Workers of the Electric Power Distribution Company and Telecom, in some places and accompanied by the police, cut the cables of smaller operators in Nis, Vranje, Vlasotinac, Kovačica, Jagodina and Zaječar.
The common denominator for Jotel, Jal and other smaller local providers is that they have channels in their offer N1 and Nova S, as Cenzolovka learns from cable operators and citizens who use their services.
Dragan Jović, the lawyer of the Jal operator from Vlasotinc, told Cenzolovka that this is an organized action to remove independent media content and establish a Telekom monopoly, which already owns a large part of the market.
"Inhabitants of the village near Vlasotinac are on duty day and night to prevent the cutting of the Jala cables," says Jović. "In the previous days, EDS and Telekom workers removed the cables, with Telekom indicating which cables to cut. In the city, the cables have already been cut, while the last three attempts in the surrounding villages were prevented thanks to the citizens."
Around two in the morning, he adds, the EDS workers, accompanied by the police who tried to force the citizens to disperse, wanted to continue cutting without a court order, while the distribution baskets were ready at the entrance to the city. Everything was done under the directive of Telekom.
He points out that every cable cutting in Vlasotinac was accompanied by about thirty gathered citizens who did not want to remain in the "media darkness" and escorted by the police in riot gear. The head of the police department in Leskovac was also present, said the lawyer, who previously stated that there was an incident when the daughter of the owner of Jal was hit by a car.
Logging and contract
State companies work like this - today EDS cuts the cables, and tomorrow Telekom workers offer to conclude a contract for users for two years, with the fact that they give one year and six months without dinars.
"The goal is to take over all users and establish an absolute monopoly over the market, as well as to shut down the N1 and Nova S channels," Jović believes.
According to Jović, the owner of Jal, Ivan Rajković, head of the council group United Serbia in Vlasotinac, which together with SPS and SNS form the local government, received, according to Jović, an offer from Telekom to remove N1 and Nova S from its network, with the promise that then "things will be ironed out", and he was also offered to buy his part of the network, which he refused.
"Regardless of the fact that he is in the ruling coalition, he never allowed N1 and Nova S to be removed from his network, because he wanted the citizens of Vlasotinac to be informed in the right way," Jović said.
How did we get here?
Belosvet investment fund BC Partners sold the SBB cable network as well as all rights to sports broadcasts to the state-owned Telekom. Thus, the Sport Club was closed. Since then, N1 and Nova S - still owned by United Media, that is, BC Partners - have been in the windstorm.
They are working as before, but with the uncertainty of how long it will last. Uncertainty so much that the first man of N1, Igor Božić, speaks openly about it.
"We have been living this situation for years, but we have never been under such uncertainty. Because, until now, we have always had the support of the management. Now we have a new management that does not turn to us to encourage us to work as before," said Božić in the "Vremena" podcast.
President Vučić gloats that the N1 and Nova S will only work until November, and then it's "closed". There is still nothing more tangible about it than bazaar stories, but the anxiety is also felt in the newsrooms, says Božić.
Snježana Milivojević, professor of FPN told "Vreme" that this regime has been working intensively in recent years to squeeze out United Media, and when that probably wasn't possible, it was pushed out in parts, all with the aim of driving political and critical media out of this market.
