Information

The Municipality of Surdulica adopted today a resolution on the allocation of funds for the competition for project co-financing of media content for 2024, thus finally concluding this process from the previous year. The announcement of the competition for the current year is awaited.

Local governments have been allocating funds to the same media outlets, mostly pro-regime, through project co-financing competitions for years. This year, budgets for media projects have been reduced while more money is being allocated for advertising in the media through public procurement, according to representatives of local media who participated in a training session on writing media projects in Subotica, organized by the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM).

Out of 174 announced competitions for co-financing media content in Serbia, eight local governments have not yet allocated funds intended for the media, while the competition in Surdulica is still ongoing from 2024, and none has been announced for this year, according to an analysis conducted by the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) based on data from the Unified Information System (JIS) of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications.

The Municipality of Bujanovac annulled the competition for project co-financing of media content previously announced this year on September 12 and made a decision to announce a new competition.

The new Unified Information System (UIS) of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, through which media projects have been evaluated this year for project co-financing competitions, has caused a number of difficulties, agree most members of this year's project evaluation committees contacted by ANEM. Additionally, many of them highlight as a significant problem that certain candidates were members of a large number of committees, and they believe that this should be limited.

While waiting for the official confirmation regarding the outcome of the repeated privatization of Radio-Television Kragujevac, the city authorities, in silence and without explanation, are reducing the amount of funds for public information as planned in the budget for 2025. This comes just a few weeks after they approved an increase in subsidies for RTK. Instead of the 47.5 million dinars that were supposed to be allocated to the media through a public competition, only nearly four times less money—12.6 million dinars—has been designated for this purpose, while just over 11.4 million dinars remain unallocated.

The Ministry of Information and Telecommunications has not yet responded to the request from journalistic and media associations for changes to the process of project co-financing of media content. Based on the application form for registration in the register for members of the new commissions, it is evident that none of the proposals regarding the scoring of candidates has been accepted.

The Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, based on Article 32 of the Law on Public Information and Media and Article 20 of the Regulation on Co-financing Projects in the Field of Public Information, has invited journalistic and media associations, theorists, analysts, and practitioners in the media field to apply for enrollment in the Register of Candidates for Commission Members via the Unified Information System (UIS).

The highest amount of funding in this year's competition for project co-financing of media content in Novi Sad was awarded to TV Kanal 9 and Poljoprivrednik, each receiving 1.5 million dinars, according to the resolution on the allocation of funds published today.