How many times have media experts repeated the claim that many of our television stations, including of course those with national coverage, would have lost their broadcasting license long ago if the unfortunate regulator - once RRA, now REM - was doing its job. There is no doubt that the first on the list for license revocation would be Happy Television, whose real owner is businessman Predrag Ranković Peconi (his name is not mentioned in Serbia without immediate need), and which is edited by media worker Milomir Marić. This television, which received a national frequency because it promised in the program elaboration that it would broadcast a considerable amount of children's programs, has long been a channel that is "switched" in decent houses at the speed of light; if they already stay at this station to see all kinds of miracles, the parents who care about the home upbringing of their offspring, then send the children to another room.
Of course, there is no doubt that Happy would not look much better even if it were edited by someone else according to the will of the owner, but it seems that only with the scandal-master Marić was she able to reach "media standards", which even the regime's tabloids sometimes cannot catch up with in propaganda shenanigans, spreading hatred, breaking the code and norms of good behavior. And REM like this could not help but issue a large number of various measures, warnings and warnings to this television, but of course motherly mild ones.
CLASSIC MARIĆ BY VUKAJLIJA
Some will say that Milomir Marić's appearance, his sense of humor and the way he expresses himself - exude archetypal cynicism. Brash and caustic, he loves to belittle and provoke everyone except those on whom his career and salary depend. Sam will admit that all his life he was attracted to people from the other side of the law, with whom he cooperated and became friends. That fascination is very visible when he hosts people from the criminal milieu or convicted war criminals or representatives of the Vučić regime in the show.
"In the shows, I represent criminals and I admire them to the point of imbecility," he will say in an interview.
His fascination with the secret services is no less. He said that he is bored by politically correct people who repeat learned phrases and that is why he opts for the "dark side". If he had had time to read the journalistic code, he would probably have found in it everything he never wanted to be. Those who worked with him consider him to be the forerunner of tabloid journalism in the local version, because he always adhered to the rule that it is not important whether something is correct, but whether it is interesting. He never let facts spoil a good story.
Although he adheres to political incorrectness, which rises to the level of a street simpleton - which would perhaps have charm in a well-ordered country, not in Serbia, where decency is more often a disorder than a rule - the target of his criticism will never be the regime of Aleksandar Vučić. In his broadcasts, he establishes and reproduces the local mainstream story about how Serbia is actually an innocent country that did not cope after the fall of the Berlin Wall, relativizing its politics during the nineties. Sometimes he welcomes those who think differently in this sense, but mostly with the intention of making fun of them.
The prerequisite for being a guest at Marić's is that you represent a constructive element in Vučić's pyramid of power. The president often finds himself in his "Cyrillic" when he wants to announce "something important" to the nation. They say that Vučić respects him immensely, but that Marić can sometimes annoy him. It can be said that he is one of the most important propagandists of the Vučić regime, and they say that he receives a huge salary for his actions.
Marić's shows are, thanks to cable television, an important regional propaganda stronghold of the official Belgrade. Openly flirting with crime and the political underworld, giving simple answers to very complex questions and combining all this with cursing jokes - it cannot be said that his shows were not watched both in the country and in the neighborhood. At one time, the Electronic Media Agency of Montenegro banned certain contents of Happy and Pink M television, including Marić's shows, because, as they say, they "promote hatred, intolerance and discrimination against members of the Montenegrin nationality."
Those who know him say that he always liked to live on the high side, to go on expensive trips and to meet with important and influential people. When you listen to his soliloquies, it turns out that there is no significant person with whom Maltene is not friends. There are also jokes about that in the Belgrade bazaar. A man from Belgrade who likes to tell "hunting stories" met him as Steven Spielberg, and he greeted Milomir Marić and his unmarried wife Vesna Radusinović as if he were a man. Later, that "hunter" - says the joke - conveyed Marić Spielberg's greetings, and the latter then told it to his friends: I know he's lying, but I'd be glad!
On the humorous website "Vukajlija" you will also find a definition of the term "Milomir Marić": "a symbol of how low you can fall under old age." It is also stated that there is a metaphorical phrase "classic Milomir Marić" among young people. It refers to those guys who woo girls with stories about how they were friends with famous people. "When the girls finally agree to sit at our table, he drowns them with stories about how he met Arkan in 1992, even though he wasn't even born then," explains "Vukajlija" with an example what the term "classic Milomir Marić" means. Otherwise, the stories of the real Milomir Marić, in which he turns out to be an important face, very often have no living witnesses. In those stories, people like Arkan and Ljuba Zemunc are mentioned, through Kundak, to Danilo Kish.
"LOVE YOU GRANDPA RATKO"
Some say that, regardless of who is in power, Marić always lived very well and that he was always protected by an "invisible hand". This also applies to the period when the magazine "Profil" was published, which was indebted to both God and the people. In one interview, however, he complains about the "difficult life of poor Serbian journalists". He says he gets up at four in the morning and sometimes sleeps only two hours. "I work as a miner, and I don't know if any worker gets up at that time, except for President Vučić," Marić will say, complaining about his brain, which "causes him problems non-stop."
It cannot be said that Marić is not valuable. When you turn to the Happy channel, you either see "Couples" in which some primitive argument is going on or you see his face and his lips shine. Em leads the morning program, em "Ćirilica", em "Goli život", em has until recently also coordinated "Parove", a reality program which, in the fierce competition of local reality shows, showed that there is no bottom and that you can always fall lower. Let us remind you that in October 2019, the Association for the Protection of Constitutionality and Legality (UZUZ) submitted a report to REM due to the depiction of oral sex in "Couples". REM issued a warning to Happy Television and demanded that in the future, similar content should be marked with the number 18, which should warn minors not to watch the program in question. So, it can be oral, but with number 18.
The oral episode in the reality show of the editor Milomir Marić is just one of the Happy scandals that have shaken the local public in recent years, at least those who are not in favor of the Vučić regime. Some will say that, apart from cynicism, Marić's important character trait is exhibitionism. Maybe that word, and maybe much worse, can characterize the show, the morning program, in which he enabled two war criminals, Ratko Mladić and Vojislav Šešelj, to have a good time in front of a large audience. Contrary to the rules of the Hague Tribunal and basic taste, Mladić telephoned the studio where, in addition to Marić and Šešelj, his son Darko and member of the Russian Duma Pavle Dorohin were sitting. Then Mladić, the man responsible for the most gruesome crimes in Europe after World War II, uttered words that make the blood of any normal person, and especially the families of his victims, run cold: "Grandpa Ratko loves you!" Marić, by the way, likes to hosts war criminals, considering it a great journalistic achievement.
Let's also remember that the year before last, Marić insulted the professor of the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, Danijelo Sinanijan, on a national basis, because he dared to question the validity of Sinisa Malog's doctorate, which was later officially declared a plagiarism. Marić racistly determined that Sinani is actually a "mandolin-handed" professor, and that "Hashim Thaci and Ramuš Haradinaj, who have their own representative in the commission," will actually decide on Malog's doctorate.
"He says in Belgrade that Siniša Mali is a non-expert, and the man built Belgrade on water," said Marić. He then added that Sinani cannot be a moral judge, because in Kosovo, "Tachi and Haradinaj would shoot a Serb who tried to do that." Certain associations filed a criminal complaint against Marić for inciting national, racial and religious hatred, but it was rejected. It is interesting that the acting prosecutor was a certain Nenad Stefanović, who was a guest on Milomir Marić's shows at least once.
Earlier in the same year, Marić attacked journalist Gordana Suša because she criticized him in a column in the newspaper "Danas". Suša wrote, among other things, that Marić's statement that he is a "constant SNS voter" in the show where Aleksandar Vučić was a guest - represents a direct violation of journalistic ethics. In addition, she criticized him for not reacting to the "brutal lies" that Vučić told on the show. Marić responded by saying that Gordana Suša's father was "the biggest udbaš", and that her husband, as "the highest official of the federal SUP", with her prompting, "determined who Arkan would kill somewhere abroad".
SCARF MAN
Speaking of Arkan, let's also say that Marić likes to brag about his dynamic relationship, full of ups and downs, with this criminal. Allegedly, Arkan once beat him and left a scar on his right arcade. Allegedly, he and his wife, when their relations with Arkan were very cold, begged Aleksandar Tijanić to mediate. Allegedly, Tijanić called Marić after a few days and told him: "I talked to the Commander and settled the matter." And then he added: "Only one of you two will be killed, and you can agree on who!" How much truth is there in these stories , we will never know because the two main actors are no longer in this world.
Marić was born in Gornji Milanovac in 1956, and his acquaintances will say that he never managed to get rid of the "provincial spasm", which meant all kinds of mystification and a pathological desire to be recognized and known, at any cost. Once, Marić will say that he is not at all interested in what "urban simpletons and idiots who consider themselves the Serbian elite" think. On another occasion, however, he will declare that he comes from a "reactionary family" from which everything was taken away by the communists, and that he did not study journalism because it was, as he says, a "communist high school". Although he cultivated the image of dissidence in the XNUMXs, in fact - some say - he has always been obsessed with the strong, winning part of Serbian society that rested on nationalism and the move away from communism. His book Children of communism, which comes out on the wave of heated anti-communism and achieves great success, allows him to travel to the United States of America - which has always had an understanding for anti-communist extremists - where he lectures at several prestigious universities.
After returning to Serbia, in the early nineties, he promptly became the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Duga". In "Duga" he played war-mongering and anti-war texts, both those authored by nationalists and liberals, as well as the writings of criminals. His colleagues perceived him as a man without an ideology. Allegedly, his idea was to romanticize the biographies of the "underground", which later became a trend in Serbian journalism. The contractors in "Duga" were Vanja Bulić with texts from the "Crni biseri" edition, and Duška Jovanić interviewed the guys from "hot asphalt". Milošević's wife Mirjana Marković also published her legendary pathetic columns in Duga. At the same time, Dada Vujasinović wrote critical texts about Arkan and other "dogs of war", which almost cost her her life. Marić never sided with Dada's parents when they set out - with numerous obstructions from the state - to investigate her death.
Marić was also the editor-in-chief of the magazines "Intervju", "Profil" and "Dama", and in October 2001 he became the first man of BK Television. He remained at the head of Karić's media empire until 2004, and it was allegedly his idea that Karić "buy" a group of deputies and form a parliamentary club in the Serbian Parliament.
When he causes an incident or overplays himself, Marić likes to say that he was "just joking". If so, then his humor is indeed reminiscent of the creepiest "witty outbursts" of Vojislav Šešelj. Let's say, the one when in some show - with hilarious laughter from the audience - the leader of the radicals "humorously" claimed that he would slaughter Croats with rusty spoons. However, there are also those who highly appreciate Marić's humor, so for example the 27th International Festival "Golden Helmet" from Kruševac at the beginning of 2019 declared the editor-in-chief of TV Happy as the wittiest Serb.
Marić also showed his "wit" the other day when, to the astonishment of viewers, he brandished a pistol in a live broadcast. Later it turned out that it was a faithful replica of the "flag M57" pistol, better known as the "tetejac".
