Frequently Asked Questions

The “Media Ownership Monitor” (MOM) has been developed as a mapping tool in order to create a publicly available, continuously updated database that lists owners of all relevant mass media outlets - press, radio, television, and online media.

MOM aims to shed light on the risks to media pluralism caused by media ownership concentration (for more information: Methodology). In order to grasp the national characteristics and detect risk-enhancing or risk-reducing factors for media concentration, MOM also qualitatively assesses the market conditions and legal environment.

MOM has been proposed and launched by Reporter ohne Grenzen e. V.  – the German section of the international human rights organisation Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF), that aims to defend freedom of the press and the right to inform and be informed anywhere in the world. In 2019, the project was spun-off to the Global Media Registry Global Media Registry non-profit social enterprise registered under German law. In each country, GMR cooperates with a local partner organisation. In the Republic of Moldova, GMR collaborated with the Media Guard Association, a partner of Ziarul de Gardă, the only investigative newspaper in Moldova. MOM Moldova has been commissioned by the GIZ project Info Trust Alliance, co-funded by the EU Delegation to Moldova and the German Federal Foreign Office.

The website features a PDF download containing all website content. The PDF is automatically generated and thus updated on a daily basis. It exists for all website languages. In order to generate the PDF, scroll down to the website footer, choose your preferred language, and “Download complete website as PDF.”

Media pluralism is a key aspect of democratic societies, as free, independent, and diverse media reflect divergent viewpoints and allow criticism of people in power. Risks to diversity of ideas are caused by media market concentration when only a few players exert a dominant influence on public opinion and raise entrance barriers for other players and perspectives (media ownership concentration). 

The biggest obstacle to overcome is the lack of transparency in media ownership: How can people evaluate the reliability of the information if they don´t know who provides it? How can journalists work properly if they don´t know who controls the company they work for? And how can media authorities address excessive media concentration, if they don't know who is behind the steering wheel?

MOM thus aims to create transparency and to answer the question “Who eventually controls media content?” in order to raise public awareness and to create a fact base for advocacy to hold political and economic players accountable for the existing conditions.

As we consider ownership transparency as a crucial precondition to enforce media pluralism, we document the openness of media companies/outlets to provide information on their ownership structure. Considering their answers, we distinguish different levels of transparency – which is indicated for each media outlet and media company on their profile.

Active Transparency
- company/channel informs proactively and comprehensively about its ownership, data is constantly updated and easily verifiable.

Passive Transparency
- upon request, ownership data is easily available from the company/channel.

Data Publicly Available
- ownership data is easily available from other sources, e. g. public registries, etc.

Data Unavailable
- ownership data is not publicly available, company/channel denies the release of information or does not respond, no public record exists.

Active Disguise
- in addition to unavailability of true data, ownership is disguised, e. g. through bogus companies, etc

The motivation for media owners to remain hidden or even actively disguise their investments can vary from legitimate to illegal and be rooted in personal, legal, or business-related reasons – or a mix thereof, in extreme cases, even including criminal offenses like tax evasion or breaches of anti-trust laws.
Some of those reasons include the following:

• In several countries, media ownership is restricted by law in order to avoid concentration. So, if one individual wants to extend their media empire beyond these limits, proxy owners and/or shell companies registered abroad, even off-shore, are frequently being used.
• Sometimes, media owners receive personal threats or face other dangers, either originating from governments or competing businesses and therefore decide to remain unknown to protect themselves.
• In many cases, media ownership is intertwined with undue political and/or economic interests, even more so if individuals involved hold public office and do not want to disclose such a conflict of interests.
• In rare cases, the disguise of media ownership happens unintentionally because, over time and through mergers and acquisitions, corporate structures become so complex that the original beneficial owner is difficult to identify.
• Last but not least, there are ‘normal’ – i.e., non-media-related reasons for owners to hide, such as tax avoidance.

MOM doesn’t make normative recommendations – it doesn’t suggest how to regulate media ownership. The form of media concentration regulation that can work depends on the context of the country, the existing legal and market conditions, and the ownership landscape.

Instead, MOM provides a transparency tool to enforce a democratic discussion on that issue as well as good governance: decisions are likely to be of higher quality and to better reflect the needs and wishes of the people if they have access to adequate information and broad consultations, with views and opinions freely shared.

Preferably, official data sources and/or sources with a high level of reliability and trust are used. Whenever not publicly available, information was directly requested of media companies, political representatives and research institutes. All sources are thoroughly documented and archived in the online library.

Audience data for television was provided by the company "TV MR MLD," the local representative of AGB Nielsen, the research company Xplane, and the Broadcasting Council.

Information on the ownership structure, shareholders and financial statements of media companies and individual owners was obtained from the governmental online database data.gov.md. The database is available online and publicly accessible in Romanian, Russian, and English. Other online databases or journalistic materials published by credible media outlets were also consulted.

MOM also sent requests for information to all the media companies that are under examination.

To ensure an objective assessment of the research, MOM worked with an advisory group that provided comments and consultation throughout the entire process. The advisory group was composed of national specialists with significant knowledge and experience in the media and beyond.

The main question is: which media outlets influence the opinion-forming process? In order to scan all relevant media, we included all traditional media types (Print, Radio, TV, Online).

The media were selected according to the following criteria:
MOM focused primarily on the media platforms with the highest reach in terms of audience share. In the case of TV, the selection was based on audience research data, which was provided by AGB Nielsen's local representative, the research company Xplane and the Audiovisual Council for the first six months of 2024.

In the case of radio stations, because there are no official audience measurements, we combined the data provided by the research company Xplane with the data held by the Audiovisual Council regarding radio station frequencies. As for online portals, we relied on data published by the Bureau for Audit of Print and Internet (BATI) and Gemius audience data posted on trafic.md, as well as on recent opinion polls.

For newspapers (periodicals), we collected data on the number of subscribers from the Post of Moldova, as well as data on print circulation from the National Book Chamber of Moldova. 

The news worthiness and opinion content. The study focuses on general information with a national focus. As such, media with specific thematic focus (music, sport), social networks, search engines, and advertisements were excluded.

Based on these criteria, about 20 media outlets were initially selected for each media type (TV, print, radio, online), with a focus on the TV and online markets, as they represent the largest audience in Moldova. 

Thus, shedding light on these most relevant media outlets already allows us to reveal tendencies in media concentration. More media outlets have been and will be added – if they prove to be relevant in terms of their owner or of their influence on public opinion (read more - “How are media outlets selected?”).

We selected no fewer than 45 media outlets to monitor in Moldova. Broadcasters were selected according to their nationwide audience based on information provided by AGB Nielsen's local representative "TV MR MLD", the research company Xplane, and the Audiovisual Council for the first six months of 2024. We did not analyse TV stations that had large audiences until 2024 but whose activity was suspended or cancelled or TV stations whose license was suspended during the time this study was documented. At the same time, we did not include TV stations that do not feature news or informative programs in their programming.

Thirteen TV stations were selected based on audience reach and news content production. TVR Moldova and GRT were included in the monitoring process, despite not being featured in audience surveys. TVR Moldova was selected due to its significance as a media institution, considering both its substantial employee base and wide distribution area. GRT was included as it serves as the primary television station in the Gagauzia region.

For the Media Ownership Monitor, we selected nine radio stations with national, regional, and local coverage. The selection criteria included audience reach, presence of news bulletins, and other informative programming in their broadcast schedule. We also included the regional station GRT FM, which, despite its relatively small audience, maintains significant influence in the Gagauz autonomous region. Due to the absence of official audience measurements, we utilized a combination of data from Xplane and the Audiovisual Council's information on radio station frequencies.

As online media is the main source of information for the citizens of Moldova, we selected seventeen news portals. Regarding online platforms , we relied on audience data provided by the Bureau for Audit of Print and Internet (BATI) and Gemius, available at trafic.md, as well as recent opinion polls showing that realitatea.md or jurnal.md are among the most popular news portals in the country. We also decided to analyze three websites in Gagauzia, given the high level of misinformation in the region.

We decided to only monitor six newspapers (periodicals), considering the fact that there aren't many newspapers with a very large circulation and a strong influence in Moldovan media. Audience data, such as the number of subscribers and circulation data, were obtained from the Moldovan Post Office (Poșta Moldovei) and the National Book Chamber of Moldova.

In 2024, the Republic of Moldova ranks 31 out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index, down 3 places from 2023. Accordingly, the country scored 74.86 out of a maximum of 100 points, compared to 77.62 in the previous year. 

"Moldovan media is divided into pro-Russian and pro-Western camps. Oligarchs and political leaders strongly impose their editorial views," stated the annual report from 2024 of media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) At the same time, Moldova is an EU candidate country, and in this context, a sustainable press that is independent from politicians and oligarchs is essential for the EU accession and integration process to be monitored fairly and impartially.

MOM was developed as a generic methodology that can be universally applied and potentially will be. Although media concentration trends are observable worldwide, implementation and analysis will first take place in developing countries. MOM has been implemented in around 30  countries over the course of three years. All country projects can be found on the global website.

• Economic data - market concentration based on market share could not be calculated for online and radio since financial statements were not always outlet specific or outlets were not always registered, i.e., had general revenues from other businesses.
• Official audience measurement data is not publicly available; it is being sold by research companies, and the data provided is conflicted and contested by some media owners and experts.
• Some investigations, particularly into the diverse local markets as well as into more hidden ownership structures, would require more time and resources.
• Public spending/advertising for the media is not transparent. It is impossible to identify public funds spent on media because they are not always clearly labeled as advertising.

The database of Media Ownership Monitor in Moldova:

• allows each citizen to get information on the media system in general;
• creates a fact base for advocacy efforts to further promote public consciousness on media ownership and concentration;
• serves as a point of reference for consulting competition authorities or governmental bodies when establishing suitable regulatory measures to safeguard media pluralism.

The database is a snapshot of the current situation, contextualised by historical facts. We aim to update the website depending on the situation. New country editions are being added consistently.

The Media Ownership Monitor is mainly inspired by two similar projects. The indicators for a later ranking rely heavily on the EU-funded Media Pluralism Monitor of the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) at the European University Institute (EUI, Florence). Similarly, Media Pedia, an ownership database developed by investigative journalists in Macedonia, served as inspiration for the Media Ownership Monitor. You can find an overview of other similar projects in the table below.