Referendums, audits & boards

Slovenia: Public votes to retain the obligatory licence fee in tight referendum

Slovenians have voted to uphold the existing RTV Slovenija licence fee, in one of the closest referendum results in Slovenia history. The last ballots coming from abroad were counted last night (19 October) and showed there was a majority in support of the licence fee of 50.14 percent. However, the Slovenian Election Commission’s result data is still to be officially confirmed. 

However, hopes that the result would change the government’s direction appear unfounded. Prime Minister Janez Janša has announced his party’s intention to abolish the obligation to pay the licence fee and change it to a voluntary payment instead, to “take into account the wishes of all voters”. Following the results, he accused the public broadcaster of entering the referendum campaign illegally. 

Janša’s interpretation of the results have been criticised. The opposition denounced his fixation on destroying RTV Slovenija every time he was in power, while Dr. Igor Vobič from the Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences warned against interpreting the “result arbitrarily or adapt[ing] it to their own political goals”. Dr. Marinko Banjac added that even if the result of a referendum does not reflect the government’s intention, it should still act in accordance with the voters’ wishes. In this case, the majority voted to keep the public broadcasting licence fee as a mandatory contribution.  

In parallel to the referendum, a draft law is moving forwards that would overhaul RTV Slovenija’s governance board, giving the government six of the seven appointments to the RTV SLO Council. Currently, the Council is made up of 17 members, none of which are politically appointed. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) warned that if passed, this bill risks undermining the past four years’ worth of efforts to safeguard the independence of RTV Slovenija. Svoboda MP Sara Žibrat also criticised the proposed amendments to the media law, stating that “a policy that is taking us back to the Middle Ages is unacceptable”. 

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Thailand: Thai PBS challenges audit which alleges wrongdoing

Thai PBS is in a standoff with the State Audit Office (SAO), after a report, which alleged misuse of funds at Thai PBS, was leaked on social media. 

The SAO has been investigating Thai PBS since January, looking at news procurement, operational performance, and individual misconduct. The leaked report showed that the Thai PBS director and 10 members of staff were found at fault, and asked to repay 85.22 million baht (US$2.5 million). According to the SAO, the investigation was launched after several Thai PBS employees came forward last year and early this year. 

However, Thai PBS said it would ask the National Audit Committee to investigate the SAO’s behaviour, as the findings had not been privately disclosed to the public broadcaster before being made public. Thai PBS’ deputy director, Piset Chiyasak, added that they were not given the opportunity to challenge the SAO’s findings, before the investigation was concluded. The SAO said it would investigate the source of the leak, and take disciplinary action if necessary, but rejected it was politically motivated. 

It comes just days after a potential reform of Thai PBS’ funding model was put forward by a ruling party MP. The proposal seeks to replace the existing model with direct funding from the state budget. Thai PBS and civil society organisations, including PMA, cautioned that such a change could undermine Thai PBS’ editorial and institutional independence. In light of both the funding review and the SAO’s report, academics from Thammasat University called for further safeguards to protect Thai PBS’ independence. 

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Seychelles: New board begins to take shape

Seven people have been put forward to serve as members of the new board of the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation. The names were chosen by a president-appointed Select Committee, and it will now also be up to the president to choose four of the nominees to sit as board members. 

The governance overhaul of the SBC comes after the SBC Act was passed in July 2026, despite protests from international organisations, including the Public Media Alliance. When initially put forward, the bill gave rise to concerns that the new appointments process gave too much power to the president, but in the final iteration, the number of presidential appointments was reduced from five to four, thereby ensuring presidential appointees did not have a majority on the board. 

Five other board members will be put forward by the Association of Media Practitioners (AMPS); the Citizens Engagement Platform Seychelles (CEPS); the National Assembly; the Seychelles Interfaith Council Organisation; and SBC staff. The CEO and deputy CEO will also sit on the board, ex officio.

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UK: BBC announces next round of cuts as two linear channels to close

The BBC has announced two TV channels, BBC Scotland and BBC Three, will close as it continues its extensive savings programme. The corporation is seeking to reduce its expenditure by £500 million, which has already seen 550 job cuts across news and nations, and some programmes ending across radio and TV. 

This latest announcement will see BBC Scotland, BBC Three, and Radio 4 Extra wound down by spring 2027, although the BBC said some of their content would continue and be available either on other channels, or on iPlayer, the BBC’s streaming platform, or YouTube. The youth channel, BBC Three, was first launched in 2003, made online-only in 2016, then returned to linear in 2022. It is not yet clear how much these further cuts will save. 

“We need to make every pound work harder for audiences as we respond to the immediate cost pressures and reinvent the BBC for a changing world,” said the BBC director general, Matt Brittin. “We all know that means tough choices.”

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Lithuania: LRT Council upholds violation finding against Director General

The LRT Council has upheld its finding that LRT Director General Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė committed a violation in the course of her duties. She had requested that the Council reconsider its decision made in September over her responsibility in a case involving the non-disclosure of providers’ data linked to a programme acquisition deal.

Following the meeting in September, the Council issued Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė with a warning, concluding that the violation was not serious enough to warrant her dismissal. Now upheld, she remains in a precarious position, as a similar violation in the future could put her tenure at risk, under new rules adopted in June. 

Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė rejected the Council’s conclusions, arguing that key questions surrounding her responsibility remained unanswered. “The majority of the Council failed to address key questions: which specific duty I breached, what specific actions or omissions on my part led to this, and on what grounds my individual culpability is based,” she stated. She also repeated that LRT specialists and the Council itself had previously approved procedures allowing the broadcaster to withhold certain details of contracts with external content and service providers. 

However, the Council did not believe the arguments presented were enough to overturn the original warning. Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė described the decision as a form of psychological pressure and warned of its potential implications for the independence of LRT’s leadership. 

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Argentina: State broadcaster marks 75 years with return to ‘Channel 7’ name

Argentina’s national broadcaster has returned to its historic name, Channel 7, to mark its 75th anniversary. The rebrand, which also includes a new logo, was accompanied by special programming celebrating the channel’s legacy, dedicated to highlighting figures from across generations of the channel’s children’s television, sport and comedy. The name transformation comes as Radio y Televisión Argentina (RTA), the state-owned company responsible for managing the broadcaster, remains under government intervention since 2021. 

However, critics have argued that the rebrand represents more than a visual change, suggesting that abandoning the channel’s previous name ‘Televisión Pública’ could signal a shift away from the concept of public service media for Argentina. Since its inauguration, the channel has undergone several name changes throughout its history, including during the 1976 military dictatorship that saw the broadcaster’s priorities reshaped amid widespread state repression.

Historian Liliana O’Calo described these historical changes as representing the channel’s longstanding duality: serving both as a source of entertainment and as a platform reflecting the priorities of whichever government was in power. From this perspective, debates over the broadcaster’s identity extend beyond its name or organisational structure, raising wider questions about the social conditions public service media are able to operate in, and whose interests they serve.

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