27. 09. 2011

SBB obliged to re-include the program of Channel 9 into its offer

Novi Sad, September 27, 2011. (UNS) -  Novi Sad Commercial Court issued the decision according to which the cable operator SBB was obliged to continue with broadcasting the program of the TV station Channel 9.

In the argumentation of this Decision, the judge Slobodan Sremcev referred to the article 16. of the Law on Public Information according to which a distributor of media content must not reject to distribute a media content without a legitimate commercial reason nor to set conditions for distribution of a media content contrary to market principles.

On August 30, the Novi Sad Channel 9 filed a lawsuit to the Commercial Court in Novi Sad against the cable operator SBB, requesting that this distributor re-include the Channel 9's program into its offer.   

The Channel 9 has a license for broadcasting the program on the Novi Sad territory. However, by the SBB decision to exclude the Channel 9's program from its offer, this TV station was left without the possibility to reach their audience since 50 % of households from this territory is connected to the SBB cable network.