[1] After its independence there have been fundamental changes of political, economic and social nature that have turned Latvia into a democratic country with a free market economy.
[2] This reflects on the mass media landscape which is considered well-developed despite being subjected to a limited market and a linguistic and cultural split[3] between Latvian (58.2%) and Russian speakers (37.5%).
This is partly due to a global trend which sees the emergence of online news outlets and new ways of media consumption, combined with a decrease in the population.
[7] Latvian local media outlets are in a difficult financial situation since 2016, mostly due to a general decrease in subscription rates and advertising revenue.
On the other hand, the informational void created by this situation has been filled with municipality-owned newspapers, criticised for their politically driven and reality-distorting contents.
This trend is especially true for TV3, a TV channel present in all three of the Baltic States, which saw a significant rise in the number of visitors of its website.
In 2016 LTV1 was the second most watched TV station after the commercial channel TV3 (owned by Swedish Modern Times Group, MTG), that accounted for an 11 percent share.
[7] In recent years local and regional television stations have gained financial stability, largely due to national support.
[8] In 2016 the Criminal Law was amended in regards to the limits to disseminate "State secret",[8] thus creating a wide debate on the right of journalists to publish leaked documents.
[8] The commercial media do have self-regulatory mechanisms (both codes of ethics or conduct and monitoring systems) but their effectiveness is put into question in cases of non-compliance with the rules.
In 2014 The National Electronic Mass Media Council has made a unanimous decision to restrict the broadcasting of Rossiya RTR television in Latvia, a channel produced by a Russian state-owned media company, because it “concluded that RTR news reports contain unjustifiable calls to war or a military conflict and increase ethnic hate”.
[8] On the other hand, according to data disclosed by journalists,[8] almost 60% of the national and regional newspapers of the Baltic country are owned by politically affiliated entities.
[15] In several occasions, journalists have faced pressure from authorities to reveal sources in cases of potential libel or for publishing state information.
[4] Finally, in recent years there have also been numerous debates on the rights of local governments to publish their newsletters with editorial content and paid advertisements.
Although it is stipulated that the editor of the mass medium must be editorially independent, the law also provides that any natural or legal entity may be the publisher of a newspaper.
[8] Postimees Group (formerly known as Eesti Meedia until 2019) and Ekspress Grupp, both based in Estonia, are the major media companies operating in the country.