Existence theory for linear-growth variational integrals with signed measure data

We develop a semicontinuity-based existence theory in $\mathrm{BV}$ for a general class of scalar linear-growth variational integrals with additional signed-measure terms. The results extend and refine previous considerations for anisotropic total variations and area-type cases, and they pave the way for a variational approach to the corresponding Euler-Lagrange equations, which involve the signed measure as right-hand-side datum.