01. 09. 2010

TV SCHOOL PROGRAMS ON THE MARGINE

Belgrade, 01.09.2010. (Danas) - In the race for a better rating and attracting a greater number of advertisers, Serbian TV stations have neglected educational and school programs that used to be very popular among young, but also elderly audience.

Despite a great number o TV stations, offer of this kind is rather sparse or is completely lacking on some TV channels. The findings of the research carried out two years ago speak in favor of this. According to the research, a total of a little more than 4 % is given to educational contents on Serbian TV stations.

AMEM President Sasa Mirkovic points out that the presence of children's and educational TV programs on RTS is far from what a role of the Public Service Broadcaster should be, the argument for which is always the time of crisis.

"Domestic production of this type of program is expensive and hardly lucrative. However, encouraging news is that the production of sequels of some old TV shows has been announced, which has been a product of the critiques to RTS saying that it should have the protagonist role in broadcasting these programs. That will also encourage commercial broadcasters, which do not have this kind of obligation, to initiate these productions", Mirkovic explained.

According to him, the economic crisis is currently one of the aggravating factors when it comes to the production of educational programs and it is only RTS that could find this endeavor lucrative because it is financed by TV fees.