09. 09. 2011

Serbia will have six more public service broadcasters

Belgrade, September 9, 2011 (Danas) - In addition to two existing public service broadcasters RTS and RTV, the Media Strategy foresees the establishment of six regional public services in Serbia, despite some media associations opposed to it.

The final text of the Strategy, which our journalists had access to, stated that "considering the right of citizens to receive timely and accurate information on occurrences on local and regional level, as well as the state's obligation to provide complete public information to citizens and to continuously contribute to the improvement of the quality of media content" the regional public service broadcasters are established. The document will be sent in next few days to the relevant ministries for their opinion and after that to the Government for adoption. This document provides that obligations and functions of public radio-TV service are accomplished by "public radio-TV services at the Republic, Province and regional level" as well as that "necessary conditions for work and stable source of income of radio-TV services will be enabled in the Republic of Serbia".

The Strategy also envisages that the state can not own the media. The Action Plan provides that the state must withdraw from the ownership of the media "not later than 24 months after legally determining period".