'Bulgaria without Censorship' Party Had Costliest Media Campaign

Nikolay Barekov, leader of the "Bulgaria without Censorship" party, photo by BGNES

Populist party "Bulgaria without Censorship" of former TV host Nikolay Barekov had the most expensive media campaign for the European Parliament elections.

According to a survey of the Institute for Public Environment Development, the "Bulgaria without Censorship" party spent around BGN 1 085 655 on media coverage.

The survey of the NGO spans 34 media outlets, including national and regional ones, newspapers, radio programs, TV channels and news websites.

The data was extracted from the official electronic websites of the respective media outlets, which were under obligation to publish them within 3 days after signing the contract.

The survey does not include social media ads.

The maximum budget for the election campaign was set at BGN 2 M in the Election Code, according to reports of dnevnik.bg.

The winner in the EP elections, center-right party GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria), spent BGN 133 271 on its media campaign, 8 times less than the "Bulgaria without Censorship" party.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) spent BGN 740 000 on media coverage, nationalist party Ataka spent BGN 648 000, the right-wing Reformist Bloc spent BGN 360 000, liberal party Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) spent BGN 294 500, and the ABV Movement (Alternative for Bulgarian Revival) of former Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov spent BGN 229 318.

Private TV channel bTV registered the largest amount of revenues from the election campaign, at nearly BGN 1.2 M, followed by private TV station Nova TV with BGN 984 000, and private TV station TV7  with BGN 384 000.

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