Minority language broadcasting comprises radio and television programmes for both national (including indigenous) and foreign minorities in their respective languages.
Under treaties like the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Art. 11 and 7(1)d) states are obliged to encourage broadcasting in national minorities' languages.
Some examples:
Latvian, also known as Lettish, is an Eastern Baltic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken in the Baltic region. It is the language of Latvians and the official language of Latvia as well as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 1.3 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and 100,000 abroad. Altogether, 2 million, or 80% of the population of Latvia, speak Latvian. Of those, around 1.16 million or 62% used it as their primary language at home.
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is a hybrid-funded Australian public service broadcaster. About 80 per cent of funding for the company is derived from the Australian Government. SBS operates five TV channels and seven radio networks.
Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. In many countries of the world, funding comes from governments, especially via annual fees charged on receivers.
Sveriges Radio AB is Sweden's national publicly funded radio broadcaster. Sveriges Radio is a public limited company, owned by an independent foundation, previously funded through a licensing fee, the level of which is decided by the Swedish Riksdag. As of January 1, 2019, the funds stem from standard taxation. No advertising is permitted. Its legal status could be described as that of a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization.
RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, abbreviated RnaG, is an Irish language radio station owned and operated by Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). The station is available on FM in Ireland and via satellite and on the Internet. It celebrated 40 years on air on 2 April 2012. The station's main-headquarters are in Casla, County Galway with major studios also in Gweedore, County Donegal and Dingle, County Kerry.
The Latvian Russian Union (LKS) is a political party in Latvia supported mainly by ethnic Russians and other Russian-speaking minorities. The co-chairpersons of the Latvian Russian Union are Miroslav Mitrofanov and Tatjana Ždanoka.
Magyar Rádió is Hungary's publicly funded radio broadcasting organization. It is also the country's official international broadcasting station.
Radiotelevizija Slovenija – usually abbreviated to RTV Slovenija – is Slovenia's national public broadcasting organization.
KFSF-DT, virtual channel 66, is a UniMás owned-and-operated television station licensed to Vallejo, California, United States and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The station is owned by the Univision Local Media subsidiary of Univision Communications, as part of a duopoly with San Francisco-licensed Univision owned-and-operated station KDTV-DT. The two stations share studios on Zanker Road near the North San Jose Innovation District in San Jose; KFSF's transmitter is located atop Sutro Tower in San Francisco.
TVR Cluj is public regional TV station available in Transylvania and Maramureş. It is the first regional branch of the Societatea Românǎ de Televiziune, broadcasting since 3 January 1990. It is also the first one to broadcast on its own frequency, starting 15 March 2009—however it still produces programmes for the national stations, TVR1, TVR2 and is a main contributor to TVR3 together with other public regional stations. Its headquarters are in Cluj-Napoca. TVR Cluj broadcasts mainly in the Romanian language, but also in Hungarian and other national minorities' languages.
Macedonian Radio Television, officially National Radio-Television since 2019, is the public broadcasting organisation of North Macedonia. It was founded in 1993 by the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia.
The Voice of Vietnam is the Vietnamese national radio broadcaster. Directly controlled by the government of Vietnam, it is tasked with "propagating the views, policies of the Party and the laws of the state."
Russia is a multinational state with over 190 ethnic groups designated as nationalities; the populations of these groups vary enormously, from millions to under 10,000.
Radio Television of Kosovo is the public service broadcaster in Kosovo. RTK operates two radio services broadcasting a diverse programming of news and entertainment and four 24-hour television services broadcasting on terrestrial and satellite networks.
The Romanian language is one of six official languages in the Serbian province of Vojvodina. The official use of the Romanian language is determined in Vojvodina by the law, and established at the provincial level in the bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, as well at local level in 8 municipalities.
Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR) – Estonian Public Broadcasting – is a publicly funded radio and television organisation created in Estonia on 1 June 2007 to take over the functions of the formerly separate Eesti Raadio (ER) and Eesti Televisioon (ETV), under the terms of the Estonian National Broadcasting Act. The first chair of ERR is Margus Allikmaa, the former chair of Eesti Raadio. Present CEO is Erik Roose.
Latvijas Radio is Latvia's national public-service radio broadcasting network. It began broadcasting on 1 November 1925, and has its headquarters in the Latvian capital, Riga. Latvijas Radio broadcasts six different channels in the FM band as well as via the internet: Latvijas Radio 1, Latvijas Radio 2, Latvijas Radio 3 Klasika, Latvijas Radio 4 Doma laukums, Latvijas Radio 5 Pieci.lv, and Latvijas Radio 6 – Radio NABA.
The main ethnic minorities in Georgia are Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Ukrainians, Russians, Greeks, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Kists, Assyrians and Yazidi.
Radio and Television Slovakia or RTVS is a nationwide public broadcasting, state-funded organisation in Slovakia. It is headquartered in Bratislava and led by Jaroslav Rezník.
The Russian language in Latvia is the second most commonly used language at home and 26.9% of the population were ethnic Russians (2011).
