revenue collected in Vojvodina is split 70 per cent to Radio Television of Vojvodina (RTV) and 30 per cent to RTS. RTS has received no state budget subsidy since 2021, including in 2025, and television advertising on the public broadcasters may not exceed 10 per cent of each full hour.

According to its audited financial statements, RTS’s total revenue was RSD 16.64 billion in 2025, up from RSD 15.83 billion in 2024, and its net loss fell from RSD 310.3 million in 2024 to RSD 7.9 million in 2025; it had 2,343 employees at the end of 2025. Fee revenue rose from RSD 11.21 billion in 2024 to RSD 12.40 billion in 2025, while marketing and commercial revenue fell from RSD 4.35 billion to RSD 3.95 billion. In 2024 the State Audit Institution found that RTS had not documented how it planned and valued purchases of programmes from outside producers worth about RSD 3.5 billion in the previous year, contrary to its procurement rulebook; RTS said the report did not state that it had broken any law.

Editorial independence

The law guarantees RTS editorial independence and provides that any state budget funding may not be made conditional on a change of editorial policy. In 2024 the ruling majority received 94 per cent and the opposition 6 per cent of the airtime given to political actors in RTS 1’s main news programme, Dnevnik 2, according to monitoring by the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), and the Commission found that concerns over editorial autonomy, limited pluralism and biased reporting in favour of the government increased. Demostat’s analysis of 307 items of Dnevnik 2 broadcast in two periods, 23 January to 1 February and 23 May to 1 June 2026, found no critical content about the domestic situation, the government or institutions and described a discreet and sophisticated, yet total support for the current government, and an earlier Demostat analysis found that RTS’s news favoured Russia in a sophisticated way, with a clear bias.

During the protests that followed the collapse of the canopy at the Novi Sad railway station in November 2024, students blockaded RTS’s buildings from 14 April 2025 until 28 April, when the new call for the REM Council was announced. After more than 50 RTS employees met in April 2025, at least five were summoned for interviews by security agencies, and an open letter backed by more than 300 employees stated that colleagues had been summoned by the Security Intelligence Agency (BIA). In May 2025 an informal group of RTS employees reported that a colleague had been dismissed after protesting live on air and that three freelancers’ contracts had not been renewed, while RTS said the measures were taken for breaches of work discipline, The Commission noted that some journalist redundancies, including at the public broadcaster, were reportedly in retaliation for their personal social and political views.

After Grčić took office, Bojana Mlađenović was appointed editor-in-chief of Television Serbia’s news programme in April 2026 for four years, the editor-in-chief of the culture and arts programme resigned, and several news anchors and radio presenters were replaced. Ahead of the early parliamentary elections called for 25 October 2026, ODIHR’s election observation mission reported that RTS is among the outlets widely perceived as pro-government and favourable to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). On 7 October REM opened proceedings against RTS and five other broadcasters over campaign items in which children appeared, and on 14 October a majority of the Council found no breach of the Law on Electronic Media and discontinued the proceedings without sanctions.

AI and digital policy

No publicly available RTS policy on artificial intelligence (AI) was identified for this update. In May 2026 RTS launched a tender with an estimated value of RSD 3 million for the integration of AI into the content-entry system of its portal, with the specifications requiring journalists to retain editorial control. Serbia is preparing its first law on AI, and the Code of Journalists of Serbia, adopted by the Press Council, requires content created with AI-based tools to be under editorial control and media to inform the public when such tools have been used.

Classification rationale

RTS retains the Captured Public/State-Managed (CaPu) classification in 2026. It is a public service broadcaster financed mainly by a fee and formally guaranteed institutional autonomy and editorial independence, yet monitoring of its main news shows consistent favouring of the government: the ruling majority received 94 per cent of the airtime given to political actors in Dnevnik 2 in 2024, and Demostat found no critical content about the domestic situation, the government or institutions in the 307 items it examined in 2026. The European Commission likewise found that concerns over biased reporting in favour of the government increased. These content findings are the basis for retaining the classification; the disputed appointment of the Director General, the lapsed mandates of the Managing Board and the reported pressure on staff, attributed above to their sources, concern governance and are documented separately.

October 2026