Romania’s public television TVR will get RON 950 million (EUR 213 million) from the state budget this year, 7.5 times more than last year, according to the budget draft the Finance Ministry presented on Monday, January 23.

The public radio will also get RON 383 million (EUR 86 million), double compared to last year. Thus, the two public media organizations will get state funds of almost EUR 300 million this year.

The sum is almost equal to the total advertising revenues of all the media organizations in Romania, which are estimated at some EUR 350 million, according to the Media Fact Book, journalist Catalin Tolontan pointed out on his blog.

However, the radio-TV tax, an important revenue source for the public television and radio will be eliminated starting February 1, together with 101 other taxes, as decided by the Parliament at the end of last year. Moreover, the public television may be forced to use more than half of the money allotted to it to pay its debts to the state budget, which total some EUR 110 million. TVR’s total debt is EUR 146 million.

editor@romania-insider.com