STVR

What is STVR?

STVR is Slovenská televízia a rozhlas, the Slovak public-service broadcaster. Section 2 of Act No. 157/2024 Z. z. o Slovenskej televízii a rozhlase defines it as a “verejnoprávna, národná, nezávislá, informačná, kultúrna a vzdelávacia inštitúcia” — a public-law, national, independent institution for information, culture and education — constituted as a legal person entered in the commercial register with its seat in Bratislava.^[1] The same section provides that it acts through two organisational units without separate legal personality, Slovenská televízia and Slovenský rozhlas.^[1] Section 1 states that the Act governs the body's status, mission, tasks, activity, organisation and finances.^[1]

The description above is the statute's, not this page's. The Act was adopted by the National Council on 21 June 2024 by 78 votes to none with no abstentions, opposition deputies from Progresívne Slovensko, KDH, SaS and Slovensko having left the chamber, and it took effect on 1 July 2024, replacing Rozhlas a televízia Slovenska.^[2][1] The broadcaster's own report of the vote records that the outgoing director-general of RTVS, Ľuboš Machaj, left office, that a statutory representative appointed by the speaker was to run the body for its first three months, and that the director-general's term was extended from five years to six.^[2]

What does STVR cover?

STVR carries sport on a dedicated channel and on its two general television channels, Jednotka and Dvojka. The sport channel began broadcasting on 20 December 2022, under the predecessor body, running 24 hours a day.^[3]

The published output listed on the broadcaster's sport pages spans ice hockey, skiing, cycling, tennis, athletics, motorsport, football, biathlon, futsal, handball, volleyball, basketball, swimming, gymnastics, figure skating and water polo, and has included the Tipos extraliga, the alpine skiing World Cup, the biathlon World Cup, the WTA Tour and the UEFA club competitions.^[3] At the channel's launch the then director-general, Jaroslav Rezník, said that its purpose was not merely quality sports broadcasts but to encourage people of all ages and social groups towards movement; that is the broadcaster's own statement of purpose, quoted here rather than adopted.^[3]

Rights in the country's largest domestic football property lie elsewhere: Skupina Markíza announced on 20 May 2026 that its agreement with the Únia ligových klubov for the Niké liga runs through the 2029/30 season.^[4]

How large is STVR's audience?

The recognised Slovak television currency is the peoplemeter research run by PMT, the measurement body its own site records as established on 12 July 2002 by Slovenská televízia, TV Markíza, TV JOJ, TA3 and the association of media agencies, and operated by Kantar Slovakia since February 2021 under the third TAM project.^[7] PMT publishes a daily market share. For 8 September 2026, in the 12-and-over target group including guests and time-shifted viewing, it put Jednotka at 12.6 per cent and Dvojka at 1.3 per cent, against 21.2 per cent for TV Markíza and 11.2 per cent for TV JOJ.^[7] That is a single day's share, not a period average, and PMT publishes no separate figure for the sport channel.

What can be given is the regulator-adjacent assessment of the broadcaster's position. The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom's Media Pluralism Monitor 2026, published on 2 July 2026, puts Slovakia's overall risk at 57 per cent and its political independence risk at 52 per cent, and states that the STVR Council “consists solely of members elected by Parliament and the Ministry of Culture through a process dominated by the governing coalition”.^[5] The same report states that the newly selected director's “family and professional background are closely connected to actors linked to the ruling SMER party”.^[5] Those are the monitor's findings, quoted and attributed.

Since when has STVR existed?

STVR in its present form dates from 1 July 2024, the date on which Act No. 157/2024 Z. z. took effect.^[1] The Act was approved by the National Council on 21 June 2024.^[2]

The sport channel predates the institution by 18 months: it launched on 20 December 2022 under Rozhlas a televízia Slovenska.^[3] This page keeps the dates of the institution and of the channel apart because the statute replaced the one and not the other.

Why does STVR matter in Slovakia's sport?

STVR is the only Slovak broadcaster whose sport output rests on a statutory mission rather than on a commercial licence, and the mission is stated in the Act itself rather than by the broadcaster: section 2 of Act No. 157/2024 Z. z. describes the institution as public-law, national and independent.^[1]

Its sport channel carries competitions across the disciplines in which Slovakia holds its Olympic record, including biathlon and alpine skiing, and domestic ice hockey.^[3]

Its independence is contested by named monitors. Beyond the Media Pluralism Monitor's findings on the council and the director, the Euromedia Ownership Monitor's Slovakia report for 2025 places the public broadcaster alongside three commercial groups — PPF Group and CME, Penta Investments with News and Media Holding, and the JOJ Group — in a market it describes as carrying “structural risks of instrumentalisation and conflicts of interest”.^[6]