The crisis outlined in Part I is rooted in a combination of mounting debt, unresolved legal obligations, and prolonged political deadlock. Bosnia and Herzegovina — a country of three constituent peoples, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats — is also home to a highly fragmented media landscape, shaped by three parallel narratives and nationalist politics.
After years of temporary fixes and recurring warnings, BHRT, the country’s only state-level public broadcaster and voice representing all of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is now facing the real possibility of total shutdown.
More than television
To many younger citizens raised on streaming platforms and social media, the disappearance of a traditional television broadcaster may not seem catastrophic.
But BHRT is not simply a TV channel.
The broadcaster maintains transmission infrastructure across the country, including networks of transmitters that support telecommunications systems used by various public institutions. According to union representatives, these systems also underpin services used by the armed forces, border police, and identification agencies.
If BHRT were to collapse, the consequences could extend far beyond journalism.
International organizations have already warned of the broader implications. The EBU and several global media groups have described the potential shutdown as “a media freedom crisis, but also a security risk with regional implications.”
There is also a wider European dimension. The European Union has repeatedly emphasized that a functioning public broadcasting system is one of the key democratic requirements for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s path toward EU membership. Ironically, the country could soon become the only state in Europe without a national public broadcaster.[1]
The last resort: international intervention
Faced with institutional paralysis, BHRT’s union has repeatedly turned to the only authority in Bosnia capable of breaking political deadlock: the Office of the High Representative (OHR), an international intermediary.
Using so-called Bonn Powers, the High Representative has the authority to impose decisions when domestic institutions fail to act. Such interventions have previously been used to unblock major political disputes. For many BHRT employees, it now appears to be the only remaining mechanism capable of saving the broadcaster.
Thus far, the High Representative has refused to act, stating that the responsibility should fall solely on Bosnian politicians.
Does Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political system actually want a state-level public broadcaster?
For nationalist parties across the country’s political spectrum, entity-based media often serve as more convenient platforms for pushing their own agendas. A unified public broadcaster — theoretically independent and addressing citizens across ethnic lines — sits uneasily within a system structured around ethnic division.
This tension has existed since the creation of BHRT. But as financial pressure mounts and institutional neglect continues, the possibility that the broadcaster might simply disappear is no longer unthinkable.
If BHRT eventually goes dark, Bosnia and Herzegovina will not stop having media. Commercial radio and television stations will continue broadcasting. Social media will remain saturated with content. Political messaging will find its channels, as it always does.
What may disappear is something far more subtle: a shared national space of information, education and entertainment. Public broadcasters, at their best, function as civic infrastructure — institutions meant to serve citizens rather than political parties, advertisers, or algorithms.
Whether BHRT has always lived up to that ideal is open to debate, but if it disappears entirely, Bosnia and Herzegovina will lose one of the few remaining institutions designed to speak to the country as a whole. And in a political system where almost everything else is divided, that loss may be more significant than many realize. Its disappearance would not only mark the loss of a broadcaster, but a further fragmentation of public space and weakening of democratic cohesion in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
[1] Liechtenstein closed their public broadcaster in 2025 after a referendum.