In the Republic of Slovenia, there are more than ninety radio programmes which can be
roughly divided into commercial and non-commercial ones. According to the method of
financing, they are divided into three different groups. Some of the programmes are cofinanced
also by the state but the estimated financial resources provided by law derogate
from the realised ones. I am trying to find out if the listenership of a programme is related
to financing, how and to what extent is co-financing of radio programmes provided by the
state and how radio financing is regulated by law in general. My master's thesis is one of
the first which considers the financial issue of radio programmes in Slovenia. Findings,
resulting from the comparison of situation abroad, indicate that situation is not bad,
however, (co-)financing of radio programmes could be regulated better.
I had to analyze all the legislation relating to media, consider the instrument of RTV
contribution (licence fee), consider all tenders for co-financing of media contents of
Ministry of Culture and financing of radio programmes in Slovenia and abroad. The
biggest differences can be seen in national and other non-commercial programmes which
are, because of providing public interest in conversion (exchange) for funds, subordinated
to provisions laid down by law. One of the rather bold findings is that national radio
programmes could also (without any difficultes) provide the programme without their
own commercial activity. The level of funds received from the RTV contribution is
enormous in comparison with the budget of commercial radios. I have also found out that
higher listenership is unambiguously related to higher revenues of a radio programme
and that Slovenia is, according to the number of national radio programmes per capita,
among the first five countries in Europe.
The findings indicate there is a good and (too) wide supply of radio programmes in
Slovenia. In future we could think about national radio stations without advertising as its
commercial activity, for the time being, does not have key importance for their financing.
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