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New media laws,
adopted in 2014, brought significant
changes with regard to media
pluralism. They introduced the term
“media pluralism” in the
legislation, which is treated as one
of the basic principles of media
regulation. A number of protection
mechanisms of media pluralism was
set up, such as transparency of
ownership and anti-monopoly rules,
program standards for commercial
media, regulation of the content of
PSB programming, financial support
to minority media, project financing
for content in public interest, etc.
Implementation of laws is delayed. However, much
more important problems of the system of protection of media
pluralism are its built-in deficiencies.
The system does not deal with distribution
channels. They are becoming more powerful actors of the media system
than the content producers. By some dubious actions, and most
likely, because of lobbying in European institutions, cable
providers in Serbia are guaranteed the right to be news producers at
the same time, which was not allowed in Croatia. This new phenomenon
greatly changes the work of the market and gives rise to a new
threat to pluralism.
The legislation defines media pluralism in both
meanings of the term – as structural, or external or ownership
plurality and as internal pluralism or diversity of content.
However, while structural (ownership) pluralism is elaborated and
sanctioned, content diversity is very much neglected. It is not
clear what it really means, who should monitor it and how, and how
its violations should be sanctioned. The law thus takes a stance
that ownership pluralism is a sufficient guarantee of content
pluralism, which is constantly refuted in practice.
The absence of these law provisions allows a
constant low pluralism of news and also serious reductions of media
pluralism which took part in last year or two without any reactions
by the Regulatory body, which is specifically put in charge of
protection media pluralism.
The most important deficiency of media legislation
is that it does not tackle the structural causes of content
pluralism, which are situated in the area of media economy.
Black hole of media economy
Serbian media are very rarely referred to as media
industry.
This is a sign that the media system is still in
the stage of transition.
It is far from being well developed and regulated
but is also far from what it used to be in the communist
party-state. Being somewhere in between, it combines some of the
worst characteristics of both.
The main problem of the Serbian media system is
the media business model.
It is a combination of not yet fully developed
market-based business model and not yet fully abandoned government
funding model.
For 15 years Serbia cannot decide whether state or
private ownership better protects the public interest in the field
of information. Each time it decides in favor of private ownership,
something obstructs this orientation.
The latest obstruction happened just a month ago,
with a 4-month prolongation of a deadline for mandatory
privatization of the remaining less than 10% of state-owned media.
The main issue, here, however, is not the form of ownership but the
way the media are funded.
Serbia has a huge number of media, about 1400 in
March 2015. It is not the sign of a well developed media sphere but
a result of unregulated and non-transparent media market.
A majority of media are financed by advertising.
The advertising market, however, is a big black hole. There is very
limited knowledge about operations in the advertising market. We
only know the estimations of its value, which are coming from only
one, commercial source. Data on largest advertisers are based on
calculations by formally listed prices, not on actual prices.
Advertiser know very little of media success with
the audiences. Information is scarce, monopolistic and doubtful. The
only system of circulation audit, ABC Serbia, stopped working a few
months ago - allegedly because news publishers were not willing to
provide reliable circulation figures.
Information on TV audiences reach comes from a single source, while
about radio it is very rare.
The advertising market is poor and oversaturated.
About 1.400 media are financed by 140-170 million Euro. Media
business is not profitable. Even the most commercialized media make
financial losses. Average salaries of media professionals are bellow
the country average for all economic activities.
The advertising market is not led by economic
rationale. If it were, a great number of media would have
disappeared. But they survive, although they are not sustainable.
Their owners and sources of finances compensate financial losses by
other kinds of benefits.
This defective market leads to hyper competition,
over-commercialization of media production, copying of successful
media formats, copy-paste journalism, selling of PR as journalistic
work, trivialization of content and tabloidization of quality media.
Important actors of the advertising market are
politically-aligned media buying agencies, run by people with close
ties with political parties. After every election there is a change
in the list of most successful advertising agencies.
Since the market is oversaturated, poor and
dysfunctional, the media have to turn to other financial sources.
There are only two significant additional sources – tycoons, with
their own interests, and the state, also with its own partocratic
agendas and interests.
The share of public funds in media funding is not
known. On partial data it is estimated to 25 to 40%. However, the
state bodies fund the media in many unmonitored ways and this share
is surely much greater. They provide public funds through contracted
services, through public enterprises, through free loans and
extraordinary budget subventions, through rescheduling of debts of
media companies. Not all the media have access to these forms of
funding. For government bodies, they are a fine channel for the
influence on media content.
In these economic circumstances, the public
interest content does not sell. It is not financially awarded by
anybody. The media that are willing to practice responsible and high
quality journalism can easily be punished and cut from financial
flows. They are forced to enter clientelistic relations with the
ruling political parties and the emerging economic elite, which have
detrimental effects on content diversity.
Recommendations
In order to dismantle these mechanisms of
endangering pluralism, there is a need to establish a functional and
transparent media market that can sustain the media operating on the
market. The media systems of license regimes for broadcasters have
to be based on economic calculation rather than on technological
possibilities. Media should be given a chance to be profitable on
the market and thus gain financial independence from politically
controlled funding.
Quality print media should be given tax relief,
and media with substantial news, documentary and education programs
should be given discount for license fees. Journalists should be
given tax relief in copy rights.
Financial operations of the media should be made
transparent according to specifics of media economy, and not like
all other business enterprises as now is the case.
All public funds have to be regulated so that they
cannot be used in an arbitrary way. The Advertising Law should
specifically regulate state advertising.
The state funds for media production in public
interest have to be increased. They should not be a social support
given to media in order just to survive but be supportive of the
audiences that need high quality content.
Media policy should aim to strengthen
civil-society or non-profit media.
(Speech at the international conference
“Freedom of Expression, Media Freedoms and (Self) Censorship in OSCE
Area” organized by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
in Belgrade from 20 - 21 July 2015)
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