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20. 02. 2014

THE COMPETITION PROBLEM

20. 02. 2014 (Danas) - While granting broadcasting rights to cable TV networks in European countries is the jurisdiction of regulatory bodies, in Serbia this is a business decision made by the management of cable operators.

Possible abuses and endangering of media freedom arising from such a status of cable operators should be resolved by modernizing of legislation, which should provide more detailed regulation for this field, prevent monopoly, but also grant greater independence to local regulatory bodies, it was agreed by participants of yesterday's meeting "Cable Operators and Media Freedom", held at the Danas conference center.

Zoran Antonic, director of Post- Net, said that in addition to harmonizing the legal framework with EU regulations, the announced digitization is important for freeing of already scarce resources, but also for granting the Internet a status of infrastructure for transmission of television programs.

- For regulatory agencies - Ratel and RBA, preconditions must be secured for independence and expertise. And the relationship between the state, agencies and operators must be based primarily on detailed regulation because there are contradictions in the implementation of law itself - Antonic said, adding that it is necessary to regulate by legislation the possibility to use the infrastructure of other operators in order to avoid the monopoly that currently exists. He stressed the need to provide technologically a greater number of channels that can be transmitted and thus reach every viewer, while avoiding channel selection.

Sasa Mirkovic, Assistant Minister of Culture and Media, announced a set of new media laws, on which the Ministry is already working.

- We are aware of the rights of cable operators to make decisions independently, and our interest is to find a compromise that would be most acceptable to all participants and yet in line with European solutions - Mirkovic said.

Suzana Todorovic from the legal department of SBB, the largest private cable operator, said that multiple teams and professional services are working to select channels to be included in the program schedule, as well as that the current law is influencing this selection, simply because only a television station that has received a license, either national, regional, or local, can enter into the system of any cable operator.

- The competent regulatory body examines the program schedule and supervises channels, so all who are included are there via a regulated and legal system. It is important that our legislation has the ‘must carry' regulations about channels for which the law or the regulatory body estimated that there is public interest that these channels be included in networks of all operators. The current legal solution is that ‘must carry' channels include all public service broadcasters` channels, but also all channels that have specific RBA licenses, especially national, are automatically included in the offer. The number of these channels is not small, effectively narrowing the space for selection - said Todorovic, and pointed out that this issue should be precisely defined, and it should be accurately determined which channels carries that status, but their number should also be reduced to a reasonable level.

Djordje Krivokapic form the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia presented the problem of competition, i.e. of the unequal position of cable operators.

- An operator with a significant market share has a very good bargaining position in relation to each distributor. All the power is on one side, and the problem arises is case of an abuse. There is also the problem of forming cartels because different operators have built their infrastructure, which additionally limits the market and consumers. What is particularly dangerous is a potential merger between operators and broadcasters, in which case all other content creators without distribution would practically be out of the game - states Krivokapic.

RBA : Scarce laws

Marija Cosic from the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RBA) said that the current legislation is scarce and that "only one article of the Broadcasting Act deals with cable distribution and satellite broadcasting."

- This segment of broadcasting is encountering many practical problems, which take a long time to be resolved. RBA was very flexible in granting licenses, but the law stipulates that each of our decisions should be approved by the Government. By itself, the law is not so bad, but it always happens that we do not get to by-laws that will closely regulate a certain segment. For example, the criteria by which the RBA Council will be able to make the right decision about which program is to be included in the ‘must carry' package. These criteria have to be very strict, but on the other hand RBA should also take into consideration business freedom that cable operators should have - said Cosic.