Does your country have a single state-owned broadcaster, and if so, how are they perceived?

34 comments

1. Yes, in Poland we have an equivalent to BBC. And local media try to be like BBC. Results are mixed. Sometimes great and sometime laughable.

2. In Austria, we have the ORF, which is kind of BBC-like. There is some private competition, but they are far behind in range of coverage. Technically, the ORF is owned by the public, not paid by the government but by direkt mandatory money from the public (Owning a TV or a radio leads to paying this fee). This should give some indepencende for reporting. But in real live, all political parties try to get access to the broadcaster. But when you compare it to other TV-Stations around the world, it is still very neutral and independent.

3. Norway have NRK. It is generally seen as quite good and reliable. Though like with most media many think they are left leaning. While the tv-channel established it was at the height of the labour party here in norway in the early 1960s.. and generally polling or likewise show that journalists are more red/left than in the population in general.. Though news and journalism is just a small percent of it.. Mostly the channel shows tv-shows. As NRK is member of a nordic assosication (the nordic broadcasters) we get tons of swedish and danish tv-programs… And they buy in a lot of stuff from bbc.. like nature programs with attenborough or louis theroux etc.. Also produces a lot of stuff themselves. Earlier it had quite a lot of sport like wintersports and football etc.. but has not been able to pay for rights in the recent years.. so now you get chess and women’s football there.. The channel consist of several tv-channels like NRK1, NRK2, NRK3 etc.. and includes also radiostations. It is now financed via peoples tax bill. Previously it was paid as a bill sent to each house having a tv. They even had people going around with antennas etc. to check if people claiming not having tv actually didn’t have it. Think if you’re eligible to pay tax, you pay around 1700NOK (about 170 euros), added to the tax you pay.. No matter whether you watch NRK or not.

4. Yes. We have DR (Danmarks Radio). Much like the BBC, it has both radio and television programmes covering a wide variety of topics. It is, generally, good at its job, and the news are very trusted

5. RTV Slovenija.

   They are constantly in financial trouble, despite being paid by the public and having commercials – which is infuriating. It is still the main broadcaster, but it does seem like an old fortress from the previous regime. Not so much because of the politics, but perhaps because of inefficiency, having a lot of employed people, many contract workers, etc.

   It is a shame, because there is a lot of good content produced, and they cover most major events. But they are losing money and it shows.. there are way too many commercials, you even have 1h commercial shows where an old lady is selling you snake oil. It’s ridiculous.

6. Without being a hair splitter, the BBC is not state owned..it’s an independent organization that very basically gets a grant from the government (via a licence fee), but it also has a commercial arm.

   In contrast, Channel 4 in the UK does have the government at it’s shareholder, even if it runs itself.

   There is a big difference between state owned and state controlled. That was the issue in Poland under the old government where it became the states, or more accurately one parties propaganda machine, over something like YLE which is more of a public service, often meant to support local culture.

7. Just one? We have 13 national public broadcasters, that all operate within the domain of the government owned NPO.

   In general their programmes are considered better, often entertaining a more intellectual audience.

8. Yes, in Latvia we have LTV (Latvijas Televīzija), the TV and LR (Latvijas Radio), the radio. I’d day the quality is pretty high and it’s definitely the most reliable news source and both have quite a few informative programs and a sometimes a few entertaining shows. They also broadcast almost all of the main sporting events (important in Latvia – which means hockey championship, but not FIFA World Cup I think). It’s all free if you’re in Latvia or have Latvian electronic identification.

9. In Germany we have the “Öffentlich Rechtlicher Rundfunk” (translates to something like public service broadcasting). It’s a cooperation of several broadcasters like ARD, ZDF, WDR, SWR, MDR, SWR and many more. They broadcast lots of local, regional and nationwide tv and radio channels, as well as websites etc. They provide the whole bandwidth of media ( news, music, movies, documentaries and and and…)

   They are independent from governments and get funded mostly by a public fee ( every household / business who can receive them has to pay – exceptions possible) and income from ads.

   There are many conspiracies that they’re state controlled, propaganda etc. But if you own more than 5 brain cells you’ll immediately notice that news are always reporting neutral facts without opinions ( if they give an opinion they officially declare it as such) and comedy + satirical shows air (sometimes even very harsh) criticism about our politics in general, political parties, federal and local governments and single politicians.

   They also broadcast ads from political parties during election periods ( as long as those are not forbidden) because they have to.

   According to German law they have a duty to educate. That includes political topics so everybody is able form an own opinion.

   I recently discovered some YT-reactions to those satirical / comedy shows ( mostly “Die Anstalt”, “heute-show” and “extra 3”) from people all over the world and the summary is that this is great satire and criticism..

10. Yes, it’s called RAI, and it can be heavily influenced by whatever political majority is currently in power in the country. For example: censoring gay scenes in movies, or outright skipping TV shows’ episodes with LGBT themes.

    The most recent scandal happened in April, when a writer was invited to give a speech on April 25th, the Liberation Day (from fascism). But a few days before that, the invitation was revoked by RAI’s administration. The show host, a journalist, still decided to read the speech on live TV, and later criticized the administration for “censorship”. She received a suspension from work for 6 days because of that.

11. Back before 2010, it was simply boring and old-fashioned with 80 year olds in suits talking about serious topics and classical music. It was like traveling back to the early 1960s.

    Since 2010, it is non-stop Orbánist propaganda, the only gem is the M5 channel, which occasionally has good science documentaries.

12. Sweden has SVT. It is generally seen as quite good and reliable. Though like with most media many think they are left leaning. While the tv-channel was established it was at the height of the labour party here in Sweden in the early 1960s.. and generally polling or likewise show that journalists are more red/left than in the population in general.. Though news and journalism is just a small percent of it.. Mostly the channel shows tv-shows. As SVT is member of a nordic association (the nordic broadcasters) we get some nordic tv-programs… And they buy in a lot of stuff from bbc.. like nature programs with attenborough or louis theroux etc.. Also produces a lot of stuff themselves. Earlier it had quite a lot of sport like the olympics and football etc.. but has not been able to pay for rights in the recent years.. so now you get mostly ski sports there.. The broadcaster consists of several tv-channels like SVT1, SVT2, “the children’s channel” etc.. and includes radiostations as well. It is now financed via people’s tax bill. Previously it was paid as a bill sent to each house having a tv. They even had people going around with antennas etc. to check if people claiming not having tv actually didn’t have it.

    *yes, I copied this off the Norwegian and changed a few things*

13. RTÉ in Ireland (Radio Telifís Éireann; Irish Radio Television). Unlike the BBC, it does take ads, and has recently had a bit of a financial scandal. (Presenters were overpaid, so they lowered the pay, but gave them under-the-table backhanders instead.) The funding model (a TV license fee) is under review, and many people are refusing to pay it, and there’s a lot of debate about the future of the organisation.

    It really does do a lot of work promoting and funding Irish cultural organisations, particularly music and writing. Their radio dramas are of a comparable quality with the BBC’s. If it ends up going, we will need something to replace it.

14. We have SR (*Sveriges Radio*/Sweden’s Radio) for radio-stuff, and SVT (*SVeriges Television*/SWeden’s Television [STV was taken by Scotland]).

     

    They’re both owned by a foundation, which in turn is owned by the government. I don’t know if anyone has any strong opinions about SR, but SVT, while generally positively perceived, is sometimes accused of being too left-wing (they would shit themselves if they saw pre-90s SVT), and too right-wing by others. I think that’s probably a good sign.

15. Ye – SRF/RTS/RSI/RTR. Pretty well liked overall i think, at least I have yet to hear that people fr hate it or smth. They have 3 different channels, once focused on news, one on sports and entertainment and one is just a mix and match of both lol

16. Yes, but it was always shit when I compare it to the Czech version. But at least journalism was somehow objective. Today our wanna-be dictator and his Russian cock sucking mafia are trying to make it a government and Russian propaganda broadcaster.

17. Yes.

    We have Radio France, 100% held by the state. Like the BBC radios they have a bunch of different channels.

    Then there is France Television, state held, who owns channels France 2, 3, 4, 5 and Arte (together with the German state) and TV5 monde (together with the Belgians, Swiss, Canadians, Monaco).

    TF1 has been privatised 30 years ago.

    They are quite good, usually more quality oriented, intellectual, and have good audiences in and out of France. They may be state owned but are independant not unlike the BBC.

18. We have “Suspilne”, it’s a relatively new project, result of decades of goverment strugle to implement proper Public media. I was initially sceptical and thought it would be another goverment-run media with propaganda, yet it’s suprisingly good and is up to high journalist standarts.

    It was implemented on the example of BBC, AFAIK. I also know that Japan had some involvement in helping to establish it, so maybe some NHK practices were applied too.

19. We have France tv and Radio France, the previous government wanted to merge them into one single gigantic entity.

    They cover international tv, national tv, regional tv (there are also private regional channels) ; and same for the radio: you can find RFI (Radio France Inter) a little everywhere around the globe.

    They’re very well perceived by the public, however in recent times the far-right launched a war against them (because they perceive them as “islamo-wokist”). This year, a humorist from France Inter made a joke on Netanyahu and it was a national affair (by the way the joke was excellent).

    As one British comment said, public broadcasting and State owned broadcasting are two different things. Just like the BBC, ours are public but not State owned. Meaning this humorist had his independence towards our very pro-Israel State, and could therefore make any joke he wanted. That’s why France Inter has the best humorist while on private radio they only have meh “corporate humorists” who could never say anything on their own boss. On France Inter, they joked about their own boss several times a day. That’s why the entire crew got gradually laid down / quit. But the next batch will continue this decades old tradition, no doubts.

    A little anecdote: on RFI in the early 2000’s the woman announcing the news bulletin had a… Well, very exciting voice. Like *really* exciting voice. A worldwide audience agreed on that. I was a pre-teen in Andalusia when the 2003 tsunami hit Asia, learned from it through RFI, and I can tell you I remember nothing about the tsunami.

    *Edit: second anecdote: about humorists. Everytime one of our humorists became too funny, they got to be exiled in Luxembourg (RTL) or Monaco (RMC). It was especially a thing in the 1980’s. Those two confettis acting like a check and balances system against the French State (who still manage to meddle into public broadcasting indirectly, via elites networking). On the other hand, we import a lot of Belgian humorists, because they can’t be accused of treachery and anti patriotic behavior on air ahahahah. Sorry for the long comment*

20. I guess all of the TV channels that people are mentioning from their country are responsible for conducting Eurovision contest nd voting in their countries every year!

    If you have the habit of watching that contest you can easily spot all of these tv stations from different countries

21. We have ERT, which is state owned and gets both government funds and a small fee through the electricity bills, has minimal ads that are mostly airing schedule and/or different events sponsored by them, spanning multiple radio and tv stations, as well as a nextlix-styled [digital platform](https://www.ertflix.gr/en/)

    People are of mixed sentiments in regards to ERT, but imho, it’s a far better option other broadcasters, who are privately owned by various media moguls.

22. Finland’s Yleisradio (translates approximately to “Public Radio”) or Yle is explicitly modeled on the BBC. It’s funded by a poll tax separate from general taxation (which goes to the general state budget). It’s always been left-leaning, often because SDP (Social Democratic Party) has been successful in elections and able to nominate its leaders. Also, journalism is a very left-leaning profession in Finland. This is the background, and it’s been like this since the days of Eino Repo (CEO 1965-1969). Today, it’s drifting towards the extreme left and not really neutral if it ever was so. Finland is a very left-leaning country in general.

23. We have 2, the VRT: Vlaamse radio en televisie (Flemish Radio and television) for Flanders and the RTBF:Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (Belgian radio and television of the french speaking community) for Wallonia and Brussels. There might be some small ones per province but I’m unsure if these are state owned.

24. We get England’s BBC too, and while the cultural stuff is excellent, we do get programming relevant only to England, and there is considerable bias in the political and news coverage.

25. Iceland has RÚV and it’s apparently biased towards any other political party than the one using it as a talking point. Or so I’m told.

26. Serbia – we have RTS which we all pay through fees on our bills (and you have to pay, whether you don’t watch or don’t have tv which is kind of shi**y). It also used by the rulling party and our dictator for their propaganda purposes.

27. Lithuania. We have a couple TV and radio channels which are state-owned and funded. As a result they don’t have any ads, which is nice.

    They used to be quite boring, like niche cultural events and indie low-budget films but they really stepped up their game a few years ago.

    Now their main TV channel is one of the most popular in the country, they have some great movies and TV series, some super popular game shows, that kind of thing.

    The cool thing is that while they’re state-owned, the state doesn’t dictate what they can and can’t show, so they have some investigative journalism, calling out corrupt politicians and businesses, often mocking politicians who said or did something stupid, etc.

    Their programme is well balanced. There are news, movies, reporting of cultural events, some shows for minorities in the country.

28. In Malta there is one state owned broadcaster. Then the two parties have their own stations. (Malta is a two party state)

29. Well, there is, but, I can’t really tell you about that, since I’ve stopped watching any French TV decades ago. The older you get, the generally more you start understanding that state channels produce at worst constant state ideological propaganda and dumbing-down content, while private channels produce corporate propaganda and dumbing-down contents. Private TV channels (Cnews et compagnie) in this respect are a total cesspool in France.

    I could say “In the times of Antenne 2 TV was better”, but that would just be a youth bias of myself towards my own youth as all people have, where I was naive enough to “believe the TV” so to say. So – no it was not better.

    The only worthwhile stuff in public TV/radio are France Info / Radio France 24 (of the French state through France Médias Monde), which cuts off most of the commentary and “interpretation” (propaganda agenda-pushing) of the events.

30. Take it with a grain of salt as I nowadays very rarely listen to radio or watch TV but the smaller snippets haven’t proven this view wrong:

    ERR (**Estonian** National Broadcast) has managed to stay pretty neutral even in these troubled times. When I was a teen I hailed BBC and ERR as gold standards of state funded neutral journalism. Now it’s just ERR.

    They have a really good news broadcast, a wide variety of high quality educational content, host the best investigative journalism program Pealtnägija (Witness), occasionally do interviews with members of the government and don’t shy away from asking uncomfortable questions.

    Their main radio station Vikerraadio has a wide variety of talk shows and interwoven music although the most of the newer hosts have started pandering towards the emotions of listeners and more voxpop programs have been seeping in. But even with that it has come down from absurdly good content to usually very good content. Sadly the more niche radio stations have been hit with cuts pretty hard.

31. In sweden we have SVT, Swedish television which is overall a respected and trustworthy news source. I personally love it and think it is much better than private companies that are dependent on revenue by clickbaiting etc. But there’s a growing amount of conspiracy idiots against it

32. We have HRT1, HRT2, HRT3 and HRT4. We get mailed bills for those so they have the least commertials but their program is pretty boring, to me at least. It’s mostly news, culture, politics, documentaries and a bunch of old movies.

    Some of the good sides is they often broadcast festivals and sports events and shows they produce are pretty decent, some even great. When they do put on a good movie, the no-commertials thing makes it way more enjoyable to watch than on other channels.

33. Iceland has Ríkisútvarpið, meaning “state radio” (although it also does TV). Most people don’t have strong opinions on them though there is a common complaint that they receive tax money but also have advertisements that they gain revenue from. I also know from people who work there that their call center regularly gets phone calls from people accusing them of being a propaganda machine for different political parties.

34. BBC, NPR and PBS are not state-owned nor state controlled.

    Voice of America and Radio Free Europe are likely the closest to being state owned and state controlled, although they are neither. They are fully state “funded” and operated “independently.” Both were set up by US government during the Cold War.

    You will be hard pressed to find truly state-owned/state-controlled media in capitalist western society. Corporate-ownership comes with its own unique set of challenges.

    CGTN is an example of State Owned media. Nothing is ever going wrong in China on that channel!