RTS is the largest advertiser in tabloids, with contracts worth 780 thousand euros over the past five years.

In addition to project co-financing, public procurement for advertising is another way in which money from our pockets ends up in the hands of tabloids – media that misinform and manipulate the public for the interests of the authorities, violating the Serbian Journalist Code on a daily basis.

Given that these media have regime support, significant influence, and high readership, they are attractive to both private and state firms for advertising, allowing them to reach the widest audience.

This logic seems to guide RTS as well. From 2020 to the present, the public service has awarded contracts worth more than 90 million dinars (around 780,000 euros) to the publishers of the tabloids Informer, Srpski Telegraf, Kurir and Mondo, Večernje Novosti, and Alo.

The most valuable contracts were awarded to Mondo INC (the publisher of the Mondo portal and, since 2023, Kurir) – 28.2 million dinars (around 240,000 euros) for advertising programs on the Mondo portal and in the print edition of Kurir. Contracts worth 24.7 million dinars (around 210,000 euros) were awarded to Večernje Novosti. Million-dollar amounts have also been allocated to other tabloids.

These tabloids are not the only media in which RTS advertises. Since 2021, according to data from the Public Procurement Administration, the public service has awarded contracts totaling more than 196 million dinars (around 1.6 million euros) for advertising in Blic, the Telegraf portal, and magazines such as Glorija, Story, Hello, Nedeljnik, Sportski Žurnal, Politika, etc.

During that period, the smallest contracts were awarded to the Media Daily portal (120,000 dinars) and the Danas portal (1.8 million dinars).

RTS Enhances its Image

In one justification for the Decision on the Award of Contracts from December 2025, RTS stated that its goal is “the highest quality and most efficient promotion of its content, positive representation in public, and enhancement of its corporate image.”

How do they choose the partners with whom they will advertise? In addition to the readership of newspapers and the traffic of portals where they present their programs, an important criterion is also the results of content analysis published about RTS in those media. Based on these content analyses, RTS concludes how they are reported on.

“The task of these analyses is also to determine the frequency of comments about RTS, who the message senders are, what the main critical remarks are, who the individuals that are subject to criticism are, what the aim of the comments is, and what significance is attributed to these comments, all in order to fulfill RTS's fundamental role as a public media service of Serbia,” RTS states.

In other words, the public service allocates large amounts of money to enhance its image through advertising in the same media that undermine that image, such as Informer. This tabloid criticizes the work of the public service using inappropriate and biased language as soon as it assesses that their reporting has in any way jeopardized the authorities, for example, by giving the opposition or students a few extra seconds on air.

We did not receive answers from RTS regarding the ethics of advertising in unprofessional pro-regime media, as well as the economic viability of these deals. It remains unclear whether there is any need for million-dollar contracts for advertising a television program with national frequency, which is already viewed by a vast number of people – practically everyone in Serbia who has a TV at home.

According to the latest data from Nielsen agency from 2024, RTS1 has a daily reach of around 2.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched TV channel in Serbia. Following it are TV Pink (1.9 million daily viewers) and TV B92 (1.08 million daily viewers).

Source: Cenzolovka