Radio and Television of Slovakia

Rozhlas a televízia Slovenska
Type	Terrestrial radio and television
Country	Slovakia
Headquarters	Bratislava
Owner	Government of Slovakia
Launch date	1 January 2011; 13 years ago
Dissolved	1 July 2024; 23 days ago
Affiliation(s)	European Broadcasting Union
Official website	rtvs.sk
Replaced	Slovenská televízia (STV); Slovenský rozhlas (SRo)
Replaced by	Slovak Television and Radio (STVR)

Radio and Television of Slovakia (Slovak: Rozhlas a televízia Slovenska [ˈrɔzɦlas a ˈteleʋiːzɪɐ ˈslɔʋenska]), in short RTVS, was a nationwide public broadcasting, state-funded organisation in Slovakia.

The organisation in its current form was created in 2011 following a merger of Slovenská televízia (Slovak Television) with Slovenský rozhlas (Slovak Radio).^[1] It was headquartered in Bratislava.^[2]^[3]

Like its two predecessor organisations - Slovenská televízia (STV) and Slovenský rozhlas (SRo), RTVS was a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS) transformed into Slovak Television and Radio (STVR) on 1 July, 2024.

RTVS TV's headquarters in Bratislava

Slovak Radio Building, RTVS radio's headquarters in Bratislava

Finances

Funding for the RTVS was obtained through advertising and government payments.

There was also monthly licence fee levied on most individuals registered with electricity retailers and most businesses containing three or more employees.^[4]^[5] The TV licence fee in Slovakia was €4.64 per month (€55.68 per year).^[6] The license fee was abolished from 1 July 2023.^[7]

Radio stations

There was 9 national radio stations in 2024:

Station	Programming
Rádio Slovensko [sk]	National generalist station; news, entertainment and live broadcasts with pop music
Rádio FM	Targeted at young people, broadcasting mostly alternative and non-mainstream music, entertainment and news bulletins
Rádio Devín [sk]	Classical music and culture
Rádio Regina [sk]	Three regional radios based in Bratislava, Banská Bystrica, and Košice
Rádio Patria [sk]	(in Hungarian: Pátria Rádió) Broadcasts from 06:00 until 18:00 in the Hungarian language as a service for Slovakia's largest ethnic minority group living predominantly in the southern districts bordering Hungary. There are some programmes in Ukrainian, Ruthenian, German, Polish and Czech, but they are transmitted on Radio Regina.
Radio Slovakia International	Broadcasts in six languages: German, Spanish, Slovak, French, English and Russian.
Rádio Pyramída [sk]	Classical music (replaced Rádio Klasika [sk] in 2016)
Rádio Junior [sk]	For children up to the age of 10
Rádio Litera [sk]	Radio, stage drama and literary profiles

Television channels

There was 4 national television channels in 2024:

:1 (Jednotka) is a generalist channel, showing family-oriented television, Slovak movies, children's programming, news and documentaries. Major sport events on club and international level are also broadcast.
:2 (Dvojka [sk]) broadcasts documentaries and nature-oriented shows. The channel also frequently shows classic and art foreign films in the original versions with Slovak subtitles, including many English-language movies. Minor sporting events are broadcast.
:ŠPORT (ŠPORT [sk]) was launched on 20 December 2021. This sports channel broadcasts 24 hours a day, programs such as live broadcasts, sports news, healthy lifestyle magazines and archival materials. With the arrival of the fourth broadcasting circuit, regional sport was given more space, and one of the priorities of the new channel is also the support of education and motivation of all ages for a healthy lifestyle.
:24 (24 [sk]) is a news channel launched on 28 February 2022 as a consequence of the emergency situation associated with the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.^[8] This channel consists of regular news blocks, supplemented by premieres and reruns of regular news and current affairs programs acquired from the other channels and Rádio Slovensko.^[9]

Defunct

:3 (Trojka) was launched on 22 December 2019 and focused on archive programming. The channel discontinued operations on November 30, 2022.^[10]

General Directors

The General Director was elected by the National Council of the Slovak Republic.

Miloslava Zemková (2011–2012)^[11]
Daniela Vašinová and Peter Ondro (2012), acting
Václav Mika (2012–2017)
Jaroslav Rezník (2017–2022)
Ľuboš Machaj (2022–2024)

News and objectivity

During the term of the General Director Václav Mika (2012–2017), the content and graphics of the news have changed significantly, with minor modifications it is still used today. The title also included the RTVS brand - Správy RTVS. The news broadcasting programmes were initially struggling with very low audience - on 18 December 2012 only with 7.8% share.^[12]

Over time, the audience began to grow, and RTVS news has started to appear as the most objective news in TV in public opinion surveys, with exceptions lasting by now.^[13] However, after the election of Jaroslav Reznik as General Director in 2017, who was nominated by SNS party, which was in government, the situation in the newsroom has changed. A new head of the news section has been appointed, under whose leadership, according to most of the journalists, the content of the news was being manipulated. The tense atmosphere led to the departure of a dozen journalists in 2018.^[14] More and more space in the news was reserved to the SNS party officials, including journeys of Andrej Danko, the party leader, serving till 2020 as Speaker of the parliament, to Russia. The topic of his plagiarism in rigorous work was also not addressed in the main part of the news.^[15]

After the parliamentary elections in 2020 and the new government appointed, news too favorable towards the governmental or oppositional parties seem to not appearing anymore, nonetheless some of the content was still manipulated. ^[16]

In 2024, RTVS news has been the most objective TV news in Slovakia in public opinion surveys.^[17]

Closure

In April 2024, the Slovak government approved the Television and Radio Act proposed by prime minister Robert Fico and minister of culture Martina Šimkovičová over alleged partiality of the broadcaster. The move has been criticised by the Slovak president (at the time, Zuzana Čaputová), Slovakia's opposition and the EBU's director general Noel Curran as potentially undermining the independence of public broadcasting in the country.^[18]

The bill was passed on June 20, 2024, by the Parliament of Slovakia, and as such RTVS was closed by July 1, 2024 and replaced by a new broadcaster, Slovak Television and Radio (STVR). The legislation was passed by 78 out of 78 present lawmakers, with the opposition not taking part in the vote.^[19]