The licence fee that Slovenian households are paying for the public broadcaster will go up by 10% in 2025 after it has remain unchanged for 12 years as RTV Slovenija has been struggling with a lack of funds.

The government agreed to raise the monthly fee from €12.75 to €14.02 on 28 August, following repeated calls from the public broadcaster to do so and after the European Commission urged it to ensure RTV Slovenija appropriate financing in its latest Rule of Law Report.

The fee accounts for two-thirds of the broadcaster's revenue and the increase will net it an additional €9.6 million a year. Like last year, the broadcaster expects to see a shortfall of revenue over expenditure this year.

The 10% increase is the maximum possible under the relevant legislation with Culture Minister Asta Vrečko, who is responsible for media policy, saying they opted for the move after much deliberation.

Changing the broadcaster's governance model to reduce the direct involvement of politics was one of the priorities of the Robert Golob government as it took office in June 2022 and after an opposition-sponsored referendum and Constitutional Court challenge the new model was put in place last year.

But the broadcaster has been struggling financially and had to pare back programming to cut down costs, while being unable to modernise to adapt to changing media consumption trends. The new management has also stepped down.

The Culture Ministry is now working on changes to the RTV Slovenija act dealing with issues such as organisation structure and demarcation of public and commercial activities with Vrečko indicating that the financing model might be changed to ensure the broadcaster's long-term financial independence.

Fee rise welcome, but not enough

RTV Slovenija welcomed the licence fee rise, but also like the government acknowledged that the measure alone would not solve all the problems it is facing, pointing out that more efforts will be needed to ensure long-term financial stability.

Natalija Gorščak, who took over as acting chair of the management board following the resignation of Zvezdan Martić in May, told the TV Slovenija late-night news show that the fee increase would bring some extra money but would not solve their problems.

She said the main problem was that the broadcaster was "stuck in the previous century", having not become digitalised and integrated to a sufficient enough extent, lagging behind in terms of formats, the way they distribute their content, and failing to attract viewers back from other platforms.

A report aired on the programme showed that during the 12 years that the licence fee has remained flat the broadcaster's fixed costs increased by about 50% to €22.4 million, while variable costs, which are key for programming, contracted from just over €40 million to €24.4 million.

Over the past six years, the headcount has been decreasing to what are now 2,076 employees, but at the same time labour costs rose by almost a third to €86.9 million due to the government's pay rise agreements with public sector trade unions.

The semi-annual business report discussed by the RTV Council on 28 August shows that the broadcaster generated a surplus of €1.32 million in the first six months of the year, but still expects to post a shortfall of €2.6 million this year.

When the council adopted a production plan for 2024 in December last year, the management projected both revenue and expenditure to be levelled at €142.2 million this year. RTV Slovenija is required by law to have a balanced budget. The management estimated the 2023 shortfall at €10.5 million.