Every news medium is legally obliged to publish regularly the list of its main shareholders, but this is not always a guarantee of full transparency either because of cross-ownership or because of financial investors who are difficult to identify. Nowadays, however, as the main news media of the country are concentrated in the hands of four or five well-known groups, the question of ownership is not a disputed issue. Moreover, most of the Internet sites of those news media usually provide some information about all the other media belonging to the same group.
The Regulatory Entity for the Media (ERC) made the first step in this field in 2010, through the creation of a “Database for the Transparency of Media Ownership”. Later, in 2015, a further step further was taken with the Parliamentary approval of the so-called “transparency law” for the media. This obliges every media outlet and group to regularly provide information about its owners, major shareholders, financial results, cross-ownership, and so on. It took some years for this law to be implemented, but in late 2019, the results of the initiative finally came to the public. A “transparency portal” now exists on the website of the ERC, and this information is open for public consultation (ERC, 2020a). There is, however, some doubt about the total transparency of media ownership. In a couple of situations, major shareholders are presented as individuals, but some inside information suggests that they may be just a front for other (local or foreign) investors who don’t want to be identified. The regulatory entity promises to try to uncover these situations, but so far one or two remain under suspicion.
Another transparency mechanism has to do with advertisement made by public institutions in the media, both national and local. All contracts in this domain must be publicly accessible, with information about all the actors involved and the amounts of money paid for them (ERC, 2020b). A “transparency portal” within this scope is managed by ERC, and its annual report details how much advertisement was bought by public institutions, and where it was placed. In order to prevent abuse or malpractice, there is some strict regulation about the fair distribution of state advertisement among national and local media, to guarantee equal treatment to all titles.
