New MJRC Study Maps €1 Billion in EU Media and Journalism Funding

The Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) has launched Tracing the Flows, a new study providing a comprehensive structural analysis of European Union funding connected to media and journalism over an eleven-year period, between 2014 and 2024.

Drawing on the EU Financial Transparency System, the study maps €1.0615 billion in beneficiary-level contracted amounts recorded between 2014 and 2024. Its underlying dataset contains 6,103 beneficiary entries naming 2,166 entities across 105 countries, with each entry individually reviewed and classified.

The research was designed to clarify what is included within the broad category of Media and Journalism funding. It distinguishes €758.3 million in support-oriented funding from €303.1 million spent on services procured for EU institutions, including communication campaigns, media buying, events, monitoring, research and other commissioned work.

This distinction does not imply that one form of spending is more valuable than another. It allows different funding functions to be examined separately and gives policymakers, researchers and media organisations a clearer basis for understanding the structure of EU expenditure.

The study also documents substantial growth over the period. Recorded funding increased from €37.5 million in 2014 to €186.2 million in 2024, with a particularly pronounced rise after 2021. The data reflects the expansion of EU activity in areas including media development, journalism support, research, audiovisual production, information resilience and strategic communication.

Geographical patterns also change depending on the type of expenditure being examined. France, Belgium and Germany account for 51.8% of the full dataset, but their combined share falls to 35.8% when procurement is excluded. This reflects, in part, the concentration of contractors, institutions and consortium coordinators in major European administrative and media centres.

Tracing the Flows does not evaluate the merits of individual grants, beneficiaries or funding programmes. Nor does it attempt to measure the impact of each funded activity. Its purpose is more foundational: to organise a complex public record, distinguish between different forms of expenditure and establish a transparent, reproducible baseline for further research.

Authored by Marius Dragomir and Flora Alfiero, the study offers a practical resource for anyone seeking to understand how EU Media and Journalism funding has developed, where it has been channelled and what kinds of activities it has supported.

See the full study and dataset here.

Check our EU-focused page of the Media Funding Series here.

Photo by Engin Akyurt (Pexels)