Media business operations

According to reports on expenses during political campaigns leading to the parliamentary elections, the largest part of the collected funds was spent on television advertising, said yesterday Zlatko Minic, the deputy president of the Board of the Anti-Corruption Agency.
(Politika, 26.06.2012)

Employees of TV Cacak began a strike yesterday to protest against unpaid salaries. The statement issued by the Striking Board says that the programme of the station was suspended at 14.00, and that employees' salaries are four months late (covering the period between February and May this year). The statement says that the workers demanded on June 14 that the majority owner of the station pay the salaries, and decided to begin the strike with the minimally allowed job performance level.
(Fonet, Press, Vecernje novosti - Serbia, Informer, Politika, NUNS, UNS, 26.06.2012, Danas, NUNS, 27.06.2012)

Employees of TV Cacak are still striking. The strike began nine days ago because of unpaid salaries and contributions during a period of four months. The owner of the TV station, a businessman from Cacak, Zoran Bojovic, has not yet met with the employees. TV Cacak has 26 permanently employed workers and four part-time contributors. The company was founded in 1999 as a municipal publicly-owned company and was privatized in 2009. The Bojovic family also owns the weekly magazine Cacanski Glasand Radio Cacak, which are not on strike.
(Beta, Pregled UNS, NUNS, 04.07.2012)

The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) calls on the Organization of Music Authors of Serbia (Sokoj) to immediately establish a new price list of royalties for usage of musical works. The Association's statement says that radio and TV stations in Serbia have received invoices with "astronomical" royalties for broadcasting of music, in accordance with the price list published in the Official Gazette last year, without any discounts that have been mentioned during the recent months.
(Beta, 02.07.2012, Tanjug, Blic, Politika, Vecernje novosti, UNS, Informer, 03.07.2012)

TV Avala is in huge trouble and it is possible that it might lose its national broadcasting license, reports the daily newspaper Informer. TV Avala would have to broadcast at least 25 percent of locally-produced programme if it wants to remain a nation-wide broadcaster. If this requirement is not fulfilled, the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RRA) will have no other choice but to revoke its license and announce a public contest for issuance of broadcasting licenses. On the other hand, employees of TV Avala began a strike already in December 2011 because of unpaid salaries.
(Informer, NUNS, UNS, 03.07.2012)

"A sum of 8,000 dinars (around 70 euros) was paid to our bank account, as a contribution for payment of electricity bills, because the Electrical Power Company had cut off the electricity to our web portal for 24 hours, until the debt was paid. The other journalistic association, NUNS, did not support us via donations, despite the fact that it had issued a strongly-worded press statement in support of E-Novine. However, we have not lost all hope when it comes to NUNS."
(E-Novine, UNS, 23.06.2012)

Privatization and the state-owned media

Journalists working for the weekly magazine Svetlost from Kragujevac, who have been striking for a year because of unpaid salaries, suffered a loss of seven offices yesterday. The Commercial Court sold them for the price of 10.3 million dinars in order to pay back the debt owed to the printing company "Family Press". In an open letter, employees of Svetlost accuse the Privatization Agency of exerting no control over the privatization of the oldest Serbian weekly magazine and allowing mortgage on the property of the magazine, despite the fact that the privatization was not completed and that the buyer, Gvozden Jovanovic, was not the owner of Svetlost since he had not fulfilled all his obligations towards the Agency.
(Blic, Danas, 23.06.2012)

A media coalition, consisting of consisting of the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (NUNS), the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS), the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS), the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) and Local Press warned today of the extremely bad position of the media in Serbia – the worst since 2000. The coalition pointed out that it was necessary to implement the Media Strategy as soon as possible. The president of ANEM, Sasa Mirkovic, said that the new government should quickly implement the Media Strategy, complete the privatization of the media, reveal the draft law on public service broadcasters and public information, eliminate piracy, and implement the digitalization project.
(Beta, Fonet, Danas, Politika, NUNS, Dnevnik, Pregled, 28.06.2012)

Results of a science research project "Journalism at the Crossroads – Journalism in the Age of Information Society" were presented atconference entitled "Who Owns Journalism in Serbia", held at the Faculty of Political Science. The research was conducted by the Center for the Media and Media-Related Research of the Faculty of Political Science. During the first panel discussion, dedicated to the publicly-owned media, Professor Dr. Miroljub Radojkovic explained that "the media owned by the state exhibit excessive employment, owners and co-owners do not suffer from any difficulties, while the number of their employees is huge. The public service broadcaster employs more than 1200 people, out of which journalists and contributors number only 450. Half of its employees perform various administrative tasks, which are not essential for media operations". In the words of Professor Dr. Snjezana Milivojevic, analysis and classification of the privately-owned media was done on the basis of five indicators: technological equipment level, professional resources, economic position, degree of networking in journalism, and relationship with the state. The research showed that the commercial media are more dynamic and better adapted to the digital age than the state-owned media.
(http://www.fpn.bg.ac.rs/, UNS, 04.07.2012)