The Council of Public Electronic Media (CPEM) urges not to support the deputies' proposals to the state budget bill, which foresee a reduction of the Latvian public media (LSM) budget by several million euros, the agency LETA was informed by the council.
The Council of Public Electronic Media (CPEM) has reviewed the proposals for the second reading of the budget and concluded that two of them aim to significantly reduce the budget subsidy for LSM in 2026 and beyond.
Deputy from the National Alliance Arturs Butāns proposed to cut the public media budget by 3 million euros, reallocating the funds to create Russian-language content. The deputy suggests allocating this money to the Jaunsardze center's program for drone operation training.
The Council notes that reducing expenses for creating content in Russian has never been an objective of LSM. On the contrary, to ensure the real achievement of the goals of the state security concept, LSM's strategy includes a gradual increase in the audience that needs to be reached. "LSM has prepared a content concept for the Latgale version, which provides for the preservation of a unique FM broadcasting network in the eastern border regions, as well as the development of new digital content formats," emphasizes CPEM.
Deputy Uldis Augulis (Union of Greens and Farmers) proposed to cut the public media budget by 5.6 million euros, reallocating these funds in favor of the Ministry of Finance to reduce the budget deficit.
The Council calls for the rejection of these and other possible proposals to cut the public media budget for 2026 and beyond, so as not to jeopardize the implementation of the reform that provides for the creation of a unified public media.
