Revenue from advertising in this year will match the level achieved in 2011, when the media had an advertising revenue of 172 million euros, said yesterday the executive director of the agency Nielsen Audience Measurement, Darko Brocic. In his words, the stability of the revenue from advertising in this year has been influenced by the election campaign and several major sport events. Representatives of marketing agencies Direct Media and Universal Media, which hold more than 50 percent of the advertising market in Serbia, said that 85 percent of the clients were foreign companies.
(Beta, Danas, 03.11.2012, UNS, 04.11.2012)

TV Avala has lost its broadcasting license! Although the new strategic partners nearly signed the sales contract, the management of “Grand” did not want to invest money nor to give a guarantee to banks. They were only willing to run its programme and prepare the programme schedule. The station has not paid 14 million dinars (around 125,000 euros) that it owes to the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RRA), which is why its broadcasting license has been revoked.
(Kurir, Politika, 25.10.2012, B92, Tanjug, UNS, NUNS, 26.10.2012, Alo!, Blic, Dnevnik, Politika, Press, Vecernje novosti, Danas, Informer, 27.10.2012, E-kapija 29.10.2012)

Employees of TV Avala are shocked with the speed with which the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RRA) passed the decision in this case. They wonder whether the decision to revoke the broadcasting license of TV Avala had been “influenced by a political interest and the intention of a political party-affiliated television station to acquire its broadcasting frequency?”
(Dnevnik, 30.10.2012, Tanjug, Pregled, 31.10.2012)

Instead of the programme of TV Avala, a new channel – TV Pink 2 – began broadcasting at the same frequency. TV Pink 2 is available to subsribers of all cable providers. TV Pink 2 is a project of Pink International Company, owned by Zeljko Mitrovic, which has so far launched 18 national, satellite and cable channels.
(Blic, E-kapija, 04.11.2012, Alo!, Blic, Politika, UNS, Press, Kurir, 05.11.2012)

The deputy of the president of the Council of the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RRA), Goran Karadzic, told the daily newspaper Danas that the programme of TV Pink 2 was being broadcast via cable distribution system only, and that the channel had been licensed by the RRA to appear in five cable systems in Serbia. The channel is not being aired by terrestrial TV, which means that it has not acquired the former frequency of TV Avala, said Karadzic.
(Danas, 05.11.2012 Beta, Pregled, NUNS, Vecernje novosti, 06.11.2012)

Representatives of TV Pink 2 said that they probably will decide to compete with other national broadcasters if a nation-wide frequency becomes available. Unofficial source told the daily Danas that consultations about the usage of the frequency had already begun between the relevant bodies - the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RRA), the Republic Agency for Electronic Communication (RATEL) and the Ministry of Telecommunication.
(Danas, UNS, NUNS, 06.11.2012)

Journalistic associations condemned yesterday the actions of SBB, the largest cable provider in Serbia, because of its decision to remove TV Avala from its distribution system and replace it with a channel run by Pink. The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS), the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (NUNS) and the Independent Journalists' Association of Vojvodina (NDNV) criticized the cable provider SBB for removing TV Avala from its system while the station was still broadcasting its programme, and then replacing it with TV Pink 2 in violation of SBB's own operating rules.
(Politika, Informer, Danas, 07.11.2012)

Employees of the Novi Sad-based Hungarian-language TV Mozaik, who begun striking in the beginning of September, ended their strike yesterday, while the Managing Board decided to streamline operations and retain only eight of its employees. It was also announced that a new programme schedule, which would strengthen cooperation with RTV Panon from Subotica, would be launched on 1 November.
(Informer, NUNS, 26.10.2012, Vecernje novosti – Vojvodina, 27.10.2012)

Nis-based RTV5 announced in the evening of 2 November, during its prime time news, that it was going to quit operations after 18 years of broadcasting. The Republic Broadcasting Agency has revoked the station's broadcasting license, while cable providers have removed its programme from their systems. Around 60 employees have lost their jobs, but greater loss will be suffered by the citizens of the city of Nis, who are now facing media blackout since another television station in Nis – TV Zona – has already lost its broadcasting license.
(Tanjug, Beta, Danas, Blic – Serbia, E-kapija, Politika, 03.11.2012, Blic, UNS, 04.11.2012, Vecernje novosti, 05.11.2012)

On the very day when TV5 shut down its transmitters because of financial difficulties, the City Council of Nis gave another 2.5 million dinars to the magazine Narodne Novine, reports the web portal Juzne Vesti. Narodne Novine is a media outlet that has by far received the largest amount of money from taxpayers. Between 2009 and 2012, the private media outlet received 49 million dinars only from the city budget. For the sake of comparison, the Republic Broadcasting Agency closed down TV5 because of the debt amounting to 8 million dinars.
(Juzne vesti, 05.11.2012)

A new issue of the weekly magazine Okrug has not appeared on newsstands in the city of Pozarevac because of the lack of money for printing. The main reason behind the financial difficulties is non-payment of the debt in the amount of 550,000 dinars by the local self-government.
(Vecernje novosti, UNS, 02.11.2012)

A dozen print and electronic media outlets in Pozarevac have been hit by a financial crisis because previously allocated funds have not been paid to them by the city government for months. The consequences of this lack of money were first felt by the editorial team of the weekly magazine Okrug, which was not printed last week. Protesting the failure to pay the allocated money, Radio Bum 93 has stopped broadcasting news about the activities of the local self-government.
(Press, 05.11.2012)

Privatization and the state-owned media

The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) denied yesterday the reports published in the daily newspaper Press about the alleged sale of positions in diplomacy and local self-government by the party, calling them completely untrue. The party accused Miroslav Miskovic and Dragan Djilas of standing behind these articles and claimed that they were the true owners of Press.
(Vecernje novosti, NUNS, UNS, 26.10.2012)

“I do not have enough reliable information about the withdrawal of VAC, but it seems to me that the circumstances surrounding the new 'owners' of the Politika daily are murky enough and that they should be clarified by energetic and professional actions of the team led by the vice president of the Government of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic”, said Davorin Darko Ribnikar, a journalist and former general director and editor-in-chief of Politika AD and the general director and editor-in-chief of Politika NM.
(Politika, UNS, 03.11.2012)

Other news

The newspaper supplement Ruska Rec, published yesterday, reported that Politika was its partner. Ruska Rec is being published without agreement with the editorial team and the editor-in-chief, despite the fact that the Managing Board had decided that the supplement can be distributed together with the newspaper only after an agreement between the management of the company and the editorial team of Politika.
(Politika, 02.11.2012)