28. 01. 2009

ANEM’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE PUBLIC DEBATE ON DRAFT LAW ON ILLEGAL MEDIA OWNERSHIP CONCENTRATION

Considering the Law on Media Ownership Concentration one of the most important system laws which influences the diversity and plurality of the media sphere, ANEM representatives actively participated in the public debate on the Draft Law on Illegal Media Ownership Concentration and Transparency of Public Media Ownership, which was organized by the Ministry of Culture on January 22, 2009 in the Sava Center in Belgrade.

Saša Mirković, ANEM’s president, pointed out that ANEM supported the fact that such a significant legislation had been created. However, he stressed a general remark of ANEM - that a clearly defined problem-solving strategy was missing from the media sphere. Individual laws solve individual problems, but the Serbian media policy is still not apparent: we do not even know what kind of a media scene we wish to have in the future. Thus, a question arises as to how much we actually further complicate the general situation by solving individual problems only, since there is no global picture which would coherently connect all those individual regulations, Mirković said.

ANEM suggests that the government, and especially the relevant ministries, should, by consulting the media industry and the RBA in the electronic media sphere, pass a general strategy of the media sector development with fixed global principles, which would have to be taken into consideration when individual laws are written. The lack of such a strategy is exactly what has halted the privatization, and now we have a problem with clarifying whether the state itself might have performed the illegal media ownership concentration, Mirković said.

At the public debate, ANEM representatives also stated the following remarks regarding individual acts of the Draft Law on Illegal Media Ownership Concentration:

o The regulation in Act 24, Paragraph 2, which states that a single owner can own several satellite and cable channels, but not several over-the-air channels, should be more explicit and not lend itself to various interpretations. Furthermore, it should refer to digital over-the-air distribution as well. For example, owners will not exercise the same influence on the public if one of them has two out of seven national over-the-air channels, the second one has five out of seventy cable channels, and the third one, in the near future, owns three out of 50 digital over-the-air channels. In that case, it might be more expedient to abandon the solution by which specialized and general-purpose channels are treated differently, since that scenario instigates the issue of jurisdiction. Namely, who assesses whether a channel is specialized enough or not?

o The second remark refers to the practical application of the register of public media if a media house decides to enter the stock exchange. In that case, citizens could invest in shares and a single media house might have a large number of shareholders (citizens), who would own the company in minor percentages. ANEM believes that they ought not to be registered, which is required by Article 16, Paragraph 1, Point 2 of the Draft Law. Such persons are not in the position to perform a dominant influence on the public, and reviewing the register would be significantly more difficult. What is important for the citizens who are interested in the information from the register is the majority shareholders’ ownership, and not that of minor shareholders with insignificant percentages of shares. If, as the Draft Law requires, all the shareholders are listed in the register, it will be highly difficult to inspect and will, hence, become obsolete.

o According to the Draft Law, the transparency of ownership data is achieved by the registration, which is not a condition for broadcasting the content. ANEM raised the question of achieving obligatory registration, considering that the only sanction for failing to register is a fine. The media owners who do not have enough money to pay the fine will register themselves, while those who are financially capable of paying it, might not want to be registered, and will, in the meantime, be able to continue with broadcasting the content. Unless other sanctions are introduced (apart from revoking licenses), which would make registration mandatory for all, we might once again end up with an incomplete register of public media. Therefore, the effect of that regulation is questionable in the public information sphere.

o As far as the ownership concentration is concerned, there is the issue of non-privatized stations, which are owned by local self-governments, who are, according to the Draft Law, allowed ownership concentration. What will the status of those stations be and will they be closed down, now that the further privatization has been halted?

o There is also a general remark that it is necessary to specify which ministry supervises the application of the Law and ascertains the illegal ownership concentration. That can be done by clearly stating the ministry in charge of the information sphere in Article 4, which defines the meaning of certain notions and expressions.

o The last remark refers to Article 24, Paragraph 1, Point 1, which needs to be rewritten more precisely in order to enable RTV stations with national frequency, just like the owners of national daily newspapers, to own an unlimited number of other print publications which are not daily. Thus, the last indent of Article 24, Paragraph 1, Point 1 ought to read “print daily public media”, instead of the suggested “print public media”.

The last two remarks were immediately accepted. The remaining questions could not be answered adequately by the authorities, but at the same time, it was pointed out that all the suggestions were welcome, as well as that they would be taken into consideration when the final Law, which was then in the draft phase, was written.

ANEM will continue to monitor the performance of the working group finalizing the proposal of the law and will actively participate in the public debate. ANEM will also monitor the applicability of this law in practice, after it is passed. Considering the application of the mentioned law is highly important for development of the democratic society, ANEM has already initiated the issuance of the publication dealing with this matter more thoroughly.