The ban on radio advertising and broadcasting in Russian is dangerous – industry / Article

“This was a surprise. I would like such surprises to appear after some study of the situation and how it will affect the media. Not only in Russian-language media, but in general. It’s easy to demolish everything, but then the question is, why do they [СМИ] will they work and where will they get the money?” — Ingemar Vekteris, executive director of the Latvian Association of Radio Organizations, commented on the idea

As New Day explains, representatives of the National Council for Electronic Media presented the deputies with data on the habits of the population in the field of media consumption.

The Council concluded that the media consumption habits of Latvians and national minorities differ, but not as significantly as is often assumed. In particular, the topics of interest to Latvians and minorities are not very different. In terms of language, minorities prefer to consume content in Russian, although they also consume entertainment content in Latvian. At the same time, minorities trust centralized media less and trust local or regional information more.

At the same time, the National Council reports that it sees a very worrying trend: among minority youth, the demand for Russian-language content is growing.

Over the past year, interest in consuming Latvian media in Russian among young ethnic minorities has increased from 58% in 2022 to 65% last year.

For the development of Latvian-language media, the National Council intends to put forward two proposals.

First: to allow advertising in Latvian electronic media only in the Latvian language. Second: issue new radio broadcasting licenses only for broadcasting in the Latvian language.

NEPLP Chairman Ivars Abolins explained that all radio stations must obtain a new license every eight years. Since each of them receives it at its own time, the extension occurs at different times. Thus, according to him, the transition to more Latvian programs will be gradual. According to him, the language proposal does not apply to songs played on the radio and that this is precisely a proposal of the NESMI, and not a requirement. The decision remains with politicians.

Representatives of the Ministry of Culture, in turn, stated that the proposals of the NSEM should be considered in the context of the basic principles of media policy, for which an action plan will be prepared at the end of September.

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But what will happen if the Seimas supports this proposal and everything happens like that?

“The darkest scenario that I see… There are media groups that have advertising in Russian (and advertisers in Latvia need advertising in Russian). If they do not have the opportunity to place it on FM radio stations, then this advertising will go to the Internet – including Internet pages that are not registered in Latvia, but which can be consumed in Latvia.

This is also a big risk that the audience will leave the Latvian media and consume what they are told in the media from other countries. Perhaps not the best. So it’s a very big security risk.”

— responded Ingemars Vekteris from the Latvian Association of Radio Organizations

Radio SWH, which also has a radio station broadcasting in Russian, says that it does not understand what this decision will do for the media space.

“We have been in this market for more than 30 years. Our listeners are loyal to Latvia.

We are sure that we will lose part of the audience. We cannot say where she will go and what media she will use instead of ours. The biggest risk is that the media space will become weaker.

This will be a blow to business. There will be less income, less opportunity to invest in the development of content, in the development of people, in the development of the information that we prepare. If we have less income (and we are sure that this is exactly what will happen if Russian-language advertising is banned on radio stations), how will we live? This is probably the most important concern on our part,” Radio SWH commercial director Filip Rubenis shared with New Day.

Recently, President Edgar Rinkevich stated, that we should work to ensure that the unification of public media and the complete transition of public media to the Latvian language occurs by 2026 – in accordance with the National Security Concept. Minister of Culture Agnese Logina (Progressive) believes that state media should provide content in Russian – she talks about this stated Latvian television. In this regard, the National Association demanded her resignationbut the Seimas request rejected.