The Latvian parliament, the Saeima, has passed in final reading amendments to ban advertising of beer and wine on radio and TV, Baltic News Network reports. The ban will apply to advertisements that include information on prices and discounts. The restriction is aimed at reducing the total consumption and negative impact of alcohol on young…
Estonia and the US have signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in countering information manipulation, ERR reports. The memorandum stresses the importance of media freedom in protecting the information space. Estonian state secretary Taimar Peterkop said that Estonia could share with allies its experience in dealing with Russian information attacks. The US has signed…
Latvia’s National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) has awarded free terrestrial TV broadcasting rights to Re MEDIA’s ReTV and 4.vara’s TV4 in 2025-2026, BNS reports. Re MEDIA’s owner is Jurgis Abele, while 4.vara’s owners are Sweden’s Silver Spring Media (79.99%), Kristaps Zalitis’s LZI (12.52%), and Arturs Vaskis’s AV Management (7.49%). NEPLP will announce a repeated…
The Russian and Chinese social media networks, Telegram and TikTok, are being used widely to spread content that poses risks to Latvia’s national security, according to the State Security Service (VDD), BNS reports. Unwanted content on the platforms includes disinformation, propaganda, and recruitment to criminal activity. Moreover, the platforms fail to monitor or delete such…
US technology company Google has removed altogether 18 Belarusian radio and TV channels from its YouTube video platform following a request from the Radio and Television Commission of Lithuania (LRTK), BNS reports. LRTK said that the accounts were directly linked to the Belarusian state broadcaster, Belteleradiocompany (BTRC), which is under EU sanctions. LRTK had made…
A total of 544,800 households in Estonia, or 92.9% of all households, have used the internet in 2024, according to data from Statistics Estonia, ERR reports. The most common services used on the internet are online banking (90.4%) and email (89.7%). Another 88% of people use the internet to look for information about products or…
One of Estonia’s wealthiest businessmen, Margus Linnamäe, will buy out his business partner, Ivar Vendelin, in the Apollo and MM Group investment companies, ERR reports. Vendelin will focus on real estate investments instead. Following the transaction, Apollo will be fully owned by MM Group. Linnamäe will own 98% and lawyer Aare Kurist the remaining 2%…
Lithuanian news agency ELTA has signed a cooperation agreement with Taiwan’s national news agency, Central News Agency (CNA), Focus Taiwan reports. The news agencies agreed to share content free of charge. ELTA is CNA’s first official partner in the Baltic region. CNA’s editor-in-chief, Chris Wang, said that the cooperation between the two news agencies reflected…
Latvia’s Public Electronic Mass Media Council (SEPLP) has told the state-owned TV channel, LTV7, to provide all content in Latvian only as of 1 January 2025, BNS reports. Currently, LTV7 carries programmes in Russian as well. Earlier, the Latvian parliament, the Saeima, approved a new national security concept that obliges Latvia’s public broadcasters to have…