Roose made his remarks in a long interview given to ERR's head of news and sport Anvar Samost which aired on Vikerraadio on Friday and follows in its entirety.

Next year, the public broadcaster's budget will be over €2 million smaller, and understandably, journalists cannot produce more content with less money.

I don't know if this is a question, but the answer is, of course, yes. Actually, this figure, €2 million, which is modest in terms of the state budget but seems large to the individual, needs to be put into context.

This follows, at least in my experience, seven and a half years of not automatic, but semi-frozen budgets, during which time, due to the rising cost of living, we have continuously engaged in, I don't want to say austerity, but a type of permanent cutting.

Now the last few million have simply been added on to that. This is the context, and yes, it's difficult.

In fact, ERR's budget next year comes to over €40 million. From the outside, and objectively, that seems like a lot of money.

On the one hand, within the organization and the management board, we acknowledged that it is, after all, a large figure.

Although no doubt, no matter which politician you talk to, €30 million is a lot, €20 million is a lot, and €10 million is also a large sum too.

In reality, all these are substantial sums, so the €40 million can always be met with the rebuke, "Well, you already have too much money."

And that's something we often hear in fact.

But truly, everything we get, we try to use all that money as efficiently as possible.

We do not earn nor expect any profits, nor do we set money aside. It is clear that all departments, all programs received cutback directives.

We were essentially mediators of the state budget directive; the board and the council, which are also part of the process, do not add or take away that money themselves.

So unfortunately, in this context, we are somewhat administrators.

However, the shows themselves made their proposals proportionately, and I hope that the best decisions were made in this difficult situation.

The individual shows or activities to be cut next year have already been mentioned in the media, so I won't repeat them here. But I believe that both the ERR board and ERR as a whole were, in a sense, faced with a significant choice. On the one hand, what we now see as cuts involves gathering a bit more than €2 million from various places. In total, it is the sum of many small cuts. On the other hand, one could have said: Let's simply shut down a large segment of ERR's programming. How was this choice made between these two poles?

That is actually a very precise question. It was more or less clear to us by May that there would have to be cuts. Initially, they talked about a 10 percent cut, then 7 percent. Finally, it was decided to be 4 percent nominally, although, admittedly, this will be compounded by the VAT rise coming, in the middle of next year.

This automatically spells a rise in costs for us because we have to take that money from somewhere. No one will reimburse or recompense us for it. So, in fact, that 4 percent will grow, by quite a bit more.

We looked at this figure, which indeed only arrived at the end of September, and we essentially had one to one and a half months to take it to the supervisory board and coordinate things. The management board examined it, and it seemed to us that, with great difficulty, it would still be possible to avoid completely shutting down any program.

Instead, everyone would metaphorically carve out one or two more notches in their belts, tighten them, and continue all the shows, major broadcasts, and essential services. This was the task or urgent recommendation and request we passed on to the editorial teams.

With significant effort, we achieved this, and the supervisory board indeed approved it this week, one day before the state budget deadline.

That said the supervisory board did raise a legitimate question about whether, for example, [Russian-language TV station] ETV+ should be shut down; such a proposal or thought process did come up during a supervisory board meeting.

But my response, which may have been a bit political or even somewhat outside the "Estonian framework," was that I vividly remember during the Euro Maidan events in Ukraine in 2014, the first directive or plan of the so-called victors, in other words the new democratic government there, was that schools would all start teaching in Ukrainian.

And, of course, not solely because of this, and I don't want to say whether it was good or bad, just stating a fact—it was actually one of the main triggers for pro-Russian forces to start taking over police stations in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

What I mean by this is that we need to consider the consequences of our actions; everything must be thoroughly thought through. And once again, we decided we do not want to shut down any program.

ETV+, Radio 4, the Russian-language online news, and even ERR News, the English-language online news service, all play a significant role in the current wartime situation, ensuring that all our people remain located within the same information space.

So, that was the intention, and that intention has indeed been realized in the budget.

In preparing for these cuts with colleagues, I have repeatedly discussed this choice, and it is inherently comprehensible: We know that ERR's budget has remained rather stagnant, while various costs have only risen due to the rapid inflation in recent years, and will continue to rise next year. So actually, we can also anticipate that cuts might be required in 2025 and 2026 as well. But this is unsustainable, so isn't it the case that this kind of piecemeal whittling down will only lead to unnecessary delays?

Yes, let's also start with the fact that there is always some politician who feels that their party has been unfairly targeted or simply hasn't gotten enough praise.

Plus that, actually, we still have far too much money. I would say this is more a kind of pseudopopulist, strange and personal spite.

But again, and this is the point—what does our budget hinge on? Here we arrive at a lesser-known fact, that in May of this year, after quite a lengthy preparation, the EU adopted the European Media Freedom Act.

Among other things, this states that media, free journalism, and free speech must be protected. It also defines, to some extent, the relationship between the media and societies, in a broader framework.

But it specifically states two things: that public broadcasters in Europe, in the EU, must be adequately and independently funded. We also discussed with the council that adequacy can always be debated. Some prefer small, others large, but fundamentally, it is not independent.

Let me be completely straightforward: In fact, the Republic of Estonia has been violating this directly applicable directive for seven months and continues to do so.

Previously, it was a matter of preference; if you like it or don't like it, you have a different idea, everyone does it their own way. Today, however, our own governments have consistently stated for over 20 years that when there is a directly applicable directive, we adopt it, and that is the consensus.

Now, there is actually a problem, and there is urgency in figuring out how to regulate the public broadcaster so that its funding is independent.

So that it isn't up to a single Ministry of Finance official's opinion that ERR, or culture more broadly, is somehow exorbitantly ahead in its costs. Which, as a statement, I find relatively manipulative and actually diverts attention from the issue.

So, we need to address this quickly. Fortunately, the Ministry of Culture is working on amendments to the Broadcasting Act, but the core problem of how to make funding independent remains unclear.

Let me clarify this, as many listeners may find it surprising: ERR Board Chair Erik Roose just stated that the state budget funding for ERR does not ensure its independence according to the European directive. I am merely the intermediary. Of course, the messenger will be attacked, but this is what the directive itself says.

And in my view, our governments, which have generally been diligent and pro-European—this is not a criticism, just an observation—could continue showing the same determination here.

So, if the question was about what will happen in 2026, 2027, and beyond; there was a kind of semi-formal promise from the minister that for the next two years after this current cut, there will be no further cuts, but rather the budget will be frozen at zero growth.

I don't know if I should be happy about that, but that statement itself already indicates that the situation is quite incomprehensible.

And in my opinion, the only way forward here is to truly comply with the agreed laws, both in Estonia and Europe, so that by 2026, this issue is resolved, and our funding is adequate and independent.

Once again, at ERR, whether it's Erik Roose as the chairman of the board or me as the head of the news editorial department, we've always stated, even just a few days ago when foreign journalists visited us and asked whether ERR is politically independent in Estonia: I've always said 'yes, ERR is politically independent.' But now it has to be explained that in terms of funding, our model differs quite significantly from, for example, Finland's, Lithuania's, or Sweden's models, let alone those of more distant European countries where significant public service media also operates. So how does it differ, and where does the lack of independence manifest?

In the vast majority of European countries, especially in Western Europe, the so-called "Old Europe"—I don't like the term, but I mean those on the other side of the old Berlin Wall—with very few exceptions, there is generally a TV fee, broadcasting fee, or media tax, with various names.

This is collected in different ways, even through electricity bills, but fundamentally it happens semi-automatically, without the government stepping in to say, "I don't like this part of the electricity bill," or deciding that certain households shouldn't pay as much.

These sums are not large at all; the household fees paid directly in one way or another are around ten euros a month. Estonia is among the few countries where we simply wait each time—I don't want to say with hands outstretched, but certainly listening carefully—to find out what will arrive from the state budget this year.

We also submit a development plan, as required by law, but in my opinion, the development plan and the interest of Ministry of Finance officials in our plans—there is little overlap, as far as I can tell. So, we can write whatever we want there.

In my seven years of experience as board chair so far, I haven't seen any alignment in this area. So yes, we are indeed independent; we have been at the very top of the media freedom index for years. This is a good thing, and it is thanks to our journalists.

It's not due to the politicians, and it doesn't concern only ERR but other Estonian media outlets as well. In this respect, we are indeed world-class in every way, and journalists do superb work.

But financially, ERR is not independent, nor is it adequately funded. This is a separate issue altogether. The closest example is Finland's counterpart, Yle. This year, if I'm not mistaken, their budget is €594 million.

Compare that to our annual budget of €44 million. The difference is 13 and a half times that. Out of curiosity, I also looked at the population numbers of Estonia and Finland. The difference is fourfold.

So essentially, there are two options: either ERR should receive three times more funding, or Yle should lose three times its budget.

That sounds bad, but in Finland, there are politicians who use this comparison in exactly the opposite way.

Yes, even there, next year they are facing cuts.

"Cuts" in quotation marks because for Finland's Yle, it means they won't be indexed upwards.

They have received more money every year, but next year, for the first time in decades, they won't get additional funds.

So that's their version of a cut— stay at the level where they already are.

A few years ago, Denmark's public broadcaster faced cuts, and the cut alone was the size of ERR's entire budget, yet they still remained very sizeable.

In short, everything is relative, but the fact is that ERR produces exactly the same number of programs and products.

They have a separate Swedish-language channel, just as we have a Russian-language one, along with two local Finnish-language channels—or in our case, Estonian-language channels.

The number of radio programs is the same.

Our Jupiter streaming platform has a counterpart in Finland called Areena, a very nice product, and they have even more things on it.

So, for essentially the same "goods," with roughly the same readership, audience, or viewership, we somehow have to produce the same at a fraction of the cost.

That's the paradigm we are in, and why I argue that even the adequacy requirement isn't met.

It would be appropriate to emphasize here that I, as the head of the news department, can certainly say that during my time here—and likely before—ERR's journalistic independence has been quite well safeguarded.

We are not politically dependent on the government in office, on any political party, or any other political or external power. But the problem is that at the end of every year, before our previous year's budget ends, we don't actually know how big ERR's budget will be for the next year.

Exactly.

Now, if a well-run private company of similar or slightly larger size put itself in a position where, in early December, it didn't know how much money it had, or likewise if a country operated in a way where there were signals but no certainty, you can imagine the CFO or the finance minister would likely go out of their mind.

Yet this is the situation we are in.

Of course, we manage and must manage. After all, even €40 million is still a sum of money; it's not €4 million.

What's also important, we talked about Finland, but about ten years ago, Estonia was ahead of Latvia and Lithuania in terms of broadcasting, including finances.

But now, even Latvia, which still has many problems—and where, starting January 1, television and radio are finally merging, as Estonia did back in 2007—has surpassed us financially.

And perhaps also in terms of how politicians perceive broadcasting funding.

I won't even go beyond that.

What deeply concerns and saddens me is that the same lag I'm reflecting on here regarding broadcasting seems to be occurring massively in other fields too, compared with decisions in Latvia and Lithuania.

It's a fundamental problem, and I don't even know where to begin solving it.

We've talked extensively about ERR's funding and how it doesn't actually align with the European understanding of journalistic and public media independence. But have we done anything to solve this problem?

Well, it depends on who "we" are.

Personally, in my seven and a half years here, I've been many times, specifically on this topic, to practically all the relevant people—not to mention the culture ministers, of whom there have been about seven during my tenure—as well as parliamentary factions and previous prime ministers, meeting them several times.

Here's an interesting point: if you talk one-on-one with any politician, they are actually understanding and get it.

As viewers or listeners, they even praise us, saying we do good work.

But when politicians come together, usually without us or journalists present, that positive attitude somehow disappears, and it turns into, "No way, more money? Are you crazy?!"

And, of course, there's always a need for money everywhere.

The issue isn't just about getting more money, but about changing the funding model ERR uses in Estonia so that it isn't what it is now. Instead, it could be, I don't know, more like Lithuania's or Sweden's, providing some long-term certainty, so we're not left wondering every year-end what next year's budget will be.

Precisely.

So now, with this new budget or funding system and our legal amendment, it's again a moment of truth.

And since the European directive is now in place, politicians can no longer resort to such substitute activities—they must respond, and for all I care, they can explain themselves to the European Union too.

Perhaps some party will even say they don't care about the directive and won't comply with it.

There is precedent for this; I won't delve into energy policy today, but I understand that Germany has stated it doesn't intend to fulfill a human rights resolution in the near future, nor address certain energy issues, because it's not in their national interest.

We also have such parties.

And that stance is actually legitimate too, but the current majority still says we should fix this issue.

And in this legal amendment, the Ministry has indeed proposed the so-called Lithuanian model.

Right now, we have what you might call a preliminary draft, which proposes a funding model for ERR that would, according to European principles, be both adequate and independent.

There are two options that don't differ much.

One says it should be a formula based on the GDP of the previous or penultimate year.

The other is exactly the Lithuanian model, where a couple of specific taxes—probably personal income tax and excise duties—have a small fraction or percentage allocated, which is predetermined and not up for debate.

In Lithuania, this works and has actually worked very well over the past five to six years.

A completely different issue arose there: because post-COVID economic growth was quite rapid, that percentage surged significantly.

So now they're actually discussing whether to slightly reduce the percentage.

But that's a completely different topic—if we had too much money, it would feel like a fairytale for us.

That's the plan.

We're at the point where, most likely—I hope I'm wrong—but most parties, at least the coalition ones, will say they don't like the idea.

But in that case, we've said, "Well, come up with your own idea," and now we wait with interest.

If we look out from the seventh-floor window here, we see a parking lot next to which fences have been put up, and major construction work will likely begin in the coming weeks. I'm referring to the fact that a new television complex will soon rise between the ERR news house and the radio house. This process was neither short nor easy, and it dates back to before Erik Roose's tenure at ERR. But now it's underway. What I want to say is that a decision requiring broad political consensus—to invest in building a new television complex for ERR—was indeed reached with party agreement.

This is indeed a cheerier topic.

I've never thought about it this way, but one could truly draw a parallel: we eventually reached the point where everyone—all the parties, to their credit, with their remarks and differing thoughts—got behind this idea.

But there was also pure practicality involved.

By training, I am originally a construction economist, and I remember the first day I visited the old television building—it's been almost eight years now.

I had been there before but not in all the rooms.

The scene that unfolded was so depressing: My goodness, it's practically about to collapse.

Seventy- to eighty-year-old workers—a blacksmith, a mechanic, a welder—were all still employed simply because they knew where everything was and what was keeping the place standing upright at all.

When I described this situation, it actually took quite some time.

I brought various ministers over, and we showed them the facilities.

We also showed, for example, that we couldn't remove the main switch handle in the electrical substation because it likely wouldn't go back in its slot.

You can't fight with physics; you can't fight with mechanics.

This was all during Jüri Ratas' first government (from late 2016-ed.).

Eventually, the question was, "Why didn't you come sooner? Let's start building work."

Every government since has recognized the importance of this.

Admittedly, there was an interesting moment when then-culture minister Tiit Terik—facing a lack of funds for renovating the National Library, even though we already had the money allocated and in our account—politely asked if we could temporarily return it since our project would still take some time.

We gave it back, and the next government came along and said, "What money? What you gave back? We don't remember anything about that."

Well, after that scare, when I said that's not quite how it works and I do have documents, the memory returned, and now here we are.

So indeed, it is possible to achieve such consensus.

Let's stay optimistic.

That interim detail was quite an unbelievable story, but I'll also clarify just to be sure—I understand that all of this took place in a spirit of party selflessness and without harming the independence of the public broadcaster.

Along with this came a nuance worth commending, rooted in the early years of the Estonian Republic's restoration: the creation of an interesting organization called the Cultural Endowment.

It sparked huge debates, but projects like the Estonian National Museum and the new Art Museum in Kadriorg were built—fantastic objects, very beautiful, and we're all pleased.

But from the Cultural Endowment funds: whether someone smokes a cigarette, has a sauna beer, or plays the lottery, a large part of that money goes to the Endowment, and from there it's allocated to construction projects.

We wouldn't have gotten that money from the state.

Initially, the plan was that maybe it would be sufficient, but at that point, it was clear that it wouldn't come.

A curious moment arose, and we seized the opportunity.

In fact, the planned projects that were supposed to receive funding from the Cultural Endowment, starting with the one on Narva River's Kreenholm Island, where a massive Narva business complex was to be built, likely won't happen—not ever or at least not until some distant future when our grandchildren might see it.

And then there's the Estonia Theatre topic, which is a complex issue, and the Süku Cultural Center that's coming to Tartu.

All of these are on the list.

People drink faster than detailed plans are made and construction takes place.

The result was that my excellent predecessor as ERR board chair, and it was truly a great collaboration, Margus Allikmaa, the head of the Cultural Endowment, ended up with a lot of unallocated funds.

But the state couldn't actually use it.

Because of this, it suited the politicians to say: "Fine, if it's just sitting there anyway, then you can use it; otherwise, we'd use it ourselves, but we can't."

I'm simplifying a bit, but that was the principle.

Continuing on the topic of the new television building, I think there are two questions here. The first question, which ordinary people are likely to ask, is, 'Listen, in a time of crisis and economic downturn, you're building yourself a new and fancy building?' What are these complaints about cuts when you clearly have more money than you need?

If "Ringvaade" or "Aktuaalne Kaamera" somehow emerged from concrete or the depths of a hole, then maybe.

But, well, any thinking person who's gone through even a village school understands that these two things are entirely separate.

Here's another detail, perhaps not so interesting, but for smaller-budget broadcasters in Europe—and there are several, starting with Georgia, where terrible events are currently taking place—even before these major issues, the state provided a special allocation for the Georgian broadcaster to build a new house.

Similarly in the Balkans or Central Europe, and I think even in the Netherlands, it was done in much the same way.

And then there are the very large countries with large budgets where such investments have been made either from their own funds or through loans.

In this sense, it's nothing extraordinary that smaller-budget organizations, even in other sectors in Estonia, are given additional funding for construction.

You can't use that money for daily operations.

Every public sector leader knows this comparison is, in fact, trivial.

And the second question that will certainly arise from larger and even smaller private media outlets in Estonia is that this is literally a terrible situation for them—they have to buy all their studios, desks, microphones, and pens themselves, while the state simply gives ERR an entire building.

Of course, we still have to put in some effort ourselves.

In short, I'm getting at the point that private media actually feels that ERR is taking away their readers and, strangely, even their revenue.

This is a broader issue, and there's no simple one-sentence answer here.

But the broader picture is that the criticism—perhaps you pay too much in salaries, take away the good employees and journalists, work in better facilities, or receive higher wages—when you actually open up the tables, this isn't accurate or precise.

Let me quickly interject here: When it comes to salaries, journalists' wages in Estonia have been embarrassingly low for the past 15 or even 20 years, and in this regard, there's not much difference between public service media like ERR and private media. All publishers should really take a look in the mirror and ask themselves why this has happened. But on the other hand, salaries at ERR are not high, and they didn't increase this year, nor will they next year. It's actually quite challenging.

It's tough, but we're not exactly starving either.

Our salaries are just a little above the Estonian average.

But now, a strong competitor, our friend Delfi, wrote about a month ago, referencing a document from the Ministry of Culture, highlighting how high salaries at ERR supposedly are.

In my opinion, wages in the public sector can always be written about, and I personally support the idea that all salaries in Estonia should be public—but that's a different matter.

However, Delfi failed to mention that their own average salary—which I later dug up out of curiosity—was €400 higher than ours.

It would have been fair to include that in the same article, but I guess that fact didn't fit with their narrative.

Salaries are one thing; another is that Estonia isn't ranked third, fourth, fifth, or sixth in press freedom this year, for no discernible reason.

Personally, I think we actually rank even higher; the methodology includes some odd questions that might be relevant in the Middle East but not here.

Be that as it may, we've consistently been in the absolute top 10 for the past two decades.

This doesn't just happen by accident—as if Anvar and his colleagues do only great work and miracles happen.

Although, they do do great work.

It also derives from the situation where ERR, Ekspress Meedia, Postimees Group, Äripäev, and TV3 are neither too small nor too large—there's no dominant media such as there was in Ukraine before the war, where five oligarchs controlled the entire market.

We can even find closer examples; Latvia, in my opinion, offers a relatively stark contrast to Estonia.

Latvia has its problems, but I think things are improving there rather quickly, or at least I hope so.

But then there's also Hungary, where there is highly dominant media, and there are other similar places.

What I mean is the situation where private media is making profits: take Ekspress or Delfi Media's stock reports, for example—my goodness, they proudly announce to everyone that they're hitting record-breaking quarters.

So, in reality, the numbers don't reflect the issue or the posturing coming from private media.

This kind of healthy competition, even keeping each other in check, why not?

If we make a mistake, a competitor will point it out, and vice versa.

All of this ensures press freedom, guarantees quality, and keeps Estonia's corruption in check.

We are also at the top globally in terms of having low corruption.

By the way, these two things are interconnected.

So what should we say to private media, as both of us work in public service media? Should we just say, 'Deal with it, stop whining, this is just competition?'

That might be a somewhat arrogant statement.

You could say that, but I'd put it this way: I think our problem—not just in Estonia but across the Baltics, Northern Europe, and Europe as a whole—is the massively transformed media environment, where very large platforms like Elon Musk's platform, Donald Trump's friend, or others like Meta and Google, which is an even bigger monster business-wise, don't actually compete on equal footing.

When Urmo Soonvald says we don't compete on equal terms amongst ourselves, it's actually a bit like nitpicking, while a giant like Meta sits in the next room.

I've said, "Hey, let's go together to our politicians; if needed, let's go to Europe together and say this isn't acceptable—that the real problem lies here."

It's easier to squabble among ourselves, engaging in substitute activities.

That's what I call substitute activity, not what Jürgen Ligi called our criticism of the activity-based budget—that's the real substitute activity.

By the way, it would be pretty interesting to hear what you think about Estonian private media, its quality, and its actions?

Oh, that's an unfair question.

Honestly, I tend to think well of it, but for some strange reason, there's always this element of taking digs at competitors, especially ERR.

In fact, Delfi, in my opinion, doesn't criticize Postimees harshly.

I might be wrong about that, but that's how it appears to me.

But if there's some spicy tidbit about ERR and they can paint it in vivid colors, they do so, and with great relish.

This is all justified by the fact that we use taxpayer money.

I'm not complaining.

What I want to say is that sometimes this search for sensationalism overshadows fact-finding.

But naturally, as the saying goes, the dog yelps when it gets hit with a stick, right?

So in that sense, perhaps my feelings deceive me, but setting aside that 10 percent, I genuinely want to give a sincere compliment to all Estonian journalists.

Perhaps even more so to those who work in the regions, counties, and small radio stations—this freedom of speech, the appreciation for education, knowledge, and facts...

Thank God, I think it's been in our blood for 200 years now, and it's paying dividends.

When we talk about public service broadcasting, maybe we should also explain what public service media means in the European sense. Can we define why it's needed, including in Estonia, and what exactly it is?

That's a fundamental question.

Likely, broadcasting leaders from different countries would answer this question with slightly varying details.

But in basic principles or claims, I believe we'd find common ground.

Maybe I'll start with the fact that both ERR and our neighbors are part of an organization called the EBU, or the European Broadcasting Union.

The regular person best knows it as the organization that hosts the Eurovision Song Contest each May.

Yes, Eurovision is going ahead in Basel, Switzerland.

We found the budget for it.

Granted, we canceled [coverage of] the first semi-final, which made everyone pretty sad, but according to current plans, we'll still be on stage for at least the semi-finals in Basel in May.

What is public broadcasting, and why is it needed?

So the commonality is that we meet at the EBU at least a couple of times a year to discuss problems and challenges.

Issues like international platforms, quality concerns, and journalists' safety.

Topics like these.

All the members have agreed—with one or two exceptions, like Liechtenstein and Andorra, which don't have public broadcasters of their own, although Monaco and Luxembourg do; and not to mention the larger countries.

The EBU has 53 members all told, and they've all concluded that they need public broadcasting of some form or another.

To balance the media landscape, to ensure there are established and agreed-upon standards, to have someone to whom the state can direct a request for free media. It sounds a bit odd.

Maybe we should say society?

Actually, society: I agree, I misspoke.

For me, the state is the people; that is so elementary to me.

I feel like maybe not everyone—including politicians—thinks that way, but for me, the state, politicians, and journalists, myself included, are essentially servants of the people, so it's synonymous to me.

The difference, at least in Estonia but certainly elsewhere too—what is the goal of a private media firm?

It's a business, and its goal is to make a profit.

And that's completely fine; if it were anything else, that would be questionable.

But what is the goal of public broadcasters?

To serve the state and its people.

In our case, it's explicitly written in our own law—many countries have a separate law for this—that our purpose is to contribute to the development and preservation of Estonian culture.

The exact same thing is in the preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia.

It's inseparable.

There are a few such countries, but it just means that private media has to start fulfilling those requirements using public funds.

This isn't very widespread, as conflicts likely arise within the organization itself—profiting in one room and not profiting in another.

I can't imagine how successful that could ultimately be.

Very often, not only when talking about ERR, and also about national broadcasters in other parts of the world or Europe, when talking about public media, ordinary people, politicians, as well as our competitors or colleagues from private media, either accidentally or intentionally make the mistake of saying that we are state media. Personally, I don't like that at all, because I know that this is not the case. But in some countries, apparently, this terminology can even be used.

That's right.

It's definitely not allowed in Estonia.

Sometimes it's not even a malicious statement, it's just that you get money from the state, you're the property of the state.

The person saying it may not be malicious at all, although some certainly are and want to label us somehow.

A simple example: Belarus and Russia were also members of the EBU.

Belarus: I had a small part to play there, where three years ago, when there was an incident with that plane that was shot down in Belarus, Lukashenko's guys beat those women, demonstrators, as is happening now in Tbilisi, then I announced together with the Finns, Latvians and Lithuanians that if Belarus continues in the EBU or comes to Eurovision, for example, then Estonia will not be taking part.

Let's say that the EBU administrators were relatively pale-faced, but in the end they agreed that yes, it really doesn't fit and Belarus' membership was suspended.

A little time passed, it was about a year later, a large-scale war came and then the issue was already known and Russia was simply excluded from the EBU.

So in fact, those places where it is very clearly state media, they don't really fit into the EBU either.

One of the tasks of the national broadcaster, the public media, is certainly – as it could be expressed in a crude Estonian translation from English, where this phrase is centuries old – to tell the truth to the authorities, to hold up a mirror to them. PLUS on the other hand, to be a representative of the public, who cannot directly ask questions of politicians or those exercising power and demand their responsibility. This actually puts the person who is the head of the national broadcaster and is responsible for its entire operation and ultimately its content, and on the other hand has to receive the same budget model from these politicians, in a very difficult situation. I am not going to appeal to emotions here, I am simply saying that Estonia has probably done well throughout its history, that the various managements of the national broadcasters have been able to bear this responsibility to their readers-listeners-viewers and have not gone over to the side of the authorities in any sense, have not started to choose get entrenched.

I don't know, maybe I'll write my memoirs one day, but then probably a lot of people will jump out the window.

But basically there have been moments, and certainly my predecessors too, where the space between the hammer and the anvil has become very thin.

I mean from above, whether it's the supervisory board, politicians, and from below, the other way around, journalists and so on.

This is an interesting point, also personal experience, multiple times, that when there is polarization in the country, it was the same here when the conservatives were taken into government, or indeed, where a state of excitement arises in society, then it is clear that at the next council meetings, more or less they try, I don't know whether to run completely to the ground, we are only in a defensive state.

There has also been a lot of criticism that our supervisory board, which is also quite rare in Europe, has one member from each Riigikogu party, plus four experts: That this is bad and that the politicians are pressuring them.

But funny enough, only in isolated cases does this tension culminate in a very sharp conflict.

Most of the time, we actually explain why we do or don't do something or want to do something and the majority of the board just nods along.

Or, often someone disagrees and fixes it.

I actually want to acknowledge, this is a free compliment now, the absolute majority of our board members.

During these seven and a half years, as much as 45 or 50 members have passed through the council.

When a new Riigikogu comes, new members come again.

In the absolute majority of cases, after they have familiarized themselves with it for a quarter or two, they remain some of our best friends.

Maybe that is the problem, that then they talk about what we see and it is again difficult to represent our interests in parliament or in their faction.

This dividing line lies between our supervisory board member politician and their faction, from there they get asked, listen again, something is wrong, why aren't you doing something etc.

Then it is difficult to explain, listen, I can't do it tomorrow, then this system won't work.

And then we get back to the funding issue.

Let's make sure that at least this funding is a little under our control.

But I am exaggerating, perhaps.

It is clear that ERR's news department and other programs and units dealing with classical journalism must, for example, write about the business affairs of the prime minister's spouse if there is a reason to do so, regardless of the party to which the prime minister currently belongs, and this has been the case in the past. But is it justified that the national broadcaster deals with entertainment so extensively?

In my opinion, this extent is very, very doubtful.

If we take private media again, when the question was how private media differs, then in my opinion the proportion of the public opinion is an order of magnitude, if not two orders of magnitude smaller.

This is such a voluminous answer.

But again, even those politicians who are terribly fond of criticizing, even one ex-politician has a show on a competing radio station.

I suspect you're referring to [former culture minister] Rein Lang.

If you say so.

Rein's and some other ex-politicians' favorite example is always "no, we have everything done very badly, but the BBC is doing super well. Why don't you do it like they do?"

Not only him, but also other ex-journalists or, for example, Väino Koorberg, the current head of the media association (EML), and so on.

It has been given as an example, but the BBC's motto says that they must inform, educate and entertain. To inform, educate, entertain, that is their watchword.

Plus the BBC has so much entertainment content compared with ERR that you can't even conceive of it.

Not to mention that sometimes, just to take a test, open the front page of the BBC news portal.

I think that every other day, if ERR were to copy-paste the same news selection as that, [independent ethics ombudsman] Tarmu Tammerk's computer would have exploded many times, so many criticisms and complaints could be made.

In fact, compared with the BBC, compared with the French, compared with the Germans, we are very conservative and engage in very little entertainment.

So what is the function of those little snippets of entertainment we do provide, with taxpayer money?

This also comes down to a question of definition.

Some would say that Eurovision, Eesti Laul, constitutes entertainment.

I would say that it is the popularization of Estonian music culture, young Estonian musicians get a platform and show how Estonian music culture is developing through Radio 2, other radios, TV, and the morning performance of "Terevisioon".

It's not really like there's no music, Raadio 2 is closed down, we're not going to Eurovision, but suddenly everyone wants to go to the song festival.

Culture is a whole, be it music, theater, cinema.

To say, for example, don't talk about the new premiere of your beloved actors at the Drama Theater, as isn't that entertainment?

To me, that seems like nonsense, of course we have to do it.

Without us doing the things that people talk about at their birthday parties, we'll become some kind of tiny faction.

Do something that no one cares about!

Private media says to us do something where there is a market failure that doesn't interest us at all.

But if it doesn't interest them, why should it interest our readers or listeners?

Those public media outlets that do not get a critical mass of viewers, listeners, and readers lose all influence, and then the question actually arises as to whether it makes sense to spend money on it at all.

This is a problem that already exists in some European countries.

Thankfully, we don't have this problem yet, but the pressure has always been there—don't do anything popular, do something very niche.

But then the question arises: why should anyone even watch, read, or listen to public service media?

And this brings us back to the purpose of public service media and why it exists in Estonia and Europe.

It is closely tied to press freedom and quality journalism.

Our raison d'être is to ensure a societal agreement that at least part of the media doesn't just focus on what attracts viewers and clicks, but also covers topics that commercial media doesn't deem important.

This is something I remain proud of.

Of course, the pressure will continue, and in some ways, that's natural, but as long as we have viewers, readers, and listeners, we're satisfied.

If that ever disappears, so does our purpose, and then something else must be done instead.

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