Case Study: How Public Service Media in Estonia and Germany are Bridging Information Gaps

Public service media across Europe find themselves at a crucial point. As they seek to fulfill their vital role in promoting healthy democratic debate in the digital age, they face the challenge of reaching increasingly fragmented media landscapes while also fighting to justify public funding amid economic pressure. Experiences from Estonia and Germany showcase recent, successful efforts by media to reach key audiences and reassert their ability to provide trustworthy information across different segments of society.

A public service channel for Estonia’s Russian speakers

Estonian authorities have long sought to shield the country from pro-Kremlin disinformation campaigns, and in recent years have become more active in this regard. In 2015, the Estonian public broadcaster (Eesti Rahvusringhääling, or ERR) launched a dedicated Russian-language television channel called ETV+,1 alongside a regional studio in the town of Narva, where most of the population speaks Russian.2 The government also accelerated measures in the immediate aftermath of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, stopping the broadcasting of several Russian television stations and restricting access to certain websites on the grounds that were disseminating Kremlin propaganda. To more constructively counter harmful narratives, it also increased investments in Russian-language journalism at Estonia’s private outlets and public broadcasting.3

The motivation for launching ETV+ was both to provide the country’s Russian-speakers with news about Estonia’s current affairs, but also to give an alternative viewpoint on international events and conflicts. “I think Estonia is doing the right thing because if you want to reach a minority, you have to speak to them in their own language and you have to invest in this media,” said Ekaterina Taklaja, editor in chief at ETV+.4 Its editorial team has scrupulously focused on providing independent, balanced content. For example, when the Estonian government decided to remove a Soviet-era World War II memorial from Narva in August 2022,5 a talk show on ETV+ sought to create open debate on the matter. Taklaja explained: “We invited not only representatives of the state, historians, different experts, but also representatives of the local community who live on the border with Russia. And they just talked about how people feel about this and how the government’s communications could have been different or what should have been done differently.”

However, providing a platform with nuanced coverage is not an easy feat for an outlet serving a population divided by tense geopolitics, particularly since the invasion of Ukraine.6 Helle Tiikmaa, a former broadcast journalist and now president of the Estonian Association of Journalists, reflected on the challenges faced by Estonia’s Russian-language public broadcaster: “They are playing in a two-sided field in some sense, they are trying to fulfil the expectations of different sorts of Russian-speakers. And that is difficult because there are sometimes conflicting interests, between persuading people who believe what comes from Moscow into watching something from the Estonian side, and sometimes it means that they lose the faith of Estonian-minded viewers.”7

Nevertheless, the Estonian government has increased support for Russian-language media. With additional resources, ETV+ invested in a daily evening program and a weekly foreign affairs program, as well as a Russian-language version of the public broadcaster’s video-on-demand platform. The strategy seems to be paying off. Public trust in the broadcaster among Russian-speakers has increased, according to recent surveys, although levels of trust in the broadcaster are still lower than among native Estonian speakers.8 Viewership has also increased, recovering from low numbers when ETV+ first launched.9 In 2022 the channel boasted record ratings, a jump that is also partly due to authorities’ move to ban competing Russian television channels earlier that year.10

Sustaining this momentum will continue to present challenges for the channel. One of them is the ability to attract younger Russian-speaking talent from a small pool of people, as Taklaja explained: “You have to study journalism in Estonian, and the chances that you will go back to Russian-language media after that are very small because if you really succeed, then you would rather go to Estonian-language media, which are bigger and offer better career opportunities. Also, many of the students who study for years in Estonian lose the high standard of Russian required for the profession by the time they graduate.”

Meeting younger audiences where they are

Having long functioned as broadcast-only organizations, Germany’s regional network of public service media was born from postwar endeavors to build a system that could thwart any government attempt to harness media to amplify propaganda.11 Today, the rise of digital platforms is revolutionizing the way they distribute and tailor content, especially to engage younger audiences online. But the path toward establishing a lasting role in the digital era is complicated by funding and other challenges, and the broadcasters have at times found their futures entangled in political debates.12 Convincing younger generations to engage with public service media is key to their future endeavors.

Recognizing that younger audiences are less likely to consume news on television, German public service broadcasters are experimenting with content on social media platforms. “On YouTube or TikTok or Instagram, there are interesting projects within public broadcasters that have a focus on youth topics,” said Günter Bartsch of Netzwerk Recherche. “Sometimes the viewers do not even realize that what they just saw is coming from public broadcasters.”13

One such example is the information and entertainment network “funk,” launched by the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF in 2016. Its content is exclusively online and is aimed at people in their teens and early twenties.14 Different types of content are disseminated on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, among other platforms, as well as on their dedicated website and app. Some individual news programs have also placed their bets on online-platform engagement. The reputable Tagesschau (“Review of the Day”) news program aired on ARD’s Das Erste channel became one of the first in Germany to use the video-sharing platform TikTok in 2019, and their profile now boasts more than a million followers.15 Content often focuses on more interactive or conversational videos, in contrast to content produced within formal studio settings. Deutsche Welle’s first TikTok account, called DW Berlin Fresh, is also engaging younger audiences with a mix of news and cultural content focused on life in the capital city.16

As broadcasters experiment with new strategies, discussions on how to modernize supportive frameworks are underway. In 2022, heads of the 16 federal states approved a proposed reform to the Media State Treaty, which reemphasized the remit of broadcasters in providing a platform for dialogue that involves the whole of society; it also expands broadcasters’ mandate so channels can more easily move onto the internet.17 While the reform seeks to enable more flexibility in keeping up with shifting practices online, tensions with private broadcasters continue to flare, as they call for greater regulations to ensure fair competition.

• 1“Estonia launches its first Russian-language TV channel,” ERR, September 28, 2015, https://news.err.ee/116841/estonia-launches-its-first-russian-language-….
• 2“Narva studio’s first original programming began airing on Russian-language channel ETV+,” ERR, March 9, 2016, https://news.err.ee/117790/narva-studio-s-first-original-programming-be….
• 3Kenneth R. Rosen, “Estonia’s answer to Russian disinformation is to fund real journalism,” Coda, February 20, 2023, https://www.codastory.com/newsletters/estonia-public-media-russian-disi….
• 4Interview with Ekaterina Taklaja, editor in chief at ETV+, January 20, 2023.
• 5“Estonia Removes Soviet WWII Memorial in Border City,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty (RFERL), August 16, 2022, https://www.rferl.org/a/estonia-removes-soviet-memorial-narva-wwii/3199….
• 6Charlie Duxbury, “Estonia fights back against pro-Russia messaging,” POLITICO, March 23, 2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/estonia-fight-back-pro-russia-propagand….
• 7Interview with Helle Tiikma, freelance journalist and president of the Estonian Association of Journalists, January 30, 2023.
• 8“Survey: Trust in Estonia media growing,” ERR, March 22, 2022, https://news.err.ee/1608540526/survey-trust-in-estonian-media-growing.
• 9Helle Tiikmaa, “Estonia’s third channel struggles to connect with Russian speakers,” Index on Censorship, January 4, 2016, https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2016/01/estonias-third-channel-strugg….
• 10“Survey: Kremlin channels lose significance with Russian-speakers in Estonia,” ERR, April 12, 2022, https://news.err.ee/1608562720/survey-kremlin-channels-lose-significanc….
• 11Uri Friedman, “Germany Found a Way to Reduce Polarization. Could It Work in the U.S.?” Atlantic, July 30, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/what-germany-can-teac… ; Matthias von Hellfeld, “Germany: Broadcasting history,” Deutsche Welle (DW), https://www.dw.com/en/public-broadcasting-in-germany-decades-of-indepen….
• 12Clemens Lampe, “Does the public broadcasting service in Germany have a future?” DW, January 16, 2023, https://corporate.dw.com/en/does-the-public-broadcasting-service-in-ger….
• 13Interview with Günter Bartsch, managing director of Netzwerk Recherche, January 26, 2023.
• 14Funk, https://www.funk.net/ ; Jörn Krieger, “ARD and ZDF unveil youth service ‘funk’,” Broadbandtv News, September 29, 2016, https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2016/09/29/ard-zdf-unveil-youth-service… ; European Broadcasting Union (EBU), EBU News Report 2021-22: Public Service Journalism in the Age of Distraction, Opinion & Information Abundance, (Switzerland: EBU 2022), https://www.ebu.ch/files/live/sites/ebu/files/Publications/strategic/op…
• 15European Broadcasting Union (EBU), EBU News Report 2021-22: Public Service Journalism in the Age of Distraction, Opinion & Information Abundance, (Switzerland: EBU 2022), https://www.ebu.ch/files/live/sites/ebu/files/Publications/strategic/op…
• 16Francesco Zaffarano, “How Germany’s public broadcaster uses TikTok to engage with younger audiences around the world,” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, March 20, 2023, https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/how-germanys-public-bro….
• 17Public Media Alliance, “Germany: Federal states reach agreement on public media reform,” June 22, 2022, https://www.publicmediaalliance.org/germany-federal-states-reach-agreem… ; Public Media Alliance, “Reform for German public media under microscope,” December 1, 2022, https://www.publicmediaalliance.org/germany-public-media-reforms-scruti….