Bill would end RÚV advertising and grant private media tax breaks

A parliamentary bill would remove Iceland’s public broadcaster RÚV from the advertising market, abolish the broadcasting fee and introduce tax breaks for privately operated media, mbl.is reports. Hildur Sverrisdóttir is reintroducing the bill with nine other MPs.

The proposal would make major changes to Iceland’s media market. RÚV would be transformed from a public limited company into an independent state institution, funded through direct allocations in the national budget under a service agreement.

RÚV would be barred from earning revenue through advertising and sponsorship. It could continue to publish limited notices about public services, appeals for help, its own programming and Christmas greetings.

The broadcaster would be overseen by a seven-member broadcasting council elected by Parliament through proportional representation. The minister would appoint the council’s chair and deputy chair.

Hildur said the aim was to build impartial support for private media into the tax system instead of making them permanently dependent on direct government grants.

“It is important that grants to private media do not become entrenched, because in a democracy it is inappropriate for all media funding to depend on the subjective whims of those in power at any given time,” Hildur said.

She strongly warned against media outlets becoming dependent on the authorities responsible for allocating public funds.

Hildur said that as recently as last year, ministers and government officials had openly argued that a particular media outlet should receive a reduced public grant because of news coverage they disliked. She said this happened only a few months later, with the outlet receiving less public funding than had been planned.

“That situation is unacceptable and must be reversed. The first step is to add impartial, system-based incentives through the tax system, because it has no subjective views about the content of news coverage and cannot punish outlets for it,” she said.

The tax measures would have two parts. Value-added tax would be removed from subscriptions to domestic print, online and broadcast media. Privately operated media outlets subject to registration or licensing requirements would also be exempt from social security contributions on the portion of salaries falling within the two lower income tax brackets.

Direct media grants would not be abolished immediately, but would be phased out once operating conditions had improved sufficiently.

The bill would also narrow RÚV’s remit. The institution would generally need ministerial approval for new media services, while the minimum number of radio channels would be reduced from two to one. RÚV would also be required to spend at least 30% of its annual state allocation on purchasing content from independent producers.

The bill has been reintroduced after similar proposals were submitted during the 155th, 156th and 157th parliamentary sessions without being passed. The new bill completed its first reading last week and has been referred to the parliament’s general and education affairs committee.

The proposal comes after Sýn recently stopped broadcasting evening television news. As a result, all television news in Iceland is now provided by the country’s sole state media outlet.