06. 02. 2013

NO STATE MEDIA LEFT BY 2015

Belgrade, February 6, 2013 (Danas) - Under the new law, the media will have to be registered in the media records containing, in addition to basic information on the media and their owners, also the data on persons connected with the owners, including spouses or defacto partners, relatives or proxies.

This is all defined in the Draft Law on Public Information and Media.

The new regulation should provide for the obligation to register in the Media Records that would be managed by the Agency for Business Records. It will also stipulate that the Records must include information on state aid allocated to media, funds received from state bodies and by advertising, as well as data on persons who participate in total annual revenues with more than one third of total revenues.

The new law also prohibits concentration of the media ownership, hence one person cannot own two or more daily newspapers at the same time, unless their circulation exceeds 50 percent of the total sold or in any other manner realized circulation of the dailies during one calendar year. The draft law, which has not yet been put to public discussion, also prohibits ownership of two or more electronic media if the audience share exceeds 35 percent.

Under the new law, one person would not be allowed to own a daily and an electronic media at the same time, or to own a media and an organization "dealing with the distribution of media content, namely organization for renting and distribution of advertisements for media".

The draft law regulating the area of information stipulates that a media could be established only by a legal entity, prohibiting, at the same time, the republic, autonomous province or a local self-government unit to establish media directly or indirectly, as well as an institution, company or other legal entity predominantly or entirely owned by the state or financed from public sources.

Founders of media in minority languages may, however, be national councils of national minorities, Republic for the need to inform citizens of Kosovo and Metohija, but also state universities for the purpose of informing and training their students.

State-owned media will terminate operations within two years from the day the law enters into force, while the responsible person in this media must initiate the process of privatization within 30 days.

The Draft Information law provides for fines of 100.000 to one million dinars for media founders who have failed to publish impressums in the prescribed manner, if the media have not been registered in the Media Records or have failed to comply with the obligation to keep records. Fines ranging from 30 to 200 thousand dinars are prescribed for responsible editors of media for publishing information in which a person has been identified as a perpetrator of a criminal offence before the final verdict of the court, or if the content that may jeopardize the development of a minor has not been properly marked. If a responsible person does not file for the launching of privatization of the media, the fine ranging from 50 to 100 thousand dinars will be applied.

The Draft Law on Public Inormation has not yet been concluded or presented to public, despite the Culture and Media Ministry's announcements.