“At the time, they said it was ‘completely irrelevant,’ because we would go bankrupt immediately. And you see, on the 1st of March next year, we will have been bankrupt for ten years, to answer those who predicted a dark future for us. In reality, we have managed to set up a system that works independently of the authorities. That, to me, is the most important gain. When Golob came to power, all the contracts with the state companies, with the state, were terminated – and we still survived,” Tomasič, the Director of Nova24TV, recalled the history of this television station. This time, he was not the presenter, but a guest on the show “Beremo” (“Reading Together”), hosted by Metod Berlec.
TV presenter Metod Berlec: “Dear viewers, welcome to the TV show Reading Together with you on NOVA24TV! My interlocutor today is the host of the show “Kdov am laže? ” – “Who is Lying to You?” and Director of our media house, Mr Boris Tomasič. I will talk to him about the media, media creation, his book “Who is Lying to You?” and the current socio-political developments. Let’s start with a piece about our interviewee today.” Boris Tomašič was born in 1967 in Brestanica, where he grew up and attended the Adam Bohorič Primary School. In 1986, he graduated from the Secondary Technical School in Krško. In 1994, he graduated from the Faculty of Organisational Sciences, and in 2012, he graduated from the Faculty of Business and Commercial Sciences.
In 2019, he obtained a Master’s degree in International and Diplomatic Studies at the Faculty of International and European Studies in Kranj. After completing his first degree in 1994, he became Vice-President of the Youth Council of Slovenia, in 1999 and 2000, he was the Director of the Municipal Administration of the Municipality of Tržič, and between 2000 and 2001, he was the Head of the Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Youth (URSM), during which time he also managed the radio station Radio Gorenc in Tržič as an external collaborator. From 2002 to 2006, he was a senior manager in the company High Marketing. In 2006, he became the Executive Director of Slovenijales Trgovina and was a member of the Supervisory Board of the gaming company Hit.
In 2011, as a sole proprietor, he founded a business consultancy and film production company, which he still owns today. He has also served as the Deputy Director of JGZ Brdo and as an advisor to the Management Board of the travel company Kompas. In 2015, he joined the team of the new media outlet, Nova24TV. He is most responsible for the launch of two new Slovenian media outlets: the Nova24TV.si website and Nova24TV television. He has been the CEO of Nova Hiša (New House) since 2015, and the Programme Director of NTV24 since 2015; the CEO of NTV24 since 2020, and the CEO of Nova Obzorja (New Horizons), which publishes the weekly Demokracija (Democracy), since 2022.
He is also editor-in-chief of the television station Prva TV. On the 27th of September 2023, he set a Guinness World Record for the longest marathon television talk show in history, hosting it for 73 hours, 23 minutes and 21 seconds. As many as 70 guests took part in the show in question. Boris Tomašič spent a big part of his life in Škofja Loka and later moved back to Posavje. Now, he lives between Ljubljana and Brežice. When he was younger, he used to play basketball, and now, his hobby is sailing. Tomašič is ideologically conservative.
Boris, welcome to the show Reading Together! You come from Posavje. To begin with, I would like to ask you, where does your interest in politics and, of course, in the media, in media production, come from?
Where did it come from? You either have it or you don’t. I will tell you an anecdote. When I was still in high school, we had a course called Self-Government with the Foundations of Marxism. You probably remember that. We were taught how self-government, Marxism and socialism were something superior. And I asked my comrade (that’s what we called them then) or the teacher of this subject, “It’s not clear to me, we have such an ideal system for the workers, who really care that they are not exploited, while this evil capitalism exploits the workers… Why do our people go to Germany to work, and the Germans don’t go to Slovenia, or Yugoslavia at that time?” And she didn’t know how to answer, she was a little hesitant. Logical questions were already being asked at that time. And honestly, I never thought I would work in the media, but throughout my life, my path led me to the media. I did go into computer science, economics, etc. But however I turned it, I always ended up in the media somehow. For example, when I was president of the student organisation (ŠOLT), we published the Student Informer, where I happened to be the editor. I was also the Director of Radio Gorenc, and at some point, I got a camera, and I was a cameraman, a journalist, etc. In short, all my life experiences have led me to come to Nova24TV, and I ended up in several positions, the only thing I have not yet become is a journalist.
Is this in any way related to your education, which is both technical, organisational, business- and socially-focused …?
To be very honest, this is because I was not a very diligent student. I studied in stages, completing one level, then another, a third, a fourth, and so on. But it is true that I am interested in a lot of things, I do a lot of things. When I find a challenge, I am no stranger to any field. And that is why there are so many fields I am familiar with. But somehow -it’s all connected. The social sciences are still based on some things … computer science and economics are also half social sciences, half mathematics, somewhere in between. I’m interested in a lot of things, and if I’m interested in something, I go and learn it. In all fields. Not only professionally, but also privately, I do practically everything. I know how to edit, I know how to film, and I know how to prepare journalistic pieces. And when you’re running a television station, that’s important, because you know what’s needed and how it’s needed, etc. It sounds like I’m bragging, but actually there’s not a single thing I’m not capable of learning. For example, I’m learning beekeeping now. I went to a beekeeping course. When I learned a little more about bees, I found them very fascinating. It is an organism that works perfectly.
Your first book, “Who is Lying to You?”, has been published by Nova Obzorja, the publishing house you run as Director. It is based on the programme of the same name that you present on Nova24TV. But before we talk about that, I would like to ask you, how do you feel today about the project or the challenge, which is called Nova24TV and which started more than a decade ago? Largely under your leadership …
Yes, we are in our 10th year. It all started in the summer of 2015, as an idea. We launched the website in October and the television station on the 1st of March 2016. The whole thing was very chaotic. All of us involved were not very knowledgeable, and this was evident in those first steps. But we were determined that something had to be done. Something still needs to be done today, a fundamental change in this area. But if we go back ten years, the media space, especially in the field of television, was monolithic. We had a closed space, where dissenting voices could not even get a foot in the door. And that motivated me. I was invited in and I said that we have to move forward with this. And we took off. At the time, they said it was ‘completely irrelevant,’ because we would go bankrupt immediately. And you see, on the 1st of March next year, we will have been bankrupt for ten years, to answer those who predicted a dark future for us. In reality, we have managed to set up a system that works independently of the authorities. That, to me, is the most important gain. When Golob came to power, all the contracts with the state companies, with the state, were terminated – and we still survived. Of course, it is mostly thanks to our viewers, who are willing to pay voluntarily so that we can operate. That, to me, is an important recognition of good work. If someone is willing to help you, even when they don’t have to.
In a way, I think it was a very brave thing to set up a news channel like Nova24TV, because we know how the story of Info TV, which the founders originally had big plans for, ended before that.
To be perfectly honest: if I had known at the time how big a challenge it was, I don’t know whether I would have dared to go for it. But it was a decision: ‘Yes, we’re going to do it’. I think that’s the key. Whatever happens on our path, we will not give up, we will not stop – and many things have happened since then. And where there is a will, there is power. You find the way when you are determined to do it. And you feel that it has to be done. When people support you, when people respond to what you are doing, when people tell you to persevere, then you know you are doing something right. This is not a project where some “business angel” came along, gave us a hundred million euros and said, “Make television.” This is a project that started with literally one million euros, paid by ordinary, simple people who bought that share for 100 euros. On the one hand, this is a huge responsibility (a thousand people trusting you), and something has to be done about it. But to be clear: a million euros for one television station is peanuts. It was barely enough to buy the equipment, but we persevered – and here we are today.
We know that we, who have been producing the Demokracija magazine for years, have often been ignored by the dominant media when we have had a high-profile story, but it is more difficult to keep this quiet in the case of television… To what extent do you think the Nova24TV.si web portal and Nova24TV television have succeeded in pluralising or balancing the Slovenian media space?
I can say that we are the most important television in Slovenia. Because no other television station is being dealt with by the Parliament, no other television station is being dealt with by the police, no other television station is being dealt with by the various Speakers of the National Assembly, being sued, etc. So, we are extremely influential. That is to say, we have a special commission in the National Assembly that is dealing with us. The Speaker of the National Assembly, the Chair of the Justice Committee, the Chair of the Commission of Inquiry are all dealing with us, the police come here and investigate us, I am in court practically every week, etc. If we were insignificant, I am sure this would not be happening. Before the advent of Nova24TV, we had a complete state of nirvana. There was the print Democracy, and then there was the somewhat normal Reporter magazine. And when the television station came along, the first reaction was that “it’s completely irrelevant anyway”. But then it took off … And that’s it – people wanted it.
So, is it that the emergence of Nova24TV actually challenged the status quo?
Speaking as an economist – the question arose of why no one had done this before. And yes, it was like letting the fox into the hen house, there was a lot of fuss, and it caused quite a stir; there were strong reactions all around; they spat at us, they wanted to humiliate us, etc. Then they ignored us, then they wanted to ban us, they wanted to take our money, and so on. But – here we are anyway!
Of course, advertising plays a big part in all this. As we know, PRO PLUS or POP TV gets the biggest advertising pie among all the television stations. Is it really the viewership of this programme that plays the key role here, or is it something else? Perhaps good business and political connections …
We don’t have a fair share of advertising in terms of viewership in Slovenia. The biggest piece of the pie – I think 75 percent of the advertising money is taken by the biggest commercial television station, and it doesn’t have 75 percent of the viewership, does it? But that’s the way it is, they control the agency that measures viewership, which, in this day and age (with AI and high technology), is a fool’s errand. Today, we have IP television. We can know exactly who is watching what and so on, but these are still old patterns, organised so that money is funnelled to those who are “hard-working and the right ones.” Even professors with PhDs claim that advertising is done in such a way as to give money to those who are the biggest. This is, from a professional point of view, nonsense. You advertise where you have the greatest impact. You can advertise in a very small media outlet. The key is to advertise something that is of interest to the audience of that media outlet (the target). You can’t advertise guns or “go to the army” to pacifists, but that’s what’s happening now. The Ministry of Defence is advertising in the left-wing magazine Mladina. Logically, they should advertise with us, because people who are patriotic and want to defend themselves are watching us. But in our country, everything is dictated by politics. The Prime Minister has banned advertising here, just like Marjan Šarec has done before. But on the one hand, we still get some advertisements, especially with small advertisers who are not dependent on the state. That is what is so problematic for a small country like us – many people would advertise here, but they dare not. Why? We have a commission of inquiry that attacks and exposes all those who advertise here. And that is scary; they are scared or afraid of losing their business. And the fact that this still works in 2025 … It is scary, but it is a true picture of our authorities and their voters, of course.
Well, let’s talk a bit more about your book, which is based on your show, “Who is Lying to You?”. In the book, readers can read both the foreword by my colleague Jože Biščak, and the editor Aleksander Rant. From their texts and yours, one can easily understand how, why and when the television programme “Who is Lying to You?” was created. So, can you tell us why?
Again, it was created spontaneously, like most good things. Because we are lied to on a daily basis by the authorities and the media that are subservient to them. And so, at the beginning of the epidemic, I listened to the programmes and watched people commenting on it, and I said to myself, “I can’t stand this anymore, the way they lie, somebody has to tell the people that this is not true!” I suffered. And I came to work one day, and I said to Aleksander: “I’m going to go to the studio, and I’m going to comment on this, and I’m going to tell it like it is, cut out those few statements and comment on them.” The response was phenomenal, on the one hand. On the other hand, even those who agreed with me were saying, “Gosh, Boris, you can’t talk like that on TV.” I was using the people’s vernacular. I spoke the way people talk when they meet, when they are angry, when they are complaining. And those who were used to more classical TV tried to correct me in the sense of, “Gee, that’s not right, you can’t talk like that.” But it turns out that’s exactly what people need.
Yes, because I have seen with my colleagues and friends that they have started to watch it and started to comment on things. And that is what I found interesting.
Because I told it like it is.
Because you kind of reached out to people.
Because I said what they were thinking. Yes, that’s the way it is! I made a shift in the media scene in the sense that I stepped out of the formal frames where everything has to be said properly. Television was a very rigid medium, it was very clearly defined how to perform, etc. But I stepped out and started a “regular debate”. And logically, people like that. Why? Because that’s how they feel, that’s how they think. And they could hardly wait for someone to finally say, “Look, they’re lying bastards!” and the show started to spread among the people. They were asking each other, “Did you see that?” And people started watching because someone asked them, “Did you watch it?”
Audiences are interested in how the show is made, how do you prepare, where do you get ideas for these topics? Because basically, you have to follow things on a daily basis.
That’s kind of a consequence of the fact that I have been following politics for 30, 35 years. I started as a student, then I was secretary of a parliamentary group for a while, etc. I did different things, but I followed politics all the time. I know the background very well, I know a lot of people … I have met them in one way or another throughout my career. And I have a certain basic knowledge that gives me the basis to be able to do this. I know things from the old politics and a little less from the new because I am not so directly involved. I follow our mainstream media as part of my job, I watch the depoliticised Radio-Television Slovenia, POP TV, etc. Because of my job, I’m involved in this all the time… I come to work in the morning, I tell our editors what to prepare, I cut things myself. If the Prime Minister says that we are the best in the world, and at the same time, the data comes out that the GDP has fallen by 0.8 percent … How can that be?! We have a Prime Minister who boasts that we are the best, when in fact, we are the last in Europe.
You are the creator of the show “Who is Lying to You?”, you record the show “Current Events” (“Aktualno”) with Jože Biščak and Aleksander Rant every week, and you are also the Director.
And I also partially run Prva TV. Basically, it still annoys me so much… But it’s true (and the viewers notice it, too) – you don’t have a good day every day. You’re not in the mood every day. A thousand things happen to you. It’s like that in our companies; we’re always under attack. And yes, it’s hard to maintain a certain level. I have to be honest and admit that there are better and worse shows, also because you can’t be 100 percent all the time. I try, and it kind of drives me on. But I do my part, I have that responsibility. But I didn’t write it in the book, and I’ll say it here: I fell from 2,5-3 metres on my head and broke my nose and bruised and smashed my whole face, and the next day, I was already running the show. I had makeup on, and nobody noticed that my face was swollen.
How long ago did that happen?
That was four years ago. And nobody noticed. I was absent at the time of Covid, when I was in contact with an infected person, but I was only absent for one day. But otherwise, even with a fever of 40 degrees, with the help of medication, I still do the show – I find the one with the broken nose and the fact that I was all bruised up the most extreme, but it wasn’t as apparent on television, because we have makeup artists who make us look good.
But what was even more extreme was that you set a world record for hosting a marathon talk show, right?
Yes, that is one of those things you remember for a lifetime. We are in a position where we are constantly being pushed down. And I am always thinking about what to do to somehow resist that. And when the decision was made – not just by me, but by the whole team, even you were my guest one night in the middle of the night, to do one of those things – it energises both you and the team. And nobody can criticise you. I don’t know if you noticed – they didn’t praise us, but nobody criticised us either. They were silent. And for the last 12 hours, it was the most watched show on all of television. Everybody was watching, half of them were watching and cheering that I was going to go down, and the other half were cheering that I was going to make it. Yeah, I had to prepare for it mentally. And I prepared, and I decided. At the third meeting of our supporters (the sixth one will take place in Vinica on the 31st of May), I got up on stage and I said, “We are going to do it!” I crossed the Rubicon, stood in front of the audience and said it. There was no turning back. I had prepared myself physically for this, but I also decided in my head: “There is no way I can’t do this! I’d rather die than not do it!” I said to my colleagues who were with me, “If I fall down, stop for that break, wake me up in any way you can, I have to do it.” It didn’t go that far, but the decision was made, and we went all the way.
To go back to your book for a little bit: it contains summaries of some of the most high-profile episodes of the show. Would you like to highlight some of them? Which are the most watched? We know that they are then also put on YouTube, and so on.
For the book, I chose the ones that have had the biggest reaction, that were the most watched, and I summarised them in writing. I am not going to highlight any of them in particular. It is mainly a retrospective from 2022 (the beginning of the Golob government and a little before). By the way, Jože Biščak edited the whole book… The idea was to do a refresher, because this government has produced so many lies and so much nonsense that what happened a month ago is already forgotten. It seems to me that the book is one such nice overview, so that people remember: “Oh, fuck, that happened, too! We’ve forgotten what nonsense they were all up to!” Because as dynamically as stupid things are happening under this government, I don’t think they ever have before! The book also has the function of refreshing the memory of what happened – it has quite an important impact from that point of view.
You mentioned the Golob’s lies. On Sunday, he (and the whole government) may have finally had to face their way of governing – we could say that they got a slap on the wrist from the people.
Well, yes and no! There is no doubt that they got a slap on the wrist from the people, no doubt the people told them “Goodbye,” but they did not get it. On Wednesday, the Golob said: “75 percent of the people support us.” And he even believes this nonsense, and I am worried about that. I would understand if this were a bluff and a political stunt, but he truly believes it! He believes that those who did not go to the referendum support Robert Golob. And that is a disaster. This man has lost his sense of reality. Whether in national elections, referendums and so on, the non-participation of those who do not go to the polls – they are not saying that they are FOR or AGAINST someone, but that they do not care. They just don’t care. And it is up to those who turn up to decide. And besides, the turnout in this referendum was not that low. Referendums are always at around 25 percent, 30 percent. The only referendum that was a big outlier was the water referendum, which had a 45 percent turnout. According to Golob’s logic, we could say that 55 percent of the people stayed at home for the water referendum, so they supported Janez Janša. This example shows that he does not really have a grasp of reality. This coalition, and Robert Golob in particular, has no grasp of reality. After that slap, as you said, they said: “No, no, we won.” Crazy.
But do you think that this referendum result is already a turning point, indicating political changes after the next national elections, or is it too early to talk about that yet?
This referendum is a trigger. This referendum sends a message to the people that all is not lost. However, this is far from being a victory for normal forces in the next elections. I am trying to divide the political options into normal and ‘Marx-obsessed forces’. No, this is just a signal to the people that all is not lost. If they rest on their laurels, nothing will get done. But it is the beginning of a process that can lead to Slovenia’s return to normality. There is still a lot of work to be done, but above all, it is a sign that it can be done. It seems to me that people have been giving up a bit in recent years, saying that even though we go to the polls, it is always the same, and so on. They have been losing faith in democracy, etc. If the result were to increase by another 200,000 (with a base of 403,000), that would mean a two-thirds majority of healthy, normal forces, which is what Slovenia needs at the moment. Without a constitutional majority of normal forces, it will be difficult to get on the right track.
As a political analyst, how do you feel about the fact that in the opposition, some small parties, little parties, are so keen to bash the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) and Janez Janša, but somehow fail to offer any real alternative?
It’s similar as with people – it’s easiest to say that someone else (boss, wife, friend, etc.) is to blame for my personal failures. It’s the same in politics – it’s Janez Janša‘s fault that the right is failing. And then it is not my fault if I am a small party. But in fact, just the opposite is true – Janša has been steadily winning elections all this time with huge popular support. And where is the real problem? Yes, in the small parties. If it only has four percent of support, why doesn’t it have eight, ten, fifteen? Why not? Because it’s somebody else’s fault! If Janša had withdrawn, we would have gotten more, they say. Yes, you would have gotten more, but the sum would have been less! These statements are the statements of the weak, the incompetent, the irresponsible. A real political leader, whether he has a party with four or 30 MPs, says: “I will go to the elections and do the best I can, no matter what.” But when someone says that Janša is the problem, they have put the problem outside themselves. Yes, we have no influence on that anyway. That is childish. I want them to wake up, to get their act together. My prediction is that the SDS party will get 30-35 percent by doing a good job, by continuing what it has done so far. And what is needed after that? Another 15 percent somewhere else! Or at least ten. But if five parties get three per cent each? What have we done? There are two recipes for winning these elections – fieldwork and the cutting-edge digital that is available to us all today. This is a place today where there is no censorship, no mainstream. One candidate can address 1,000 people in an election campaign. That means 34 a day for 30 days, etc.
Going back to the media: how do you comment on the once mainstream Slovenian newspaper Delo (in recent days after the referendum, this comparison on the front page of the 2021 newspaper after the water referendum and the 2025 front page after the referendum on privileged pensions was very telling)?
Do you follow daily politics more? Aren’t there some annexes for the Kolektor company on the table?
Yes, there are!
We know who owns Delo, we know that the second railway track needs some 200 million euros in annexes. And such a headline apparently costs 200 million euros.
Instead of reporting on the results of the referendum, they reported on hamburgers!
It would have made more sense to have a cigarette on the cover instead of a hamburger. And it should have said at the bottom: “We have failed!” This is a sign that our media space is not only totally distorted, it is totally corrupt, it is malfunctioning. The parliamentary commission of inquiry is dealing with us. A headline worth 200 million, because Stojan Petrič wants to crawl into the government’s insides, somewhere deep down, where you do not go. And I think that is bad for them, because they show their political allegiance, and they can no longer say that they are independent.
Do you think that with new generations of journalists in Slovenia, things will improve? Of course, we must clearly take into account that times are changing, that the traditional media are in a way dying out, that social networks are becoming more and more influential?
I teach media technology with a strong focus on AI. Yes! New generations have a completely different attitude towards media. They don’t watch TV; they don’t read newspapers. They get their information on digital platforms, social networks. And my observation is that the last young generations (the previous ones were very “woke”, left-leaning) are very right-leaning. Even at parties among young people – the accordion is coming back, the Slovenian values are coming back, and there is hope in that. Because the classical media are dying, young people are getting their source of information elsewhere, and the current government has no influence on this source. And that’s good, but the problem with these media is that there is a lot of misinformation, because we are all journalists on social media, and it’s hard to separate … But I still see a positive change among young people, and that makes me optimistic.
Domen Mezeg
