09. 09. 2011

Activities for stopping illegal broadcasting

Nine months after organizing the meeting and the press conference, by which it had initiated the implementation of coordinated and synchronized actions of regulatory bodies (RBA, RATEL) and competent state authorities (Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, Public Prosecutor's Office, Ministry of Agriculture, Trade, Forestry and Water Management, Ministry of Interior and Provincial Secretariat of Economy) in fighting against "broadcasting piracy", ANEM is summing up the results of this fight, based on the monitoring of these activities and information received from the competent authorities, that are the following:

According to latest RATEL's data, there are 56 illegal FM and TV stations that illegally use radio-frequency spectrum. RATEL has been continuously undertaking appropriate measures for detecting such stations and stopping their operations. It has also initiated appropriate procedures for sanctioning the owners of the said radio stations. The list of illegal broadcasters is available on RATEL website.

The Trade Inspection of the Ministry of Agriculture, Trade, Forestry and Water Management has also, in line with the agreement reached on the meeting held on December 2, 2010, has implemented a series of activities by participating in the joint action of preventing the work of "pirate" radio stations, on which it informed ANEM in its letter on September 5, 2011. Within its legal competencies, and based on the letter and enclosed documentation that it had received from RBA, the Trade Inspection carried out control among advertisers that advertise on 12 "pirate" radio stations. The control was performed over 81 advertisers, the Inspection brought 10 decisions on banning of the advertising, filed 20 requests for initiating misdemeanour procedure with the competent court and evidenced one entity that had been advertised without being properly registered for conducting operations, against which a court procedure has also been initiated. The letter also said that, during the control, advertisers were informed on the fact that the carrier of their advertisements was a "pirate radio station", according to which the majority of them seized further advertising even during the inspection control. In addition to the above said, the inspection control noted that certain "pirate radio stations" had been advertising and organizing fraudulent quizzes, which "Telekom Srbija" AD had been informed of, after which it stopped delivering the service "telephone land lines with an additional price" to legal entities that advertise on "pirate radio stations".

According to information available to ANEM, other authorities, the Ministry of Interior and the Public Prosecutor's Office in particular, have also been actively participating in the joint action on preventing the work of illegal broadcasters, each within the scope of its competency. By September 2011, against more than 65 persons in 65 cases (in 29 legal cases in 2010 and 36 cases in 2011) the investigations have been initiated or the motions for indictment filed, for the criminal offence "unlicensed practice of a profession" stipulated by the article 353 of the Criminal Code. In February 2010, in his official letter to Ministry of Interior, ANEM has suggested the application of article 353 of the Criminal Code for the effective stopping illegal broadcasting.

However, the results of the hitherto activities in fighting illegal broadcasting of RTV programs indicate that this problem has not been completely solved. Therefore, ANEM will continue to monitor the situation in this field and actively cooperate with competent state authorities and regulatory bodies until this problem is completely solved, about which it will timely inform all interested parties.