Name day: Paula, Paulīne, Jasmīna

Sanita Upleja-JegermaneLETA, Paula ?urkste Yesterday, 17:41 Media Authors: LSM English (Latvian Public Media) Latvian Public Media (LSM) will likely not have Russian-language content for many more years, according to Sanita Upleja-Jegermane, the chairwoman of the Public Electronic Media Council (SEPLP) – the public media watchdog – speaking on the Latvian Radio program "Krustpunktā" (At the Crossroads) on February 9th. The strategy selected by the LSM board for 2026-2029 provides that the portal LSM.lv will operate as an online news platform in Latvian, with some content also offered in English (which you are reading at the moment), Ukrainian, and Russian. The former Russian-language radio channel Latvian Radio 4 has been shut down completely, and Russian-language television broadcasts are also a thing of the past.

The head of SEPLP said that the LSM.lv portal is the only platform in public media where content can currently be found in Russian, but that this content is now being created according to different principles.

"It's a very big change. Currently, there is no more Latvian Radio 4, which actually promoted a bi-communal society in Latvia. We had two informational and analytical channels - Latvian Radio 1 and Latvian Radio 4, which meant that people could live completely comfortably in Russian [only] and they had the full spectrum offered to them. That's no longer the case. There have also been changes to the portal - content is created in a unified editorial office, which is translated - 70% is translated from Latvian. This is a very big difference if you compare it to what it was until the end of last year," explained Upleja-Jegermane.

At the same time, the head of SEPLP pointed out that, most likely, Russian-language content in public media should not be available forever.

"This is for four years, in this strategy… but, most likely, it should not be like this forever," Upleja-Jegermane said.

She suggested that LSM should try to integrate Russian-speakers into a unified information space before ultimately closing down public media Russian-language provision, while noting that in a democratic country one cannot say "this language is banned".

"Currently there is this content in Russian in order to inform people about what is happening, to involve them, to tell more about the history and culture of Latvia… How can we live in one space, how can we help those people who have not mastered [Latvian] for some reason, so that we live in one space, and we have one democratic process, we must try to have everyone speak in one space. Yes, for now there are still two languages, but the goal is for us to do it in one language," Upleja-Jegermane asserted.

Despite the changes already made to public media language provision in Russian, for some people the measures do not go far enough. The Constitutional Court is currently considering an application made by the opposition parties the National Alliance and the United List who believe the obligation imposed on public media to create a certain amount of content in minority languages ??diminishes the value of the Latvian language as the only state language under the Constitution and threatens national security. In their opinion, Latvian public media should not be producing content in Russian at all.

However, as preliminary hearings of the Constitutional Court have pointed out, there will likely be ramifications for content in other "minority languages" in Latvia such as English and Ukrainian, as existing public media regulations generally talk about "minority languages" all together rather than individually.

A verdict in the case is expected in March.

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