05. 04. 2006

TOO MANY BROADCASTERS AND “DIRTY” MONEY

BELGRADE, April 5, 2006 – Since democracy was established in 2000, media reform in Serbia has been slow and inconsistent; Serbian Government and Parliament must overcome the current legal and regulatory ambiguity, and implement adopted regulations if they want EU membership. These are the most important recommendations of the report on Serbia drafted by Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences Snjezana Milivojevic and produced by the Open Society Institute Budapest, and included in the series of monitoring report “Television across Europe: regulation, policy and independence”, released in Belgrade on March 28. The reports treat television as “one of the basic democratic elements and standards” and cover the findings from 20 European countries. Elaborating on the reasons why Serbia had the worst and most unregulated media scene, Milivojevic offered four main arguments: slow adoption and even slower implementation of the relevant laws, scarce functioning of the independent regulatory bodies, delays in transformation of the state television into a public service broadcasters, and finally, entirely unregulated work of the commercial television stations. In such a chaotic state, the political control over the broadcast field sustains. “The fact that the Broadcast Act was amended three times before its true implementation started (which could not be regarded as a record, since Bulgaria amended its act eight times), shows that the authorities are not entirely ready for the true reform of the broadcast sphere or to abandon the control over the media. The autonomy of the independent regulatory body – the Broadcast Agency Council – was undermined by Parliament’s violation of procedures for appointing the Council members in 2003, and subsequent legal changes further weakened its independents. Generally, regulatory bodies such as the Broadcast Council, Telecommunications Agency and Commissioner for Free Access to Information of Public Importance, all face complications in their work and are hardly able to run the public sphere”, said Milivojevic. Milivojevic also pointed out to the phenomenon that “the poorest country owns the most media”. “The research also shows that the citizens in Serbia spend most of their time in front of the television, around 275 minutes. Serbia is the country which has the least insight into the commercial programs just because the broadcasters are not licensed”, said Milivojevic. She also said the competition for allocation of frequencies for national, Vojvodina and Belgrade coverage, would be a test showing at what extent the rules of the game were respected. The research “Television across Europe: regulation, policy and independence” is one of the most detailed and inclusive report of its kind. The reports on other countries in the region are available at the www.eumap.org.