Bodrozic: Telekom to enter media market more forcefully, ‘get rid of’ unsuitable media

N1

All the media outlets founded by Telekom Serbia are more or less in the service of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) propaganda, and the media law article allowing for a state-owned operator to found media outlets could completely change the scene, said Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS) President Zeljko Bodrozic.

“Now we can expect that Telekom will enter the media market more forcefully, that it will try to do what it has already done with the sports content – to fully ‘cleanse’ the market of unsuitable television stations and media outlets with the help of the huge funds that it has, various monopolies and the state’s support,” Bodrozic told N1.

He said there are people from Europe in Serbia who act in a way that he cannot tell whether they are “members of the SNS Main Board or representatives of a foreign country.”

The media community has gone a great deal to ensure that proposals on draft media laws see the light of day, and to force the government to make concessions on certain issues, he said.

„We achieved success by getting many things out in the open,” said Bodrozic.

However, he said the article that allows a state telecommunications company to own media outlets could render all of this “pointless.”

“We can also see by the way the government is insisting, it has given up on many of its proposals and paragraphs added overnight, but it would not give up on this article that legalizes the de facto situation,” he said.

Bodrozic explained that there are quite a few things that the Serbian government tried to copy from Hungary and Poland, “two countries that are problematic for the European Union.”

He says he cannot rule out the possibility that, in the parliamentary debate, the paragraphs to the detriment of cable operators that were dropped from the draft laws could be added back to the draft laws, to the benefit of the broadcasters with national broadcasting licenses.