26. 01. 2006

TV 5 GOES NATIONAL

BELGRADE, January 26, 2006 – The competition for the use of licenses for radio and TV program broadcasting, announced yesterday, envisages five networks for national coverage. The list of candidates for the national frequencies (it is expected that the number of the stations applying would be bigger than 5), will surely include the Belgrade-based TV stations RTV Pink, RTV BK, RTV B92 as well as the TV 5 from Nis. It is still uncertain what license will Belgrade TV station Studio B apply for. TV Panonija, more and more popular and viewed station in Vojvodina, have not yet decided on the competition saying there is still enough time, given that the competition has just been announced. The competition envisages two months period for submitting applications, after which the Broadcast Agency would have three months to decide on received applications. The stations that have already confirmed their participation in the competition, Pink, BK and TV 5, claim they have met all technical and other requirements and expect to be successful, if the competition is fair. Current director of the RTV BK Telecom Bojana Lekic however says the license fees for national broadcasting (sixty million dinars) are too high. According to her, the payment rates are more applicable to the most developed, Scandinavian countries. The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) also warned of the astronomical fees. In its statement, the Association noted they were several times higher than in the countries from the region. According to the information obtained by ANEM, the fees for commercial stations with national coverage in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania or Croatia are even ten times lower, said in the statement of the professional association. However, Aleksandar Vasic from the Broadcast Agency claims it is not exactly the case. For example, in Croatia and Macedonia, the stations also pay concession beside the license, so it all adds up to the approximately same amount as the proposed fee in Serbia, says Vasic. Vasic also said Radio Television Serbia had the license as the public service broadcaster and did not need to compete for the license or to pay the fee.