Amendments to Acts regulating the mission, main tasks and activities of public-service broadcasters, introduction of the institute of the agreement with the state

Through Act No. 312/2009 Coll. on Certain measures related to Slovak Radio and Slovak Television, the revenues of the public-service broadcasters (Slovak Radio and Slovak Television) originated from transfers from the state budget designated for covering expenditures for ensuring the broadcasting abroad, transfers for the implementation of certain programmes in the public interest and capital transfers from the state budget designated for implementing purposeful investment projects paid by contributions from the state budget based on an agreement with the state and designated for implementing the programmes in the public interest, for implementing purposeful investment projects or for covering expenditures for ensuring broadcasting abroad. In relation to the plurality of information and cultural diversity, the introduction of the institute of agreement with the state for the area of public-service broadcasting ensured the promotion of the production of such programmes which in most cases do not constitute a subject of interest for the commercial sector. The agreement between the state and the public-service broadcaster is concluded for a period of five years and designates the underlying structure of riders to this agreement which are concluded for the relevant calendar year of the agreement’s period of validity. The concept of the promotion of public-service broadcasting through the agreement with the state was introduced in 2008.

The aims of introducing the institute of the agreement with the state for the area of public-service broadcasting which ensures a specific type of broadcasting that is irreplaceable in the domestic and international context, and with regard to the legal requirements for this type of broadcasting and long-term insufficient financial arrangements were to make the drawing of public finances more efficient, to make the processes of handling these resources more transparent and particularly to promote the production of new programmes in the public interest.