21. 08. 2005

SUBSCRIPTION THROUGH POWER BILLS

BELGRADE, August 21, 2005 – The Electric Power Industry of Serbia (EPS) will have to comply with the decision to charge the RTS subscription through electricity bills. Radio Television Serbia will first send out the announcement to the future subscribers in September and will start to charge for the subscription one month later, in October, said the vice-chairman of the Broadcast Agency Council Aleksandar Vasic. By that time, the agreement on ways of charging the subscription should be reached. Although the EPS has officially opposed to subscription charge through their bills, Vasic said that EPS is “a public company, not non-governmental organisation”, and that they would have to comply with the decisions of the appropriate authorities and envisaged by the law. Vasic also said that the recent monitoring of the aired advertisements on RTS showed that the regulations on the length of commercials were respected. Under the regulations of the Broadcast Act, the public broadcasters, radio and TV stations from the civil sector and those founded by the local and regional communities cannot broadcast commercials longer than ten percent of the total daily broadcast program, that is, maximum of six minutes per hour of the broadcast program.