Media Study - Medija centar Beograd

3.2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NATIONAL BROADCASTING IN SERBIA
Background
Serbia has a limited population and a meagre market but relatively many national broadcasters. The national public
service broadcaster RTS has a leading position among viewers and listeners but is financially hurt by the transition
to user’s license fees and the financial crisis, which lead to only half of the license fees being collected.
RTV has important capacity and experience in dealing with minority programming reaching out to the other parts
of the region. With radio and television outlets like a full national broadcaster, insufficient funding and with a very
limited audience in the province in comparison with RTS the present situation is not sustainable. However, RTV has
the capacity to become one of the anchor organisations in a regional system.
In comparison with EU Member States and with countries in the region RTS is one of the cheapest public service
broadcasters judged by the revenue from license fees. The total public support to media in Serbia measured by the
GDP per capita is similar to those of the 3 EU Member States. The mix of license fees and commercial revenue is
common in EU member countries with the exception of Swedish Radio, Denmark’s Radio, British Broadcasting
Corporation and Estonian Radio and Television.
It has however also become EU standards that it is well documented that the public broadcasters fulfill their public
service obligations and that the license fees are not used for undue competition with commercial broadcasters.
5 commercial televison broadcasters struggle to maintain their market shares and commercial revenue, the
majority by focusing on entertainment. In comparison with EU Member States and with neighbouring countries in
the region the commercial market in Serbia is far too small to sustain so many commercial TV stations. One or two
commercial tv stations would be a more realistic number. As in other transitional countries the share of the
advertising market for television in Serbia must also be expected to decrease relatively compared with other
media.
Besides reducing the number of national commercial television and radio broadcasters it could be considered to
encourage pluralism and diversity by implementing annual calls for proposals for public service programme
projects from national commercial broadcasters in fields like investigative journalism, documentary series, drama
production or activities related to niche channels.
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