15. 09. 2008

B92 DIRECTOR AND ANEM CHAIRMAN INTERVIEWS IN DANAS DAILY

Media owners to step out of shadow

Belgrade, September 15, 2008 (Danas) – When the Minister of Culture, Nebojša Bradić, recently stated that National Parliament would debate on Media Ownership Concentration Act, among other thimgs during the October, this brought back to focus of public attention the issue of monopoly in media sphere in Serbia.

Experts interviewed by the daily “Danas” said that even if monopoly was present in media ownership sphere, it is certainly not highly visible, since data on true media owners is not available. Owing to this fact, a future law on illegal media ownership fusion and mandatory public character of media ownership will, for the first time, provide the general public with an insight of media ownership structure in Serbia.

RTV B92 Director, Veran Matić is of the opinion that there is no media ownership concentration in Serbia, but at the same time, he is not sure if this issue has ever been seriously considered.

- Public interest should ordinarily dictate pluralism of media as well as pluralism in media ownership. It is important that we, as a society, take good care to prevent monopoly formation, and also to bear in mind that intensive competitiveness in media sphere, paradoxically, leads to a narrow selection of information, caused by decisions to publish only rating- or circulation- bearing news – Matic told “Danas”.

He added that when we speak about media concentration, we often tend to underestimate the real danger from vertical integration.

- The fact that there is a huge number of media organizations with different owners is insignificant in itself unless it is accompanied with a variety of owners of channels and platforms for media content distribution. This is a less know and discussed issue, in spite of the fact that it causes even bigger problem than the media ownership concentration – Matić stated.

According to him, media influence is not exerted only through formal ownership of media organization as listed in the public register. He said that it was difficult to fend off doubt that some other interests had been hidden behind certain media organizations. Such interest cannot be readily seen in the ownership registers, and thus remain hidden from ordinary readers and viewers. Matić pointed out to the attempt to make the influencing structures more transparent with the introduction of a media concentration law, which he deems commendable, but with unclear future perspective.

- Media Ownership Act Draft is still to be publicly debated, and no one can predict its final form in which it will be adopted, nor the way in which it will be enforced – Matić concluded.

President of the Management Board of Lokal Press, Vladan Filipčev, is also of the opinion that it would be impossible to give a precise assessment whether there is media ownership concentration in Serbia, since the real media owners should be established first.

- There is reasonable doubt that the capital of the newly hatched rich and tycoons supports certain newspapers and electronic media with well known owners. These people really own those and other media organizations, that is, they already exert their influence over several media organizations. One gets the impression that fears of media monopoly is well founded - explained Filipčev.

He added that a law on media consolidation and mandatory public character of media ownership should serve to prevent monopoly creation.

- Besides that, it is very important that the Advertising Act is changed as soon as possible, and also that the legislator comes up with an acceptable financing model for local media and distribution of financial support from the local governments’ budgets, which is extremely important. This means that funds allocation would be done through public tenders, just like the Ministry of Culture and Provincial Secretariat for Information have been doing it for some time now – Filipčev pointed out.

Saša Mirković, President of the ANEM Management Board told “Danas” that when it comes to cable channels, television stations can have as many cable channels as they wish.

He pointed out that the future Media Consolidation Act would create the necessary preconditions for a transparent insight into ownership structure of all the media organizations. According to him, such practice has already been introduced both in the European Union and in all the other developed countries all over the world.

However, Mirković added that problems may arise with the adoption procedure in the National Parliament, since many a good draft law had been significantly and completely changed after the debate and amendments that had been added in the Parliament.

- It has often been the case that such an important legal act, just like the Media Concentration Act is, ends up as a compromise solution for political transactions and behind the scene influences that control media organizations – Mirković pointed out.