The Winding Road on the Media Landscape: The Establishment of Estonian (Television) Broadcasting between 1992 and 2016

This article explores how Estonian broadcasting (with a focus on television) tackled the challenges of transforming from a monopolistic party propaganda machine into a modern dual media system in which public service broadcasting and newly created private enterprises coexist, and how this process evolved in a small, post-Communist country. This article argues that the Estonian government’s ‘idealisation’ of market forces supported by the European Union media policy, which is driven by common market ideology, did not account for the market’s limitations and media companies’ actual capabilities to provide a large range of media services.

The research methodology is based on an analysis of Estonian media legislation and the broadcasters’ annual reports from the period 1992–2016. The article analyses the key connections between the financial conditions of the broadcasting industry and the adaptations made in broadcasting legislation in Estonia during the last 25 years.