Radio in Central and Eastern Europe

The European Journalism Centre, based in the Netherlands, offers a daily updated selection of the latest developments in European and international media.

In the feature below, Anca Dragu, a Romania-born journalist with Slovak public radio, reports on the state of radio journalism in Central and Eastern Europe.

She describes how, historically, liberation from communism created stations in these countries that were powered by enthusiasm rather than profitability.

But that there was increasing divergence between commercial, music-based stations and public radio which aspires to more than just 'fast-food news'.

Dragu investigates the possibilities for such stations winning funds from the EU, which has a number of programmes to support radio.

But if that money is hard to access, will the survival of radio journalism depend on new technology, making distribution cheaper through the internet?