06. 06. 2013

EUROPEAN MOVEMENT: BUDGET FINANCING WILL AFFECT MEDIA FREEDOM

Novi Sad, June 6, 2013 (RTV) - Financing of public service broadcasters with budget funds, a model proposed by the representatives of the Serbian Government, is only an attempt to get cheap political scores, whereas its final goal is that the state takes control over the editorial policy of RTS and RTV, said in the yesterday's press release of the European Movement in Serbia.

In case the proposal of the Government representatives is adopted and public service media fall under direct control of the state, the media freedom will be lost, the state will have a direct influence on the editorial policy of these two media and citizens will be burdened with new fees (that will not be called TV subscription fee), to fill out the hole in the budget.

In the European Movement say that "irresponsible messages of the state on the issue in the past period have contributed to drastic decline in the TV fee collection rate, which has imperiled the survival of public services, RTV before all".