13. 09. 2011

Services at the local level, too

What does the Proposal of the Media Strategy contain?

The state to give up the ownership in the media within two years.

Belgrade, September 13, 2011. (Vecernje Novosti) - Serbia will get six regional public service broadcasters in 2013 - in Belgrade, Kragujevac, Nis, Novi Pazar, Zajecar and Uzice. All of them will be financed from the public purse.

This is envisaged in the Proposal of the Media Strategy, which is still kept under lock and key, and which"Novosti"  had access to. The Minister of Culture Predrag Markovic is expected to present this document to MPs till the end of the week.

According to the proposed text, establishment of six regional public service broadcasters is planned and these institutions would be financed in line with "provisions on allocating state aid". They would not be able to collect fees, but they will be "financially independent".

The development of this document is followed by disputes. The Ministry had first engaged the working group that drafted the Strategy whose content was publicly discusses at numerous debates. After that, the Government formed the Commission that drafted its version of the document and called it "the Proposal of the Strategy for Development of Public Information System in the Republic of Serbia until 2016".

In the first version of the text, only RTS and RTV are mentioned as public service broadcasters. According to this text, the state must withdraw from media ownership within 18 months and the Agency Tanjug has to be privatized as well as all local media outlets.

However, the new document envisaged a new deadline for completion of privatization and it is 24 months and after the adoption of new laws.

One of the most disputable issues was related to solving the status of Tanjug Agency. According to previous version of the Draft, Tanjug has to be privatized, while the new version of the Strategy also envisages transformation of the Agency's ownership but privatization is not mention explicitly, which means that it keep the status of public institution.  

The Commission also envisaged the ownership right of the state in the public company "Panorama" that provides public information in Serbian language in Kosovo and Metohija.

18 contracts terminated

By forming of local public services, all local media that have already been privatized are put in an unequal position. Many of them have shot down, and employees are left jobless.

Out of 109 media outlets that should have been privatized after 2011, 56 found new owners. The contract has been terminated with 18 of them and new privatization is awaited.

According to information provided in the Proposal, the rest 36 are operating on the edge of economic viability.