The sale of parts of United Group is bad news for media freedom in Serbia and the right of citizens to be informed. But how lucky is that to be the only bad news...
Many were rightly concerned. the shifting of the tectonic plates on which Serbia's telecommunications and media offer stands. The outcome of that game ultimately determines who will rake in the big bucks and who will inform the citizens and how.
Everyone knows, The United Group has spread its assets across Serbia. Zlatna Koka SBB was sold to the Czech-Arab corporation, and Net TV and all sports broadcasts to the state Telekom.
Media such as N1 and Nova S remain in the United group. Televisions will work at least as long as they last multi-year contract with SBB, and then who knows. And who knows what the media sky will be like then.
Money business
Ana Brnabić said that "Mordor, the tower of Šolak's media evil" had fallen, once again showing the rigidity, this time of pop culture. Mordor is a kingdom, a region of Middle Earth, and the fortress there with a tower is called Barad dur.
The fact that Brnabić, the former USAID striker, and the regime media call him "Sholak" is not really Sholak, because Sholak has long been a minority owner of the United Group. The majority investment fund is BC Partners.
I say, the concern is justified, but the wailing about "betrayal" that flooded Twitter on Wednesday is ridiculous and childish. You how could they be sold, To how about Telekom?, To and we believed them.
If people trusted someone, then it was probably journalists who do their job honorably. They didn't believe in capital, did they?
In a crazy world, investment funds move tens and hundreds of billions of euros. To them, the media is the same as an oil platform, a copper mine or a software start-up - an opportunity to earn even more.
For them there is only one business - money business. A reporter who swallows tear gas to report on a protest in Serbia is the same as a Mexican who grinds up chicken legs to make cat food in Florida (yes, BC Partners owns that too).
In this sense, big capital cannot "betray" the audience and citizens in Serbia, but can only make money from them once again.
The pendulum is still swinging.
This does not change the dilemma of how the earthquake in the telecommunications market will affect the freedom of the press and informing the citizens, thus the very democratic (dis)opportunities in the country.
The short answer is – bad.
First of all, United Group media will continue to work as the audience is used to. But the media from the Telekom-Vučić empire will metastasize to SBB as well. Now all of Serbia will be able to watch TV Informer!
On the contrary, it is hardly planned. That is, households with Telekom connections will not now receive N1 and Nova S.
The ratio of "fire power" and the reach of the classic media, which is actually edited by Vučić and those of "Šolak", was roughly 70-20 (another 10 percent goes to all the others). Now that scale is moving further in Vučić's favor.
The previous relations between Telekom and the new owners of SBB suggest that they are not in any competition. That, behind the nominal duopoly, there is actually a cartel that will divide the Serbian (and regional) market and thrash money.
In that situation, criticism of the government will only last until the pressure is released from the pressure cooker.
How to survive?
An even more difficult and long-term question is what will the media scene in Serbia look like in five or ten years?
Let's not throw around big words like "independent", "objective" and the like, but who will be allowed to criticize the government (Vučić's or another one) and be able to survive financially?
Until now, it could be done by United Group media with a powerful corporation behind it, foreign capital that the authorities could not influence. Small media were able to do it according to the principle of coping in which donors play an important role, and some are now falling away because Donald Trump ordered it.
And there is almost no media - except perhaps one man show podcasts or shows on YouTube - which survives in the market. This is where the greatest danger lies.
Two tendencies that cost freedom of the press and democracy dearly crossed paths. The market has collapsed, advertisers generally do not want to complain to the authorities, so they give money only "where it is needed", thus feeding anti-journalism, media that violate laws, codes and better customs.
On the other hand, the audience is used to the fact that everything is "free", even though the people nicely say that there is nothing for free even at Grandma's. It is possible that the only way the audience can save their interest is to be properly informed.
If she doesn't buy newspapers, subscribe or donate regularly to media outlets she trusts - then she will be left to the chaos of social media and what they have spewed through the Black Gate of Mordor.
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The government of Đur Mazut is "counter-revolutionary", focused on retaliation and state and street violence against opponents of the regime
Depriving Dejan Ilić, an intellectual with an impeccable life and work biography, of his freedom, without the slightest meaningful reason, is just one of the brutal indicators that the regime has turned against its own citizens and is entering a phase of terror
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RTS is blocked, universities do not work, and threats, insults and calls to the prosecutor's office and the police to arrest blockers, rioters and terrorists are pouring out from the top of the government. The Serbian state has turned into a farce
Anyone who condemns the regime's targeting of people from the media, the non-governmental sector, the opposition and universities, must not agree to this targeting of RTS editors and journalists either.
The government of Đur Mazut is "counter-revolutionary", focused on retaliation and state and street violence against opponents of the regime
Vučić and Šešelj: Where I stopped, you continue
The return of radical violence subscribeThe archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
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