ZDF: Passions high over Serbian media market deal

It quoted experts who said that the Serbian government wants more control of the media market and added that viewers probably won’t be able to learn about manipulation with the coronavirus pandemic figures as reported last summer by N1 “one of the last two independent TV stations in Serbia”.

ZDF said that N1 and its cable provider fear that the state-controlled Telekom Serbia will corner them. “The state Telekom wants to destroy the independent media. We think our survival is in question,” N1 Executive Producer Igor Bozic said. He said the European Union should investigate the whole thing immediately if it views Serbia as a candidate state.

The German station said that this is about economic and political influence since Telekom owns part of the cable network and wants to make a deal with Telenor in order to push independent TV stations out of the market at least according to Telekom documents.

ZDF was told by officials at Telekom that it wants more competition. They expressed regret over the fact that internal documents which contain what they said was inappropriate language were made public.

ZDF quoted Reporters Without Frontiers who said that the Serbian authorities under President Aleksandar Vucic has been increasing the pressure on independent journalists for year, adding that Vucic and businessmen close to him are controlling political reporting.

Experts quoted by the German station said that the goal of the authorities is to organize the media market in a way that favors the government.