SiolNET

SiolNET stands as the oldest news portal in Slovenia, covering a wide range of topics since its establishment in 1996 by Telekom Slovenije, the country’s leading telecommunications provider.

Media assets

News portal: SiolNET

State Media Matrix Typology

Independent State Managed/Owned (ISM)

Ownership and governance

SiolNET is owned and managed by TSmedia, a media company wholly controlled by its parent, Telekom Slovenije. Telekom Slovenije is a major telecom service provider in which the Slovenian government is the majority shareholder. As of early 2024, the Republic of Slovenia directly and indirectly held a majority stake in the company.

In recent years, Telekom Slovenije attempted to sell TSmedia as part of a broader strategy to divest from non-core media activities. In May 2021, the company announced it had abandoned plans to sell the portal, despite a reported generous offer from a Serbian businessman. Media coverage at the time suggested that the government was interested in selling the portal to a Hungarian company with close ties to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Following the defeat of the right-wing government of former Prime Minister Janez Janša in the April 2022 elections, these plans were definitively shelved. The new management of Telekom Slovenije formally halted the sale process in mid-2022, confirming that TSmedia was no longer for sale.

Source of funding and budget

SiolNET is funded through commercial revenues, primarily advertising. Previously published figures showed TSmedia generating revenues of €6.4 million in 2019 and operating at a loss.

Editorial independence

For a period leading up to 2022, SiolNET was widely regarded as politicized, with critics noting that the government under Janez Janša influenced the portal’s editorial agenda through editor-in-chief Peter Jančič.

After the April 2022 elections, the new ruling coalition initiated changes. In November 2022, Mihael Šušteršič, a journalist from the Slovenian Press Agency (STA), was appointed as the new editor-in-chief, replacing Jančič. The move generated controversy: many journalists and analysts criticized it as an unjustified political “purge,” particularly since the portal had achieved high audience reach under Jančič.

Under Šušteršič’s leadership, SiolNET adopted a stated editorial focus on strengthening investigative journalism and offering more balanced, in-depth analysis. However, his tenure was relatively brief. In March 2025, Šušteršič resigned as editor-in-chief to return to the Slovenian Press Agency (STA). Following his departure, TSmedia director Irma Gubanec proposed Jaka Lopatič, a long-time SiolNET sports journalist, as the new editor-in-chief.

These successive changes in editorial leadership have had tangible effects on content. Ad hoc content analyses conducted in May 2023 and February 2024 showed a noticeable improvement in editorial balance compared to the Janša-era alignment. This evolution underpinned SiolNET’s reclassification in the State Media Matrix Typology, shifting from the Captured Public/State-Owned Media (CaPu) category to the Independent State Managed/Owned (ISM) category.

September 2025