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 East Baltic language belonging to the Indo-European language family. It belongs to the Baltic subbranch of the Balto-Slavic branch of the family and it is 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 1.2 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and 100,000 abroad. Altogether, 2 million, or 80% of the population of Latvia, spoke Latvian in the 2000s, before the total number of inhabitants of Latvia slipped to 1.8 million in 2022. Of those, around 1.16 million or 62% of Latvia's population used it as their primary language at home, though excluding the Latgale and Riga regions it is spoken as a native language in villages and towns by over 90% of the population.
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is an Australian hybrid-funded public service broadcaster. About 80 percent of funding for the company is derived from the Australian Government. SBS operates six TV channels and seven radio networks. SBS Online is home to SBS On Demand video streaming service.
Public broadcasting involves radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing, and commercial financing, and avoid political interference or commercial influence.
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 1 January 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. In 2022, Raidio na Gaeltachta celebrated its 50th year in broadcasting. The station's main-headquarters are in Casla, County Galway with major studios also in Gaoth Dobhair, County Donegal and Ballydavid, County Kerry.
Magyar Rádió was Hungary's publicly funded radio broadcasting organisation until 2015. It was also the country's official international broadcasting station.
Radiotelevizija Slovenija – usually abbreviated to RTV Slovenija – is Slovenia's national public broadcasting organization.
KFSF-DT is a television station licensed to Vallejo, California, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language UniMás network to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside San Francisco–licensed Univision outlet KDTV-DT. The two stations share studios on Zanker Road near the North San Jose Innovation District in San Jose; KFSF-DT's transmitter is located atop Sutro Tower in San Francisco.
In Latvia, Russians have been the largest ethnic minority in the country for the last two centuries. The number of Russians in Latvia more than quadrupled during the Soviet occupation of Latvia when the size of the community grew from 8.8% of the total population in 1935 (206,499) to 34.0% in 1989 (905,515). It started to decrease in size again after Latvia regained independence in 1991 falling to 23.4% at the beginning of 2024.
TVR Cluj is public regional TV station available in Transylvania and Maramureş. It is the first regional branch of Societatea Română 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, or MRT (МРТ) for short, 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 run by the government of Vietnam, it is tasked promote the policies of the Party and the laws of the state.
Radio Sweden is Sweden's official international broadcasting station. It is a non-commercial and politically independent public service broadcasting company.
Russia, as the largest country in the world, has great ethnic diversity, is a multinational state, and is home to over 190 ethnic groups nationwide. According to the population census at the end of 2021, more than 147.1 million people lived in Russia, which is 4.3 million more than in the 2010 census, or 3.03%. At the same time, only 130.587 million census participants indicated their nationality. The top ten largest nations besides Russians included in descending order: Tatars, Chechens, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Avars, Armenians, Ukrainians, Dargins and Kazakhs. Population censuses in Russia allow citizens to report their nationality according not only to their ancestry, but also to self-identification. The 83 federal subjects which together constitute the Russian Federation include:
Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR) – Estonian Public Broadcasting – is a publicly funded and owned 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.
Radio Borovo is Serbian language radio station serving primarily Serb national minority in eastern Croatia. It has a local broadcasting license for the municipality of Borovo, Croatia. Its frequency is 100.7 MHz FM and it is heard in Vukovar-Srijem and Osijek-Baranja County and in Vojvodina in neighboring Serbia Radio Borovo is an independent radio station, privately owned, registered as a limited liability company - "Rhapsody", with 75% of initial capital owned by workers, and 25% owned by the municipality of Borovo. It is the most popular minority radio station in Croatia. It celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2011. Due to its promotion of human and minority rights, it is often collaborates with the non-governmental sector.
The Russian language in Latvia is spoken by a significant minority. According to the External Migration Survey in 2017, it was the native language of 36% of the population, whereas 25.4% of the population were ethnic Russians.
Ethnic broadcasting in China comprises both radio and TV broadcasting for some of the numerous ethnic groups within the country. Stations are found on the administrative levels of the nation as a whole, provinces, prefectures, and counties. They form a part of the ethnic media of China.
The Sorbischer Rundfunk is the Sorbian language program of Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB), both of which are regional public broadcaster in Germany. It is the only broadcast in a national minority language in Germany.
