The report, which was drawn up by the Open Society Institute in cooperation with the Institute for International Relations, commends the Electronic Media Council, which it says has strengthened regulations, keeping at the same time its autonomy.
The report also notes progress in relations between politicians and Croatian Radio-Television, as well as an increase in autonomy and professional standards. Analyses of broadcasts show a lower rate of biased reporting and use of inflammatory language.
The parliament and the government are advised to continue their work on developing a media policy that would contribute to protecting the autonomy of editorial policies, ensure diversity of the media content and guarantee continued independent financing of the public broadcasting network.
The report notes that Croatia has kept the highest viewer ratings of all European public broadcasting companies in recent years. In the last two years, however, the pressure of competition from private TV stations in Croatia has resulted in the commercialisation of TV broadcasts and a drop in their quality. The public television network is therefore urged to abide by its legal obligations and oppose commercialisation trends.
The Electronic Media Council is urged to establish a department for monitoring broadcasts to ensure compliance with licence provisions by electronic media publishers.
Commercial TV stations are criticised over lack of transparency in publishing information on revenue from commercials, sources of revenue in general and viewer ratings.
The report is part of a series of international reports on television autonomy and development of public policies in 20 European countries, with emphasis on the role of public broadcasting companies.