As soon as Pedro Vargas Santos David registered as media director of the United Group in Serbia in the Agency for Business Registers and replaced all other directors, Aleksandar Vučić immediately wanted to give him work instructions.
The President of Serbia stated that the new owner will have to "approach the majority" of the audience. He also added that "things have changed" and that "the new owner has to earn money", because he will want to be watched by everyone, and not to lead politics like the former ones.
The censorship was announced to their sources say that after the director, the editors will also be changed, which could be reflected in the editorial policy.
Regardless of all the regime's efforts to "like" the media of this group as quickly and effectively as the elections are approaching, they cannot do everything they think of, Rade Veljanovski, a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, explains to "Vreme".
"The law dictates that it is not possible to change the basis of the program without the permission of the REM Council," Veljanovski told Vreme. "Because this media has received a license to provide media services through cable distribution based on its program. The one who issued this license, which is the Council of REM, has the right to approve or not to change the concept."
In this situation where REM has not elected a president and a deputy, getting an answer is not possible.
"Even if the new owners want to change the program, they have no one to turn to. This kind of REM Council cannot make a decision on acceptance, but also on rejection of the change," adds Veljanovski. "I'm afraid we can expect the new owners to do it on their own, but at least we'll be aware that they've broken the law."
They leave the form - they change the essence
In the entire procedure, a loophole in the law can be represented by the fact that the new owners do not have to change the programming scheme or change the editorial policy, that is, they can leave the same shows with the same name and their form, but simply change - the journalist's questions and the interlocutors who answer them.
Thus, instead of Radet Veljanovski, in the show dedicated to the media, none other than Nebojša Krstić can speak. They may not change the name of the newspaper, but in it, within the informative part of the program, they can exclusively convey the statements of President Vučić, although he immediately declared that he would not go to these media.
Also, it should be borne in mind that United Group's media is private, so without changing this legal obstacle, there is no other way for the owner to replace the director, but the situation is still a bit grayer when it comes to editors.
Because the editorial board should give its opinion on the selection of the editor, at least that is the case in democratic and independent newsrooms. Directors and editors at N1 have changed before as well, but the editorial policy has not changed.
This possibility has already been pointed out by the United Group journalists' union.
"Journalists of our media suspect that things will not stop here, and that they will continue with changes of editors, with the intention of making the remaining independent and professional media conform to the wishes of the current regime," said the unions. They add that the changes in the leadership positions and in the ownership structure will not affect the editorial policy, professional attitude towards journalistic work and integrity - as long as their newsrooms work with the current composition.
What is the N1 program?
Media houses submit the elaborations, which are actually the program scheme, directly to the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media as part of the official and often confidential tender documentation.
When TV N1 applied for a national frequency license in 2022, for example, the then executive director of United Media, Aleksandra Subotić, pointed out that the protection of media freedom, the interests of the public and citizens, as well as credible research, is something that distinguishes this television.
The then director of the N1 program Igor Bozic andhe said that N1 deserves to be seen by all citizens of Serbia because the information provided by N1 deserves it.
"The backbone of our program is an informative program, but we tried our best to fulfill the conditions of the competition and our program will have more children's, cultural, scientific and other content. As we have worked so far, respecting the standards of the profession, we will continue to do so in the future, which is a confirmation that we will fulfill the elaboration," said Božić.
He also said that N1 has a branched correspondent network, which means that it reacts quickly and reports quickly. He also pointed out that this television is open to all political actors, that it is objective and credible.
"Credibility is one of our basic characteristics and it is demonstrated, among other things, by more than 40 journalistic national and international awards", said Božić at the time, adding that he was particularly proud of the documentary program "which has been raised to a higher production level" and also received numerous awards.
"How objective are you from 1 to 10?" Olivera Zekić asked then.
"Let the viewers answer that question," said Božić, and N1 did not get a national frequency, but the place of the fifth media with this status remained vacant.
Not everyone can be "general media"
An additional problem with the media in Serbia is that they should work according to the so-called Guidelines for the development of the provision of electronic media services. In that document, it should be written what the needs of the citizens of Serbia are, for how many and what kind of media. This regulation was supposed to be adopted by the 2023 law, but was never enacted because it was understood that a serious independent market analysis had to be done before that.
Since Serbia has never received this analysis, the media in Serbia themselves provide REM with information about which media they belong to, and the majority declared themselves "general media", although it is important that there is, for example, a media with an entertainment program on the market.
Last year, Veljanovski notes, that analysis was done secretly, and the results were never published so that we could not get a picture of the media scene in the country.
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