Sýn lawyer says regulator has dropped RÚV oversight

A senior lawyer at Sýn says Iceland’s Media Commission has effectively abandoned oversight of public broadcaster RÚV’s public service role, mbl.is reported. Páll Ásgrímsson said he received no records of comparable proactive oversight of RÚV during the three-year period he asked about, despite the commission sending numerous inquiries to Sýn.

Ásgrímsson made the comments in an interview on mbl.is’s Spursmál programme, where he criticised how the commission conducts its oversight and said transparency around RÚV had declined.

He said the commission had previously published a report on its oversight of RÚV’s public service role. In 2024, it stopped doing so and decided instead to rely solely on a report prepared by RÚV. The commission then published a one-page document which, in Ásgrímsson’s words, simply “ticked boxes”.

He said the oversight should include examining possible cross-subsidies, in which funds intended for RÚV’s public service work could be used in commercial operations, potentially distorting competition.

Ásgrímsson also argued that the creation of RÚV sölu ehf., a subsidiary of RÚV, had reduced transparency, despite being intended to improve it. Previously, the broadcaster’s annual accounts itemised costs related to commercial activities. Now, he said, the breakdown is based on an agreement between the parent company and its subsidiary that is not publicly visible.

He said a series of inquiries from the commission to Sýn earlier this year prompted him to request information about proactive oversight of RÚV. “There were no documents because there was no oversight,” he said. Asked whether the commission had sent RÚV any inquiries during the period, he replied that, as far as he knew, it had not during the three years he had asked about.

The interview also included economist Ragnar Sigurður Kristjánsson of the Iceland Chamber of Commerce.