Institutional instability and financial woes make the PSB system in BiH vulnerable to direct political interference when it comes to the appointment of managing boards, editors and even journalists. Observers of BiH’s media system worry that politicians hold too much power over key nominations and dismissals of the managing boards of PSBs.[159] Formally, the independent Communications Regulatory Agency (CRA) nominates board members of BHRT and RTRS. However, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska has the power to reject CRA-nominated members without giving a concrete reason. In Federation BiH, RTVFBiH board members are not nominated by the CRA at all – instead, a parliamentary commission does so, and is also able to dismiss the Board of Governors.[160] There are fears that in the case of RTVFBiH and RTRS the appointments are now completely in the hands of the legislative bodies on entity levels. Legally, Board members cannot belong to a political party or hold legislative, executive, or judicial power,[161] though they are often people who are closely aligned to political parties. As a consequence, the latest IREX MSI (2016:20) report states that “independence of the three public broadcasters within the country’s public broadcasting system is formally ensured, but politicization continues to poison appointments to managerial positions at the entity’s public broadcasters”.[162]

Political influence is visible through links between parties and appointments of editors and journalists. The 2015 Alternative Report on BiH’s EU Progress warned of a worrying level of political influence over PSB.[163] Political parties unofficially have their say in appointing editors.[164] For example, during the period when the Social Democratic Party (SDP) was in the ruling coalition in the Federation BiH entity (2010-2012), it obtained significant control over FTV, culminating with a 2012 leaked video in which the SDP party leader Mr. Zlatko Lagumdžija gives clear instructions to an FTV editor about exactly how to present an issue in the primetime news, as the editor nods along.[165] This link was not denied by the SDP or FTV, while the editor in question kept his position as one of the editors of the primetime news. One of the most prominent journalists at FTV in this period was later the SDP candidate for the Presidency of BiH during the 2014 elections, demonstrating the tight links between political parties and journalists.[166] Moreover, the Program Council, which should ultimately represent citizens in the co-creation of editorial policy has been marginalized in the RTRS and entirely maligned in RTVFBiH and BHRT.[167]

The overt political influence translates into editorial policy and programming. One of the ways political influence is seen over editorial policy is in airtime given to critical programming, analysis, and alternative voices. For example, primetime news will often use political parties and officials as their sources, but will not invite intellectuals with different opinions to speak to the public. In effect, this gives politicians an almost unlimited space to express their views, without questioning their claims, their spokespeople are given more airtime than necessary, and government press releases are broadcast without reflecting on their content. This has the effect of narrowing “the range of opinion in both entities,”[168] which in practice means that PSBs are not fulfilling their obligation to provide political pluralism. According to the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, FTV suffers from political dependence and bias while RTRS is ‘directly controlled’ by the RS government and its ruling party, the SNSD.[169] Local media analysts point to the large amounts of airtime provided for leading political parties in comparison to opposition voices as a key example of its use as a governmental mouthpiece.[170]