By: C.R.
In recent months, the number of citizens who are dissatisfied with the services provided by RTV Slovenia is increasing, and therefore propose the abolition of the payment of the RTV fee, which costs Slovenian households about 150 euros per year.
Today, SDS MPs submitted to the parliamentary procedure a proposal for calling a consultative referendum on the adoption of a bill amending the Radio and Television of Slovenia Act. At the referendum, the question would be: “Are you in favour of abolishing the mandatory payment of the RTV fee, and therefore the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia adopts the Bill Amending the Radio and Television of Slovenia Act, EPA 0008-IX?”
The proposed issue refers to the adoption of an amendment to the proposal of the Radio and Television of Slovenia Act (ZRTVS-1B), EPA 0008-IX, which pursues the goal of abolishing the mandatory contribution of RTVS and enabling natural and legal persons to decide whether and how much to pay RTV contribution according to how satisfied they are with the programmes of RTV Slovenia.
The current law does not provide any safeguards for viewers and listeners of RTV Slovenia if, on the one hand, RTV Slovenia does not provide its statutory mission and, on the other hand, spends significantly more money on public services than public service broadcasters in other European countries. The reason for the adoption of the law is that the users of RTV Slovenia’s services will judge to what extent and whether RTV Slovenia provides quality programmes and pursues its mission, which is set out in the law. Thus, they will be able to allocate the same monthly contribution or twice as much contribution to the financing of the public service, based on a voluntary decision.
The proposed amendment to the law proposes an amendment to the existing Radio and Television of Slovenia Act with solutions:
- the monthly contribution for current taxpayers, both physical persons, legal entities and sole proprietors, is voluntary;
- the provisions of the records of personal data of persons liable to pay the RTVS contribution are deleted, as they are no longer necessary for the recovery of the mandatory contribution;
- the provisions of the Tax Procedure Act, which are currently used to calculate the mandatory contribution of RTVS, cease to apply;
- it is determined that the public service broadcaster RTV Slovenia regulates in the statute and internal acts the manner and procedure for the payment of the voluntary contribution.
In 2021, RTV Slovenia gained 96,800,000 euros from the mandatory RTV contribution out of a total of 128,363,000 euros in revenues. A comparative review with other public media outlets abroad shows that RTV Slovenia is oversized in terms of staff and, consequently, in terms of finances. Slovakia, with a population of 5.5 million, employs less than 400 people on its public television, while Greece, with a population of 11 million, employs just over 600 people. At the same time, the mandatory contribution of RTV in Slovenia is higher than in some EU countries, where contributors have higher net salaries – such as Belgium, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain.
Every citizen of Slovenia should decide for himself whether he wants RTV or whether he will watch some other programme. In recent months, the number of citizens who are dissatisfied with the services provided by RTV Slovenia is increasing, and therefore propose the abolition of the payment of the RTV fee, which costs Slovenian households about 150 euros per year. Even those who do not watch RTV Slovenia at all are forced to pay this monthly tax (12.75 euros per month). Citizens state that RTV Slovenia has become “just another subsystem in a society serving the transitional left, that by skilfully staffing ideologically relevant journalists it creates an institution that often reports contrary to the fundamental articles of the Slovenian Constitution”. RTV Slovenia should work for the benefit of all citizens, which means ensuring the provision of impartial, non-activist, and objective information. Only in this way can the general opinion and reputation of RTV Slovenia, which is currently the lowest in the history of independent Slovenia, be improved. We are convinced that in a free society, no one can and should force anyone to pay for something they do not need or want.
Anyone who wants to watch RTV will also be willing to pay a subscription voluntarily. The contribution of RTV is too high, biased, and unnecessary. In the flood of information providers, citizens should decide for themselves what they want to pay for and what they do not. And the fact remains that the mandatory contribution of RTV has not decreased even once due to falling ratings, which would be the only fair thing from the point of view of the payers of the mandatory contribution, especially considering that according to the Media Act they have to pay a mandatory contribution for watching other commercial televisions they choose, because they find the content of RTV Slovenia’s programmes of lesser quality and interest in the past decade.
If the listenership of radio broadcasts does not change significantly over the years, it is completely different with the viewership of programmes. Since the adoption of the Radio and Television of Slovenia Act and the mandatory contribution for natural persons at approx. 10 euros, the most important informative shows Dnevnik and Odmevi (previously shows in the same period) lost as many as 250,000 viewers or half of all viewers. The ratings of all RTVS programmes have been constantly declining for more than a decade. Due to the lack of quality public television programmes, payers of the mandatory contribution prefer to watch commercial television, where they also have to pay a mandatory subscription for commercial programme providers (which additionally amounts to approximately half of the mandatory RTV contribution) through the operator’s offer. The reasons why contributors choose to watch commercial television, which also reduces the ratings of RTV Slovenia, are various, from less and less quality broadcasts to the recognition that the public service broadcaster RTV Slovenia has changed into a social political medium of the transitional left due to journalistic political and ideological activism. Voters thus have every right to decide on such an important issue, where it comes to spending their money they earn from their work, and they have the right to decide how they will spend it.
Source: SDS.si