13. 05. 2005

MEDIA IN POOR STATE

BELGRADE, May 13, 2005 – Members of the Association of Private Media called today for a level playing field on the media market, saying that the media scene in Serbia is in a poor state. At a regional conference, “Print media in the region, possibilities and expectations”, in Belgrade today, Association members agreed that as well as poor market conditions and unfair competition, they are confronted by inappropriate media legislation. The director of the Centre for the Professionalisation of Media, Stevo Niksic, told the conference that Serbia has one of the worst Public Information Acts, because it does not demand public media ownership, which is the basis of all such legislation throughout the world in the interests of preventing monopolies. Lawyer Slobodan Kremenjak noted that there are no anti-monopoly regulations in place in Serbia and that the new draft Criminal Code still treats slander and libel as crimes punishable with up to three years’ imprisonment. “Delays in implementing the Broadcast Act and the Public Information Act have led to a situation where we still don’t know the conditions of participating in bidding for frequencies, while there is practically no information on the possibility of print media being privatized,” he added. Belgrade daily Danas director Radivoj Cveticanin said that the media’s biggest problem is that not all media are economically independent and that this is directly connected to the freedom of the media. Dragan Janjic, director of the Beta news agency, described the market regulations in Serbia as rudimentary and called for the introduction of conditions under which all would be able to compete on the market under equal conditions.