Study: Major Deterioration of Media Pluralism in Serbia, Regime Generates Media Monopoly

(BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Media pluralism in Serbia is facing major threats, with representatives of the authorities, starting with President Aleksandar Vucic, as main generators of media monopoly, shows a study performed by the Novi Sad School of Journalism and the Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI).

At the presentation of the study titled “Media pluralism and monopoly in Serbia,” analyzing the discourse in primetime TV news programs in the period from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, 2024, it was said that the main generators of deteriorating media pluralism and the existing media monopoly were government representatives, the state public broadcasters and commercial TV stations with national frequencies.

The study looked at both state public broadcasters – the Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) and the Radio and Television of Vojvodina (RTV), all TV stations with nationwide coverage - TV Prva, TV B92, TV Pink, and TV Happy, as well as two cable channels – TV Nova and TV N1.

The study shows that President Aleksandar Vucic tops the coverage list in RTS’ prime time news Dnevnik, where he was cited 44 times and received the longest air time during the monitored period, while his TV addresses, interviews, quotes, and paraphrased statements consumed more than 103 minutes during 31 editions of Dnevnik. Also on RTV, Vucic was the most covered individual subject. On the other hand, the opposition was hardly covered as a subject in TV reports of the public state broadcasters and nationwide TV stations.

BIRODI Executive Director Zoran Gavrilovic said that the obligations of equal coverage of political ideas and program diversity were set out in the Law on electronic media, but had not been implemented in practice. He added that according to this Law, it was the clear responsibility of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) to address media pluralism, but that the latest REM’s annual report said nothing about media pluralism.