The Council's members complained that the HRT only sporadically mentioned minorities in television and radio shows, and often in a negative context.
The Council's Chairman, Aleksandar Tolnauer, presented some data from a Croatian Television (HTV) analysis according to which the HTV broadcast a total of 7,104 hours of shows from January to the end of October last year, and only about 50 hours were dedicated to topics important for minorities, which was less than 0.5 percent of all shows, although minorities make up almost eight percent of the entire Croatian population, Tolnauer said.
He added that it was also shameful that this small number of hours when minorities were in the focus of attention included reports from the HTV show called 'Globalno Sijelo (Global Sit-Together)' on "a Serb, the hairiest man in Croatia, a Hungarian - the Drummer, or a Nigerian who can sing bećarci (Slavonian humorous-ribald folk songs)".
A Council member, Ratko Gajica, said that HTV news programmes often presented Serbs through the prism of incidents and "in the context of the war and guilt" and that hate speech was allowed "excessively on television and the radio". Consequently, all of this negatively affects the public, Gajica added.
Another member of the Council, Milorad Pupovac, agreed that minorities were treated often as a burden and called on the HRT management and reporters to follow the example of Croatian President Stjepan Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader who stated that minorities were Croatia's wealth.
HTV editor-in-chief Vladimir Roncevic resolutely rejected accusations of the editorial policy allowing hate speech, and conceded that the quantity of shows covering topics relevant for ethnic minorities was not sufficient.
He reported that HTV news programmes were being reorganised, and announced new broadcasts intended for minorities which would be produced in seven minority languages as of next year.
The Council bound the HRT to inform it every six months about analyses of its shows, and findings should be discussed at joint meetings.