site.btaCouncil for Electronic Media Re-Elects Milen Mitev as Bulgarian National Radio Director General

Milen Mitev was elected for a second term as Director General of the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) at Thursday's meeting of the Council for Electronic Media (CEM). Three of the regulator's members - acting CEM chairwoman Gabriela Naplatanova, Galina Georgieva and Kadrinka Kadrinova - voted for his candidacy.

The other members of the Council for Electronic Media - Prolet Velkova and Simona Veleva voted against. Prolet Velkova explained that she did not support any of the candidates and Simona Veleva announced in her reasons that she was casting her vote for the candidacy of Iva Doichinova-Dimitrova.

The mandate of the Director General of the Bulgarian National Radio is three years.

The decision of the CEM is subject to appeal within 14 days from the date of its notification to the participants in the procedure. 

There were a total of seven candidates for head of the Bulgarian National Radio: Mitev, Tsvetoslav Georgiev, Helia Chavdarova, Margarit Rusev, Iva Doychinova - Dimitrova, Valery Todorov, and Georgi Daskalov. The candidates presented their concepts for the development of the media before the CEM on Tuesday and Wednesday.

During his hearing, Mitev said that that the main issue for BNR is not the amount of its funding, but the model of financing. "The discussion about whether public media funding is adequate is meaningless unless we first determine the purpose of this funding," Mitev said. He mentioned that the right approach would be to clearly outline the media's public mission first. He argued that the outdated system for funding public media obstructs medium- and long-term planning and disconnects the radio's funding from its actual activities. "This issue is somewhat connected to the challenge of attracting motivated staff to work at BNR. Additional challenges the radio encounters include the brand not being well-recognized among young people and a trend of reduced listening time," he noted. Despite these challenges, BNR is "well-positioned": at present, it is one of the leading information media organizations in Bulgaria, with an average of around 110,000 listeners at any given time, he added.