Skopje, 7 October 2025 – The Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services has prepared a monitoring report on broadcasters for the period from the announcement of the elections to the official start of the campaign for the 2025 Local Elections – specifically, from 10 August to 28 September 2025.
The monitoring covered nine national television broadcasters: MRT 1, MRT 2, Alsat-M TV, Alfa TV, Kanal 5 TV, Sitel TV, Telma TV, TV 21-M, and TV 24 Vesti. The focus was placed on the main evening news editions, as well as on the special current affairs programmes (interviews, debates, face-offs), and other news content related to election preparations.
The monitoring findings indicated that during this period, no violations of the provisions of the Electoral Code were recorded.
Throughout the entire pre-election period – from 10 August to 28 September 2025 – the news coverage of the national broadcasters analyzed included only a few informative items (news pieces, news series/reports) dedicated to the upcoming Local Elections.
In general, the media adhered to the principle of objective and impartial presentation of the events, providing balanced treatment of different viewpoints and opinions, thereby enabling the public to freely form its own opinion on various events and issues. Two exceptions were noted: Alfa TV failed to uphold this principle both quantitatively (in terms of allocated airtime) and qualitatively (through positive framing and tone in the news reports and interviews related to the political party VMRO-DPMNE and the Government, and a negative tone and framing when reporting on the political party SDSM); while Alsat-M TV did not uphold this principle consistently due to the negative tone and framing in its news reports concerning the political party DUI.
The public broadcasting service fulfilled its obligations to inform the public about the electoral process through its regular updates (news, reports, announcements) from the State Election Commission. While the television programming services of the Public Broadcaster aired debate programmes as well, these did not feature face-offs between the major political parties from the ruling coalition and the opposition, as prescribed in Article 76-a, Paragraph 11, of the Electoral Code. Instead, MRT 1 hosted political analysts discussing public opinion surveys on the Local Elections in several cities across the country, while MRT 2 featured analyses of the pre-election rhetoric of the parties of Vredi and DUI.
Several commercial television stations also made efforts to provide analytical coverage of the 2025 Local Elections through special informative shows, including interviews, debates, and other current affairs formats. Interviews were broadcast by Alfa TV, Kanal 5, TV 21-M, Sitel TV, and TV 24 Vesti, while debates were organized by TV 24 Vesti, Telma TV, and TV 21-M.
The full monitoring report on media coverage for the period 10 August – 28 September 2025 is available at the following link.