27. 05. 2009

DRAFT LAW ON MEDIA CONCENTRATION SOON IN FRONT OF THE RELEVANT MINISTRIES

- Print media do not have to publicize their circulation
- If someone owns several newspaper outlets their total circulation can not be more than 30 percent of total newspaper circulation in Serbia

Belgrade, May 27, 2009 (Danas) – Draft Law on Illegal Media ownership Concentration and Transparency of Media Ownership, whose main goal is to prevent the monopoly in public sphere, will be delivered to relevant Ministries for opinion, after which the Ministry of Culture will produce the final version of this Law, Danas finds out.

Rade Veljanovski, member of the working group for creating a Law on media concentration, said for Daily Danas, that is very important to know who are the owners of media outlets, in order to prevent dominant influence in media sphere.  

- Owner of the media, editor in chief, central office, name, address, etc. will be registered in the Business Registers Agency. Penalties will be submitted against those media outlets, which are not registered, but their sale wouldn’t be stopped – explained Veljanovski.

He said, that some of participants of public debate indicated that Draft version of the Law is quite restrictive, and they often used example of Croatia. However, Croatian Law predict that someone can own either TV or radio station with national coverage, and also own up to 25 percent of ownership in some other electronic media, added Veljanovski.

- In Serbia a person can own both TV and radio station and 5 percent of ownership in other media outlet, which shows that our Law will be less restrictive than the Croatian Law – our speaker pointed out.

Also,  if someone gained ownership of several dailies, through the purchase, their total circulation cannot be more than 30 percent of total circulation of all daily papers in Serbia. “However,  if the owner, by its own competences, developed the said media, then its total circulation can go up to 50 percent of total circulation in Serbia”, Veljanovski emphasized. 

He indicated, that working group decreased the provisions of the draft law, concerning media ownership on local and regional level, in the final version  of the Draft Law.

- We had the provision that if there is only one local media, which is often case on local level, no one can own that media 100 percent, so the 50 percent of ownership must be sold. Representatives of local communities, however, told us,  that it can happened that no one wants to buy the 50 percent, so in that case we decided that such media can have only one owner – stresses Veljanovski.

 He adds that proposal on necessity to publicize the daily circulation of each newspaper is erased from the Draft Law.

In his opinion, this Draft Law is in the best public interest and it could bring to democratization of public sphere, and not against interests of media owners, „only if someone has interest in having more than is possible in democratic society”.

- I must not be an optimist, because I know what happens to the Draft Laws when they enter the Assembly procedure. I expect some changes of this Draft Law, because some persons from media industry announced that this kind of Law would never be accepted and that they will advocate for it – concluded Veljanovski.