Media Study - Medija centar Beograd

According to information provided by the RTS top management (to be confirmed by the audited annual report for
2009), the collection of fees has decreased to approx. 50 million euro. With an income from commercial activities
of approx. 33 million EUR the income in 2009 amounts to approx. 83 million EUR. RTS has considerable payment
obligations which impact on budget sustainability. 60
Last year, RTS (Not including RTV) has received 49 million euro in license fee. In total public service broadcasting
(RTS and RTV together) has received 65 million euro in license fee. However, a significant portion of the collected
license fee immediately leaves the RTS accounts, as RTS is due to pay VAT, considerable margin for collection itself
to electricity Distribution Company, etc. 61
According to data at the disposal of RTS, the number of households that are invoiced by the Electricity Company in
Serbia is 2.473.000.
The current license fee price is 500 RSD (ca 5 euro).
The average monthly correction to the collection of license fees is about 10%.
Total annual invoiced income for Serbia is 133 million euro.
If RTS were able to collect the entire 100% of the license fee, the situation would be following:
RTS would get 75%, 100 million euro per year.
RTV would get the remaining 25%, 33 million euro.
This would for RTS constitute the minimum required to operate properly.
The Ministry of Culture allocations
Ministry of Culture allocated 69 million Dinars (approx. 0.7 million EUR) for 2009 in total.
Some examples of allocations:
20 million were used to support local and regional media content
16 million were used to support media content in national minority languages
24.5 million were used to support national minority print media
o Albanian, Bulgarian, Bosniaks and Roma publishers 62
8 million were used for Serbian media in Kosovo-Metohija
11 million were used for Serbian media in neighbouring countries
14 million were used for separate programmes
o Support to NUNS – 2 projects (e.g. Database of Journalists)
o Support to UNS projects
60
According to the interview with the top management RTS is due to pay VAT – approx 5 mio EUR per year (returning to the state treasury), ca 1
mio EUR from collection goes t license fees. In total public service broadcasting (RTS and RTV together) has received 65 million euro in license
fees. However, a significant part of the collected license fees are paid in VAT plus a considerable margin for the collection of the fee to the
electricity distribution company, etc.
61
RTV has received on license fee (in past years): 2006 - 14 million euro
2007 - 19 million euro
2008 - 18.8 million euro
2009 - 16.3 million euro
Source: RTS’s accounting books
62 Other minority media are supported by national minority support in Vojvodina Province, as described later
66