26. 07. 2005

CEKIC ANNOUNCED LEGAL CHARGES

BELGRADE, July 26, 2005 – Chairman of the Broadcast Agency Council Nenad Cekic announced legal charges against all those calling for a boycott of the subscription for RTS. According to Cekic, television subscription is a legal obligation which means that its boycotting is the same as a boycott of the criminal code. It is a criminal act, Cekic said. Cekic also disputed the legitimacy of the Association of Serbian Consumers, which opposed the introduction of the subscription. “It is a non governmental organization of 10 people who represent someone else’s interest to boycott the television subscription. We will file series of charges and then we shall see in whose interest it is,” said Cekic, suspecting of people from certain private television stations. “All European countries members of the Union have subscriptions. One of the key requirements for Serbian integration in the European Union is the constitution of the public service broadcaster, which cannot exist without the TV subscription. The introduction of TV subscription cannot wait for the transformation and restructuring of Radio Television Serbia. Those two processes are parallel. How do you thing a public service would operate without income? Firstly, the financing system of the institution of public importance needs to be established, it is not the other way around”, said Cekic. Cekic expects TV subscription to start from September 1, 2005, and will probably be charged 300 dinars with the electricity bill. The subscription of 600 dinars is also anticipated for the radio sets in vehicles and will be charged together with the vehicle registration.