Romanian Television (TVR)

Romanian Television (Societatea Română de Televiziune, SRTV), known as TVR, is Romania’s public service television broadcaster, which began broadcasting on 31 December 1956. Law 41 of 1994 establishes it, together with the public radio broadcaster, as an autonomous public service of national interest that is editorially independent, and the Constitution provides that public radio and television services are autonomous. TVR operates national channels, five regional studios and two international channels, one of them for audiences in the Republic of Moldova.

Media assets

Television: National – six linear channels, TVR 1, TVR 2, TVR 3, TVR Info, TVR Cultural and TVR Sport; International – TVR Internațional and TVR Moldova; Regional – TVR Cluj, TVR Craiova, TVR Iași, TVR Târgu Mureș and TVR Timișoara. TVR Sport went on air on 30 March 2024.

Online: TVR Folclor, launched in November 2023, has been an online-only channel since April 2026, after the National Audiovisual Council (CNA) granted it an internet licence and withdrew its satellite and terrestrial licences.

Digital: the tvrinfo.ro news portal and the TVR+ streaming platform.

Ownership and governance

Under Law 41 of 1994, TVR is run by a 13-member Board of Administration whose members Parliament appoints for four years by voting on the lists of candidates in a joint sitting of the two chambers, after hearings in the culture committees. The joint parliamentary groups propose candidates for eight seats according to their political configuration and weight in Parliament, and the parliamentary groups of the national minorities propose candidates for one seat. The board elected in November 2025 included three members nominated by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), two by the National Liberal Party (PNL) and one each by Save Romania Union (USR), the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), as well as nominees of the President, the Government and the national minorities and two employee representatives. The chair of the board also serves as TVR’s director general, in the post of president-director general; in November 2025 the new board proposed one of its members, Adriana Săftoiu, for the post, to be heard by Parliament’s culture committees and voted on in joint sitting. Parliament’s rejection of TVR’s annual report entails the dismissal of the board by law.

In May 2021 Parliament rejected TVR’s reports for 2017 to 2019, dismissing the board led by Doina Gradea. Dan Cristian Turturică, elected chair of the board, and thus president-director general, in November 2021, served until his board’s mandate ended on 14 November 2025. Under an arrangement in the governing coalition that allotted the leadership of TVR to PNL and of the public radio to USR, Parliament approved a new board on 18 November 2025 by 270 votes to 4, and on 26 November it approved Adriana Săftoiu, a former presidential spokesperson and PNL MP, as president-director general by 230 votes to one, with AUR walking out.

On 29 April 2026 the Constitutional Court upheld a challenge by AUR and ruled the parliamentary decision appointing the board unconstitutional as regards the designation of candidates by the joint parliamentary groups; the decision ceased to have effect when the ruling was published in the Official Gazette on 4 September 2026. On 8 September the Permanent Bureaus of the two chambers appointed Sorina Matei, proposed by AUR, as interim director general for 60 days, with the votes of PSD, AUR and SOS. On 6 October PNL and USR asked the Constitutional Court to review the interim appointment, which the Court was due to discuss on 18 November, and on 16 October six USR MPs filed a preliminary complaint asking Parliament to revoke the interim appointments at TVR and the public radio.

The European Commission’s 2026 rule of law chapter on Romania reports that the Government has set up an interinstitutional working group to improve the independent governance of public service media and align with the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), but that a draft has yet to be issued, and finds limited progress on its recommendation in this area.

Source of funding and budget

TVR was financed mainly by a television licence fee of RON 4 a month for individuals and up to RON 50 a month for legal entities, including branches, which accounted for 68 per cent of its funding before it was abolished from 1 February 2017 by Law 1/2017. That law ended 102 non-fiscal fees. TVR has since been financed mainly from the state budget, supplemented by its own revenues, including advertising; advertising and teleshopping spots on public television may not exceed 16.7 per cent of each statutory time band.

TVR ended 2023 with a loss of RON 16.7 million. According to Forbes’s analysis of TVR’s 2025 activity report, TVR received RON 484 million from the state budget in 2025, its revenue was RON 551.6 million and its expenditure RON 579 million, producing a loss of RON 27.4 million; personnel costs accounted for 67.31 per cent of expenditure, it had 2,060 employees at the end of the year, and its debt to the state transmission company SNR stood at RON 114.5 million.

In March 2026 Parliament’s budget committees approved a 2026 budget of RON 500 million for TVR, 3.34 per cent more than in 2025. The MJRC and IPI media capture report on Romania, covering developments up to September 2026, notes that the public broadcasters’ budgets have fallen in real terms and that their funding model remains at odds with the EMFA’s requirement of adequate, sustainable and predictable funding. In March 2026 TVR’s leadership said that almost RON 395 million of its annual allocation goes on salaries and warned that without additional funding for its technical infrastructure it risked interrupting its broadcasts. An emergency ordinance of December 2025 froze the salaries of TVR and public radio employees for 2026, and the Romanian Union of Journalists MediaSind objected that the Government’s ordinance cutting personnel costs did not exempt public media institutions. On 30 March 2026 the Federation of Culture and Mass-Media FAIR-MediaSind asked the European Commission and the European Parliament to assess Romania’s compliance with the EMFA and, where appropriate, to open infringement proceedings against Romania.

Editorial independence

Law 41 of 1994 protects TVR’s programmes from interference by public authorities, political parties, trade unions, commercial bodies and pressure groups, and the Constitution prohibits any form of censorship. The Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) and the International Press Institute (IPI) found in October 2024 that there are no independent bodies or mechanisms free from political influence to monitor the public broadcasters’ independence. TVR has an internal Ethics and Arbitration Commission, and the CNA regulates its content as it does that of other broadcasters.

During Gradea’s tenure, the media freedom organisation ActiveWatch reported alarming editorial pressures and political excesses at public television and radio. In their 2024 report, the MJRC and IPI stated that the public broadcasters had been subjected to frequent allegations of politicisation, censorship and questionable management practices, while finding that TVR enjoyed a greater degree of editorial independence than most private television channels, particularly those focused on news. Their 2026 report finds that the boards and heads of the public broadcasters are still chosen along party lines, resulting in political influence and a lack of independence, and that the interim heads installed in September 2026 were chosen by Parliament’s leadership with the votes of PSD and AUR. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) states that media independence suffers from attempts at political interference, especially in the appointment of the heads of public radio and television.

In the May 2025 repeat presidential election, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) found that TVR provided all contestants with fairly balanced and neutral coverage. In December 2025 TVR broadcast Recorder’s documentary on the judiciary, “Justiție capturată”, which the president of the Bucharest Court of Appeal said amounted to evident public incitement against the constitutional order, while a CNA vice-president said that TVR had fulfilled its legal mission. The Commission’s 2026 chapter notes that TVR is changing its main news programme, which attracted positive reactions from stakeholders. In October 2026 Săftoiu said that she believes it is in the interest of the political class for TVR to remain as it is.

TVR 1 ranked 14th among national television channels in 2025, with an average of 37,533 viewers per minute. The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026 finds that the Romanian public service broadcasters are among the five most trusted media brands but much smaller in terms of reach.

AI and digital policy

No publicly available TVR-specific policy on artificial intelligence (AI) was identified for this update. The CNA’s Audiovisual Code, in force since 7 August 2025, requires realistic synthetic content to carry, throughout its broadcast, the warning “Audiovisual content made with the help of artificial intelligence!”, which the CNA has enforced against advertising spots. The Government approved a national AI strategy for 2024 to 2027 in July 2024.

Classification rationale

TVR retains the State-Controlled (SC) classification in 2026. Its leadership continues to be allotted among the parliamentary parties: the board appointed in November 2025 was shared out under a coalition arrangement, and its interim head since September 2026 was proposed by AUR and appointed by Parliament’s leadership with the votes of PSD and AUR. The MJRC and IPI find that the boards and heads of the public broadcasters are still chosen along party lines, resulting in political influence and a lack of independence. ODIHR’s finding of balanced coverage in the May 2025 election and the positive reactions to TVR’s new main news programme predate the change of leadership in September 2026, and TVR’s coverage under its interim management warrants continued review.

October 2026