The only thing wrong with RTV Slovenia is that it does not respect the law on RTV Slovenia.

Employees of RTVS have demanded answers regarding the whereabouts of promised millions, raising concerns over financial transparency and the institution's survival. The legal firm representing RTVS has reportedly prepared a legal opinion on which changes to the business plan require a rebalancing. Five members of the RTVS Board of Directors, four representatives of employees including Robert Pajek, Barbara Stegeman, Janez Pirc, Gregor Drnovšek, and Ilinka Todorovski, the representative of RTVS employees in the board, called for an extraordinary meeting with the management to seek clarity on how the administration is striving to pay out funds totaling over 15 million euros as mandated by law, and the status of discussions with the Office of National Minorities and the Ministry of Culture, which are supposed to allocate funds for national minority programs and music production. According to one of today’s adopted decisions, the administration will submit a draft contract for the allocation of budget funds for music production received from the Ministry of Culture on July 15th. The board also wants to see the texts of agreements related to the allocation of funds for national minority programs received from the Office of National Minorities. The head of the administration, Natalija Gorščak, assured the board members that the administration is doing everything within its power to ensure the institute receives budget funds this year in accordance with the law. Meetings were held with Minister of Culture Ignacija Fridl Jarc and acting director of the Office of National Minorities Gregor Perič. If negotiations with the ministry and office are unsuccessful, the institute could face severe liquidity problems by October, she warned. The largest share of the institute’s expenses consists of employee salaries. For the payment of salaries in July, the institute had to borrow 9.5 million euros. By the end of July, the institute is estimated to still owe 7.5 million euros. Špela Stare, appointed to the board by the Information Commissioner, stated that the extraordinary meeting was unnecessary since the administration had already informed the board about the situation during the last regular meeting. She criticized both the previous and current government, stating the issue lies with the state rather than the administration. One of the initiators of the extraordinary meeting, Robert Pajek, emphasized that RTVS cannot always rely on the state as a co-founder. Therefore, he believes the institute must be prepared to manage independently. Public broadcaster RTV Slovenia faces liquidity challenges, leading to an extraordinary meeting of the RTVS Board. There was a desire for the administration, which caused complications regarding the payment of legally mandated funds due to its reluctance to sign contracts for the targeted use of funds for music production and national minority programs, to explain how it practically strives to obtain these funds. Last month, the institute, which had signed 1999 employment contracts by June 30, found itself having to borrow 8.1 million euros from the state's unified treasury account for salary payments. According to STA reports, the institute managed to repay 2.5 million euros by the end of the month. Debt stood at 5.6 million euros by the end of June. Meanwhile, the administration claims it has been restricting costs since the beginning of the year, including implementing a restrictive personnel policy and limiting external contractual work. However, they insist that further reductions in staff numbers without adequate and stable funding are not unlimited, as a more substantial reduction would affect the implementation of the program. We sought comments on the situation at RTVS from former President of the Programming Council of RTV, Dr. Staneta Grando. He recalled the years he spent in that position, stating that finances have always been a constant problem for the television station, ranging from quality to programming and beyond. Regarding Anton Guzej, who was then the general director of RTVS, he noted that Guzej was exceptional, perhaps one of the best directors in the history of the television. He mentioned that Guzej, as general director during times when the station had a small surplus, only received the seventh salary in order. This implies that enormous amounts of money are being lost somewhere unknown and in ways unknown. He recalled an instance where technical workers approached him demanding that he initiate proceedings against a well-known sports journalist, claiming he had a contract with Planica requiring them to film only certain advertisements, thus receiving a commission. However, since they did not wish to proceed, he did not get involved in that specific case because it was not his area of responsibility. Content-wise, they behave completely irresponsibly Although he acknowledges that the RTV contribution is not grotesquely large, Grando states the worst problem is that the television behaves content-wise completely irresponsibly. He says he mainly has in mind the informational program, "which is under criticism." He gave an example of the Rai program in Slovenian, which is culturally more appropriate, while in Ljubljana, the situation is content-wise horrifying. This reflects on finances. With such quality, people are unwilling to contribute, and the only solution is to ensure quality. According to him, ensuring quality requires dismissing those who perform poorly or do nothing. He believes the solution must be found within the television, as Slovenia does not have enough money to waste. "Therefore, I think it is time to place responsible and capable leadership at the helm of the television. It is necessary to know how much the costs of broadcasts will be, and when discipline, order, and financial transparency are introduced, things will happen," he stated, recalling corruption he encountered in the past, which surprised him. These were connections, "about which one can only grab one's head." According to Grando, the television must gather itself, organize itself, ensure quality, and free itself from ideology. "The problem is not the ideology of the television staff, the problem is ignorance and lack of quality." He gave the example of journalist Jurij Gustinčič, who was clearly left-oriented, but everyone respected him because he was of high quality. "If you listen to political commentaries today, you hold your head in disbelief, it is beneath every level," Grando says, believing that once quality is resolved, finances will be too. "Only with finances won't quality come." RTV Slovenia is wrong only in that it does not respect the law on RTV Slovenia The approval process, formation of the government, and finally the reporting on celebrations and events marking the 35th anniversary of Slovenia's independence have again shown that public broadcasting RTV Slovenia has an acute, fundamental systemic problem threatening its existence: employees, from directors, editors, many journalists simply daily, consciously (some perhaps unconsciously, as they do not even know it), violate the law on RTV Slovenia. This law stipulates that the public institution "provides credible and impartial information programs that comprehensively inform about political developments at home and abroad, about important events in other European countries, especially EU member states, and about important global issues so that the content provided enables objective public awareness of citizens of the Republic of Slovenia." Obviously, this institution does not do it. The thicket obviously lies in defining what is "credible" and "impartial". For most of the staff at this public institution, credible and impartial means anything that is their personal opinion and ideological conviction, which obviously has no connection with objective journalism. And clearly, impartial and credible is anything that will either undermine the government that is not "ours" or reinforce ours, allowing names like Šarec, Bratušek, Golob, Kos, Petelin, Zajec to be written. Due to this activism, the public institution RTV Slovenia has practically fallen into an extreme political battle on all fronts with many political and civil groups who feel this excessive impartiality, which fundamentally threatens the existence of an institution that people simply do not want to fund, as it does not carry out services mandated by law. The public institution is indeed self-destructing from within. Political activists bizarrely self-proclaim themselves as some kind of henchmen, having already accomplished most of the degradation of the institution (in the field of informational programs) instead of Zoran Stevanović, SDS, and others who strive for voluntary RTV contributions. This is clearly shown by catastrophic viewing figures of these unwatchable propaganda pamphlets. The fanaticism of some who want to eliminate the RTV contribution is merely the consequence of acute deviations in the leadership of this institution. The informational program of RTV Slovenia is watched mostly by those who want to further cement their ideological orientation, and in doing so, the public institution helps them very well. Often with refined indirect half-informations, hints, and ideological populism, which certainly does not belong to publicly funded media. People looking for real, credible information probably won’t look for it in the publications of RTV Slovenia. Hence, they search elsewhere, and the public institution informs only itself and the narrowest circle of naive individuals and loyalists in our right. All this does not apply only to internal politics. Many journalists with their convictions encourage RTV viewers in international politics as well. Currently, this is most evident in questions regarding Israel, Palestine, Iran, and the war in Ukraine. Anyone who regularly follows the website of the public institution RTV Slovenia MMC easily notices that in the case of the war in Ukraine, it operates like a promotional sub-portal of the Russian press agency TASS, which is politely put, inappropriate and unprofessional. Editors are apparently not bothered by this, maybe even encouraging it. The portal RTV Slovenia MMC coincidentally always summarizes mostly unverified Russian sources. (Image: screen capture from MMC) How then to ensure that public RTV serves at least approximately the public interest of the majority of the population that also pays for it? Short-term difficult. Probably point one is to abolish all self-promotional