For 35 years of its existence, "Vreme" followed the SFRY, FRY, SC, followed the wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, NATO bombing and Serbian leaders Milošević, Đinđić, Koštunica, Tadić, Dacić, Nikolić and Vučić. From the beginning, television was the inspiration for the texts in "Vremen", primarily through the column "Ćorava kutija" written by Petar Luković, today also part of our eternal editorial office, which works in another location. At the urging of Dragoljub Žarković, in 2002 I started writing the column "TV Maniac" as a mental hygiene exercise and a testimony that will "remain". That's what Žare told me, who didn't have much faith in the electronic media and their short memory.
Writing for this birthday edition, I realized that "Vreme" is almost a peer of political and media pluralism in Serbia. That's why this "rewinding" is partly analog and then digital, because today, thanks to the Internet and the remote control, you can easily return the content you missed. Fortunately, just as "Time" recorded all the social and political turbulence of the previous 35 years, so we spent a potential 306,600 hours watching television. If you are one of those who believe that they will "look at everything" and then find out for themselves what the truth is, then after three and a half decades of bleating at colorful doors, you must have at least loosened up a little. I also love those who "don't watch television" and then spend hours on social networks arguing about inserts and clips mostly taken from TV programs. It's a secondary detachment, because you didn't give yourself the opportunity to be "introduced into context" by certain stupidity on television. This ungrateful recapitulation of collectively lost time can again be compared to failed political pluralism, democratization of society and institution building.
So, let's go back to the beginning.
THE NINETES
It's the age of analog television, RTS with three programs and a hint of freedom and a different type of television on 3K and Studio B. We call the main television TV Bastille, it's war television, which recklessly spreads Milošević's propaganda. Dismissal of ineligible persons from RTS is underway, honorable people are leaving on their own, transfers from the Assembly are starting, the beginning of a multi-party system. Unusually quickly, we have demonstrations on March 9 - the basic demands are related to the removal of the editor at RTS, because for the first time since the war, the citizens say clearly and loudly that the television is lying. Sound familiar?
The transition from socialism to capitalism also begins, in the media this means the opening of private TV channels. TV Politika was created one after the other in 1990, and in 1993, the first private television, TV Palma, where a palm tree with sajkača and opanci dances to turbo folk folk songs. Milica Pašić brings the people to 3K, but after Palma, the future TV empire TV PINK is born.
They are soon joined by Milošević's favorite businessman, a mustachioed uncle with his family and the desire to leave the impression of a world gentleman - BK television arrives in 1994, presenters with ties, beautiful presenters and sponges on microphones with the station logo as on foreign TV channels. Milošević's daughter had her own television, the cradle of dance TV Košava, from which Happy was born in 2010.
While it was being hunted here, people were slaughtering and killing in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and the war was only a hundred kilometers from Belgrade. RTS incited, then forgot to show pictures of the refugee column during the "Storm", the 1996/97 protest. which no one broadcasted or filmed, we had Avram Israel, NATO bombing, capitulation in Kumanovo, October 5, the fall of Milosevic... Television did not show misery, distribution of bread in Terazije, mafia confrontations and banknotes with 12 zeros. They were broadcast on television Happy people.
TWO THOUSAND, DIARY OF MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
They were created from 2000 onwards. There's also TV B92, today in a zombified edition after two resales - it's hard for me when I remember, you'll understand. So-called commercial television appeared, tailored according to licenses, so in 2006 we got Fox television, since 2010 (TV Prva) and TV B92, which have always been included in the package since then. During this period, reality programs dominated our televisions, but an opportunity was missed to establish clear media regulation, transparency of financing and prevent money extraction through marketing agencies.
Milošević's wartime media were completely abolished, just remember Dinkić's "liberation" of TV Pink. DOS decided to continue using the propaganda machine instead of establishing a media market. The victim was the media that supported the opposition and participated in the overthrow of Milosevic.
This is the age of using tabloids - first paper and then electronic ones for political propaganda, the genie has been released from the bottle with the idea that there are vegetarian crocodiles that will serve to democratize society. Shutting down BK Television due to "bias in reporting during the elections" sounds comical today.
Commercial television stations earn their income through para-informative content, which is a substitute for entertainment programs. Their beginning is the National Diary on TV Pink, when Mitrović realized that the news program in Serbia is as commercial as reality TV, because it is paid for by the government. Nevertheless, in the debate-type shows, you could see politicians from both the government and the opposition. Every day. Unthinkable, right?
TWO THOUSAND TEN-TWENTIES
This period was marked by a political and media U-turn. There was a return of reformed radicals and since then the media have been talking about Vučić's media blockade. It consists of the hyperproduction of the number of cable channels, so Joksimovići (TV K1, Tanjug) and the tabloids TV Kurir, TV Informer and TV Blic got televisions. Two licensed news channels, Euronews Serbia and News Max Balkans, were also established, but their programming scheme was also forcibly changed to government-controlled channels.
Of the television stations that are not currently under Vučić's control, today we only have three cable channels, namely N1 since 2014, TOP television since 2017 (the channel changed its name to Nova S in 2019) and Insider television since 2021.
After the fight for national frequencies, with cable television and digitization,
the focus has shifted to provider services. The cable wars between Telekom Srbija and SBB (United Media) have begun, today with an almost certain end. Suspicious, non-transparent ownership structure, allowing a monopoly position because there is no need to separate the provider from the program producer except in the case of RTS, non-transparent income structure, problems with payment and financing of election campaigns, official campaigns, advertising of state companies and institutions in eligible media, scandals surrounding a monopoly position when buying advertising space, conflict of interest and influence trading - these are all irregularities that are repeated in reports on the state of the media in Serbia.
State institutions have also failed completely. Since 2003, it has been RBA, and then since 2014, REM. To this day, they are a sad example of the state's failure to regulate the media space.
And the forms of pressure changed over time: until 2000, it was mostly done violently through bans and shutdowns, so ANEM appeared as a form of association of local stations in order to break through the information blockade. Since 2000, the pressure has become smooth, market-oriented, through acquisitions, changes in the ownership structure, and then the editorial policy. Pressure is exerted through blackmailing advertisers, financing obedient media through marketing agencies, and then non-transparent financing of film and TV production.
With the new, shameful laws, the network of local TV stations that were bought by the party powers was destroyed, a hyperproduction of cable TV channels was created, and we actually have no professional local media. They serve exclusively for political propaganda. Examples are TV Pančevo, TV Niš, Palma plus, television stations in Novi Sad, all of which are completely without influence and importance, while project financing is used to extract money from municipalities intended for informing citizens. A sad example is Studio B - from the "rolling" of bijouterie, bizarre TV programs, to the fusion with Informer television.
RTV, thanks to its specific multi-ethnic structure, is still a more decent public service today, whose influence is carefully controlled and dosed, so as not to cross the bridge near Beška.
This rewind should actually end with the question of whether we remember what we watched.
There is an unusual TV amnesia of RTS and other channels in the nineties - from the selective fire of the archive, to the conspicuous removal of recordings on YouTube because the same actors have been there without changes for 35 years. We had two thousand, Architel, as the work of a rare enthusiast, a TV maniac, and now the memory is even shorter and is measured in weeks. So who remembers?
IMPRESSION OF THE WEEK, SAD WITNESS OF THE PAST 35, ACTUALLY 34 YEARS OLD
Today, it is unthinkable to find politicians of different views, from the government and the opposition, in the same show. Future ministers appeared as extras in "Impression of the Week", such as "Neša from Belgrade", and the presenter was called by President Vučić to tell her not to call him again. Paradoxically, our late editor Drgoljub Žarković Žare was a guest on that show, before St. Nicholas Day, noticing at the very end of the show that there was talk of some kind of wedding at all the Belgrade celebrations, but there was no such thing in the tabloids. Žarković attracted him, bookish and Slavic, and Olja and "Utisak" soon chased him away from B92.
The newspaper still has little to do with reality and serves to promote the government, and when someone like the students protest, they call him a fascist. When the government insults and humiliates the public service, or organizes a blockade against a blockade, then RTS is thunderously silent and waits for it to pass.
In these decades, people watch "Slagalica" to make sure that there are still smart people in Serbia. Instead of drama series, today we have a reality show symbolically called "Elita". There are naked actors, ready to do anything but talk politics on camera. For that, a fine is paid and you are immediately kicked out of the pink imaginary.
In the end, watching television in Serbia over the past 35 years can really be described as bleating at colorful doors. How else to understand the expectation of viewers to see and hear something new from the same actors on the political scene? The only sad thing is that the shelf life of episodic actors has become shorter and shorter, so today it is measured in weeks. Media pluralism, just like political pluralism, has experienced its opposite, so today we are closer to a one-party system and one television that is edited from the same cabinet and distributed on a large number of cable and national channels. On several occasions, Vučić deliberately made the presenters and owners of some state TV tabloids uncomfortable by publicly reminding them that they were all on his payroll. They feel a little uncomfortable, but it passes quickly.
According to Milomir Marić, the UDBA still sends front pages to tabloids, today in pdf format, while a daily rotation schedule of analysts, party activists, sympathizers and starlets who will screw up the viewers is made. Circular.
The return to the written word actually happened when it turned out that the Internet was the only alternative to television. There is a tendency, especially among the younger population, to avoid television, that is, to get information through YouTube and social networks. No matter how skeptical you are about the quality of information, the example of student protests shows that this form of information works well and breaks through the information blockade of the authorities that control television and other traditional media.
There is another TV genre discovered by Minimax, and before him by Raka Đokić in the show ZAM, (Entertainment of Millions) where Šešelj will pull out a gun and threaten slaughter, Wendy will educate the people, and Ceca will sing while Arkan conducts from the audience. Aleksandar Vučić brought this format to its darkest bottom when he showed decapitated corpses and machines for grinding people on television for the purposes of daily political hype and ratings.
It is the opium for simpletons, those who hate to read. That's why Žarković was right, that's why it's good and important that all this was recorded in "Vremen"...
