RTV Slovenija

What is RTV Slovenija?

RTV Slovenija is the country's public broadcaster. Its status is set by statute rather than by self-description: article 1 of the Zakon o Radioteleviziji Slovenija (ZRTVS-1), published in Uradni list RS no. 96/2005 of 28 October 2005, provides that "Radiotelevizija Slovenija (v nadaljnjem besedilu: RTV Slovenija) je javni zavod posebnega kulturnega in nacionalnega pomena" — that RTV Slovenija is a public institution of special cultural and national importance.^[1] On its own pages the organisation labels itself a "javni medijski servis", a public media service.^[2]

Article 3 of the same act enumerates what the public service comprises: two national television programmes, three national radio programmes, regional programmes originating in Koper and Maribor, programmes for the Italian and Hungarian national communities, programmes for the Roma community, programmes for Slovenes abroad, programming for foreign audiences, teletext, internet and mobile portals, and a parliamentary channel.^[1] The radio stations listed on the broadcaster's own site are Prvi, Val 202, Ars, Radio Si, Radio Maribor, Radio Koper, Radio Capodistria and MMR; television and streaming run under TV Slovenija and the RTV 365 service.^[2][3]

Financing is set by article 30 of ZRTVS-1, which provides for a contribution (prispevek), commercial activity, allocations from the state budget for defined obligations including minority and diaspora programming, and sponsorship.^[1] The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, reporting on Slovenia in the 2026 Media Pluralism Monitor, notes continuing concern over "the absence of licence-fee indexation in the amendments to the Act on Radiotelevizija Slovenija (ZRTVS-1)".^[4]

What does RTV Slovenija cover?

Across sport, the broadcaster's heaviest commitment is to the winter calendar and specifically to ski jumping and ski flying at Planica. Its own account of the March 2026 meeting describes more than twelve hours of live television coverage over four days, thirty-two hours of live radio programming from the venue on Val 202, live streams on the RTV 365 application and running text coverage on the rtvslo.si portal.^[3]

Sport sits alongside the general news, cultural and parliamentary obligations that article 3 of ZRTVS-1 enumerates, and is carried on the television channels, the radio stations and the portal together rather than on a dedicated sports channel.^[1][2] The Euromedia Ownership Monitor's Slovenia report, published in December 2025, lists TV SLO 1 under Radiotelevizija Slovenija in its inventory of the country's television market.^[5]

How large is RTV Slovenija's audience?

Slovenia's recognised television currency is the AGB Nielsen people-meter panel, and the broadcaster reports against it. In a press release of 30 March 2026 it stated that the second round of the individual ski flying competition at Planica was followed by an average of 469,900 viewers, a 24.6 per cent rating; that the most-watched minute, during Domen Prevc's jump on the Sunday, reached 541,200 viewers, a 28.4 per cent rating and a 75 per cent share; that its twelve hours of broadcasts averaged 351,600 viewers at a 65 per cent share; and that the four days reached 895,800 different viewers, 46.9 per cent of the measured population. The release names the panel as 600 households, persons aged four and over.^[3]

For the longer run, a press release of 14 September 2026 covering September 2025 to August 2026 reported that 95 per cent of the population watched at least part of a Televizija Slovenija programme during the year; that Radio Slovenija's stations were listened to by an average of 600,000 people weekly, measured by Mediana RM on roughly 4,800 respondents a month aged 15 to 85; and that rtvslo.si was visited by an average of 850,000 users a month on MOSS data for August 2025 to July 2026, with 24 million video views, 10 million audio plays and 872 million web impressions.^[6]

An independently published monthly figure for the portal is available for one month: Marketing magazin, reporting MOSS results for March 2026 on 7 April 2026, gave rtvslo.si 931,011 different users, within a measured universe of 1,521,902 monthly users across 56 participating sites.^[7] All the figures above are the measurement suppliers' as reported by the named publishers; none is a ranking computed here.

Since when has RTV Slovenija existed?

The instrument in force is dated: ZRTVS-1 was published in Uradni list RS no. 96/2005 of 28 October 2005 and carries the number 1 in its own article sequence, which is the statute that constitutes the institution in its present form.^[1] The act has since been amended, and the 2026 Media Pluralism Monitor discusses those amendments in connection with the licence fee.^[4]

A founding date for broadcasting in Slovenia earlier than that statute could not be established from a source retrieved for this page: the broadcaster's own institutional pages set out its structure, its governing documents section and its annual plans and reports, but the pages reached did not carry a dated account of the organisation's establishment.^[2] The distinction matters and is left open here rather than filled from a secondary summary: the date on which a broadcasting organisation began transmitting, the date on which a public institution was constituted, and the date of the statute currently governing it are three different dates.

Why does RTV Slovenija matter in Slovenia's sport?

Because the statute assigns it obligations that a commercial broadcaster does not carry, and because the events it carries are measured. Article 3 of ZRTVS-1 defines the public service by enumeration, and article 30 fixes how it is paid for;^[1] the Planica figures above are the clearest single instance of what that carriage produces in measured terms, and they are the broadcaster's own report of AGB Nielsen data rather than an estimate.^[3]

The context in which it operates has been assessed by a named monitoring body. The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom scores Slovenia in the 2026 Media Pluralism Monitor at 42 per cent risk for Fundamental Protection, 75 per cent for Market Plurality, 51 per cent for Political Independence and 50 per cent for Social Inclusiveness, and finds that "Editorial independence remains insufficiently protected against commercial and owner influence, with hidden advertising, blurred boundaries between editorial and commercial content, and broader cross-sector ownership raising concerns".^[4] The Euromedia Ownership Monitor, coordinated by the University of Salzburg with support from the European Commission's DG CONNECT and published in December 2025, states that "The Slovenian media landscape is characterized by a pronounced concentration of ownership in the hands of a few major groups, alongside a web of business and political interests", and that "Complex ownership chains, the use of third parties, or formally concealed ownership reduce the effectiveness of legislation".^[5] Both characterisations are those bodies'.