Jana Semjonova – media expert from LT

Jana Semjonova, LT’s media expert, responsible for the strategy of LTV1 and LTV7 channels spoke about reconciling the expectations of modern-day viewers with the public broadcaster’s mission, which includes keeping the public informed about history, culture of the present day challenges faced by their country. Semjonova also spoke in favour of keeping the global audience satisfied by producing on the local level. At the same time, she encouraged co-operation between neighbouring nations and working together to create content that can resonate with viewers internationally, across the Baltics and the CEE region. The expert also emphasized the region’s shared history which has become all the more clear since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine – we all live close to Russia and have similarly bad memories of the USSR occupation. The expert also spoke of the challenges present on her native market. There is a significant group of viewers in Latvia that rely on Russian-language media. After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, LT shut down its Russian-language channels but some content is still being produced in this language to cater to the large group of viewers that speaks only Russian. The decision to continue producing in Russian has generated some negative response.