Culture, Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies

"I agree that monitoring public media and commercial media should be separated. Should it be done by politicians and the church? To be honest, I will refrain from saying that it would be right, as I believe that this could lead to a great risk of censorship," Melbarde said.

She said that in other countries, monitoring of public and commercial media are separated, hence, there usually are two councils responsible for the surveillance of these media. The National Electronic Mass Media Council monitors both public and commercial media, "leading to a certain conflict of interest, as it basically is both a shareholder in public media and an overseer of commercial media, thus, ensuring objectivity is rather hard," the culture minister believes.

Melbarde also believes that separating monitoring of public and commercial media is an issue which could be on the agenda of media policymakers, however, she is yet to see a document like this.