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07. 02. 2014

Media Integrity Research: Serbia

Transparency rules for the media in Serbia are minimal. All media outlets are required to register in the Media Register, kept by the Business Registers Agency, and report only the size of the founding capital. Broadcasting media have to report their ownership structure to the regulator, but only through ownership stakes and names of individual natural persons and legal persons. No specific financial reports are required from the media. They submit annual financial reports to the Business Registers Agency in the same way as other enterprises, without data on types and sources of revenues, circulation or size of the audience.

Crucial information on media - their real ownership, business performance, types and sources of revenues, etc. - are not publicly available. All these types of information are considered a business secret. Individual owners behind registered legal persons are unknown, especially if legal persons come from off-shore zones. Data in the Media Register and Register of Broadcast Licenses is available on specific websites, but it is scarce, incomplete and inaccurate.

PSB institutions are not treated in any special way. Their only obligation is to submit financial reports to the Business Registers Agency, like all other media and like all other business companies. Since PSB institutions are in state ownership, they are subject to yearly financial control by the State Audit Institution like all other companies is state ownership.

Very few data are available on republic public broadcaster RTS and provincial public broadcaster RTV. Their annual financial reports show only a number of employees and total sums of revenues and expenditures. There is no transparency in regard to the structure of revenues and expenditures, loans and debts, financial contracts, subscription fee payments, investment in programming production, salaries of journalists, or on decision making concerning programming and business operations. In 2008-2010, RTS refused to obey eight orders of the Public Information Commissioner to provide data on its business operations. RTS' Director General preferred to pay penalties for not respecting the Access to Information Law than to release financial documents.

Transparency rules for media regulator formally exist in Serbia. The Broadcasting Law obliges the Republic Broadcasting Agency, i.e. its Council, to make its work public. However, the Agency is allowed to decide on the way in which to do this by its own Statute. Its only obligation prescribed from outside is to publish the annual report on its work, like all other state bodies. Insufficient transparency in the work of the Republic Broadcasting Agency is the main cause of strong and wide doubts about its independence, which have been present in the media community and the public at large since its establishment. Although in recent years the availability of data on the work of RBA has been increased - all of the Council's acts and decisions are available on its website - the way the Council makes its decisions is not sufficiently transparent.

Anti-concentration rules partially exist in Serbia. Specific anti-concentration rules pertain to broadcast media only. They are rather general and unelaborated. There is no effective check of media concentration. Due to the lack of transparency of media ownership, non-existent (print media) or too general rules on illegal concentration (broadcast media) and lack of methodology for control, no measures were taken to prevent it. It is the responsibility of broadcasters to prove they obey the anti-concentration rules and to report changes in the ownership structure. The Republic Broadcasting Agency is believed to have approved several doubtful changes in the ownership structure of national broadcasters. Large media owners have actively obstructed two recent attempts (2008, 2009) to bring new anti-monopoly regulation.

See more in the Overview of de jure vs. de facto situation for Serbia here.

Source: South East European Media Observatory

http://mediaobservatory.net/