The main objective of the news exchange, which presently includes 12 public broadcasters in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro and Romania, is to strengthen democracy and peace in South East Europe via public television.

One of the ERNO's main targets is to reinforce the tradition of cooperation of public broadcasters of the region, improve the professionalism of TV news staff and develop the journalistic approach and quality of the news stories and bulletins.

Strengthening of the exchange means first and foremost human and technical resource development. The policy line from the very beginning of the exchange project has been to create more balance between the traditional "hard news" and "life stories". UNESCO has started supporting the network since the beginning of this year and it is planned to continue for 3 years.