Political, business pressures on broadcast media industry

Political, business pressures on broadcast media industry First, we have to make an important distinction between claiming and admitting that political and business pressures exist in Serbia at all – especially in the field of broadcast media. Are you going to turn admittance into a claim or claim into an admittance, depends more on your readiness to enter a public and private battle, than on the principles you support. Namely, it turns out that broadcast media are exposed to pressure – political or business one, it does not matter – the more they insist on the recognition of certain principles and standards. In our public and political life, insisting on principles and standards is primarily seen as manifestation of certain political and ideological option. This may be our biggest mistake: failure to resolutely and consistently claim that behind certain principles and standards, primarily professional ones, there are certain values as well – both political and social. When it comes to B92, whether we talk about television, radio, internet, publishing or music production, we have emerged from resistance to tyranny, nationalism, violence, manipulation, corruption, intolerance, hatred and narrow-mindedness. One of the first theoretic books on the subject of democratic values we supported was the book by famous scholar Avishai Margalit entitled The Decent Society. One of the book's main issues was the question whether the democracy can develop in an indecent society. Or vice versa. In Serbia today, the both are threatened, I am afraid – the democracy and decency. Those who endanger these two come from society's various structures and have various powers of influence. Different structures use different means of pressure. The most direct pressures are, of course, most brutal ones – public, political threats which announce direct physical showdown. These threats are not sent telepathically or over the telephone, but publicly – through media. Namely, in Serbia, political threats against media are mostly made through other media. Sometimes those media distance themselves from threats and present themselves as neutral conveyors of what a politician or state employee wants to say, but sometimes media very much enjoy taking active part in creation of those threats and insults. After threats made on another media, there are anonymous authors and telephone call makers. Their power and energy is vast. There is one thing more important than dealing with individual cases of pressure that happened or would happen – creating a healthy basis in the system that would make concrete examples more visible and make it all the more difficult to those who exert pressure to opt for such a move. On the other hand, it would strengthen media's position and their capacity to resist them on their own. Negligence in the system has long term consequences. As a society, we have entered reforms of legal framework for broadcast media which are not completed yet, while continually facing numerous obstacles from "within", the system itself. The last in the long series of obstacles to reforms comes from the Parliament, in the form of an Act on Local Self-Management and Country's Capital, which questions privatization and virtually stops it, creating once again the possibility of local public stations remaining state-owned. It cannot be good if every few years we question the basic premises of the reforms we should have already carried out in order to move on. By constantly returning to the beginning, we are going nowhere. Commercial media are expected to be independent from political and financial power, while at the same time, through new legislation on local self-management and country's capital, the authorities are allowed to use the budget – the tax-payers' money – to finance the media whose editorial independence is not provided by the system, and which remain mere tools of biased political promotion and disloyal competition to commercial media. The similar power and energy is exercised by the so-called business systems which not only protect reputations and products of their companies, but attempt to spread information about themselves in small doses they deem useful for them. Their ability to adapt to certain political and social changes is incredible. At the same time, their power is utterly non-transparent. You never know what is the real reason behind a launch or cancellation of certain commercial messages and content. You are not even close to being able to asses how the advertising market would develop, what its major directions and who the major players are going to be. Thus, your maneuvering space is restricted to a period of 45 days, at most. Serious strategy is out of the question. You can be blackmailed at any given time. Unless you already have some kind of strong political support, that is. But strong political support also comes with a price – you cannot be critical towards the chosen side. Despite the fact that the advertising market had serious growth in the last few years, the prime motive for the majority of advertisers is not media exposition of their products and services. Instead, they use their advertising budgets primarily as a means for preventive amortization of a possible prompt reaction by the given media to an affair or uncovering an affair linked to them. The idea of advertising in this country is still in its infancy. It is a thin superstructure of overall financial structure for majority of clients, whose sole purpose is mere presence on the market or possible amortization of crisis. Essential reasons for the need to advertise – improvement of product's sale or given client's services – are on the backburner. The most absurd thing in the whole situation is the fact that mediators in the majority of business dealings between clients and media are companies whose owners have unquestionably realized or unrealized political aspirations, which is a unique phenomenon for Serbia and does not have its counterpart in the region. The only way for a media to defend itself from those ties is to work constantly on its popularity, immaculately execute all of its business deals and firmly defend its own business and editorial credibility. If only one of the three said categories is not working, media inevitably becomes dependent of the powers that are trying to rule the advertising market. One of the phenomena in the last few years is an incredible scope of media in every category, startlingly few of which manage to resist becoming dependent of certain clients in the described way. Thus, on one hand, you have an illusion of the offer and diversity being larger than ever, and, on the other hand, the level of media's "castration" being greater than ever. As a consequence, you can count on fingers of your one hand journalists who can be proud of their results in the field of investigative journalism. In the majority of cases, media have succumbed to a sad destiny of being mere messengers for various spheres of influence, with viewers/readers/listeners themselves at the receiving end of the whole information conundrum. The best assessment of the ratio of political and business influence on media in general may be the serious analysis of chargeability of commercial contracts between media and their business partners. If the chargeability is almost one hundred per cent, we can easily detect the kind of political support which allows certain media to have a constant income in the form of business obligation, without it having anything to do with ratings or circulation of the media in question. The same goes for privatization or additional privation of media which the state or certain political parties have crucial influence on. Privatization of media in Serbia is easily being dragged on, stopped or redefined – if there is a serious political interest in it. This is why the first thing that should be done must be financial transparency of media's business, its capital, ratings, circulation, ownership and acceptance of basic rules of the game – respect of journalist code adopted by two largest journalist associations in Serbia. The other important thing would be for media to oblige themselves not to take part in smear campaigns and hate speech against other media. We are in a situation when it is necessary, along with providing transparency, to additionally protect commercial media, not for their own sake or the sake of their owners, but because of the purpose they have in a democratic society, in order to guarantee the pluralism of media sources. First of all, there is too much commercial media, which makes it difficult for them to survive solely on marketing principles. Countries with significantly more developed advertising market do not have five national commercial radio and television networks. In addition, there are numerous regional networks and even more local stations. The result is market conditions which do not guarantee self-sustainability and commercial media prone to unprincipled influence by financial powers. We have been pointing this out even before the latest cycle of frequency distribution which started two years ago. What else should be done? Further obstruction of media reforms must be prevented. Privatization of non-privatized media should be carried out fully as soon as possible. Conditions under which commercial media can apply for financing from the budget should be regulated in order to prevent discrimination and provide editorial independence. When you have a high percentage of paid subscriptions to Radio Television Serbia, conditions for advertising with the public service should be made additionally stricter. By directing a major part of the marketing budget to commercial media, they would be able to support themselves more and, thus, resist pressures from political and financial powers. Two months ago we witnessed the broadcast media being accused of bias and lack of patriotism due to a different use of terms. There were media who used terms "hooligans" and "bullies", and those who used the term "troublemakers". The mere interpretation of these terms does not indicate the vastness of irreconcilable differences between the media. The interpretation was used only as an excuse for deeper hostility and single-mindedness. Politicians use media to get across what they cannot in direct communication with citizens. In that sense, the "cursed" media become useful tool for uncovering the enemies. When media take part in such games, it is the most obvious sign of deep social and political crisis which can cause much more tragic and dangerous consequences than mere concern and fear of journalists and editors of certain media for their safety. A speech delivered on the World Press Freedom Day by B92 General Manager Veran Matic, at the OSCE in Belgrade Veran Matic We are in a situation when it is necessary, along with providing transparency, to additionally protect commercial media, not for their own sake or the sake of their owners, but because of the purpose they have in a democratic society, in order to guarantee the pluralism of media sources.

Political, business pressures on broadcast media industry

First, we have to make an important distinction between claiming and admitting that political and business pressures exist in Serbia at all – especially in the field of broadcast media. Are you going to turn admittance into a claim or claim into an admittance, depends more on your readiness to enter a public and private battle, than on the principles you support. Namely, it turns out that broadcast media are exposed to pressure – political or business one, it does not matter – the more they insist on the recognition of certain principles and standards. In our public and political life, insisting on principles and standards is primarily seen as manifestation of certain political and ideological option.

This may be our biggest mistake: failure to resolutely and consistently claim that behind certain principles and standards, primarily professional ones, there are certain values as well – both political and social. When it comes to B92, whether we talk about television, radio, internet, publishing or music production, we have emerged from resistance to tyranny, nationalism, violence, manipulation, corruption, intolerance, hatred and narrow-mindedness. One of the first theoretic books on the subject of democratic values we supported was the book by famous scholar Avishai Margalit entitled The Decent Society. One of the book's main issues was the question whether the democracy can develop in an indecent society. Or vice versa.

In Serbia today, the both are threatened, I am afraid – the democracy and decency. Those who endanger these two come from society's various structures and have various powers of influence. Different structures use different means of pressure. The most direct pressures are, of course, most brutal ones – public, political threats which announce direct physical showdown. These threats are not sent telepathically or over the telephone, but publicly – through media. Namely, in Serbia, political threats against media are mostly made through other media. Sometimes those media distance themselves from threats and present themselves as neutral conveyors of what a politician or state employee wants to say, but sometimes media very much enjoy taking active part in creation of those threats and insults.

After threats made on another media, there are anonymous authors and telephone call makers. Their power and energy is vast.

There is one thing more important than dealing with individual cases of pressure that happened or would happen – creating a healthy basis in the system that would make concrete examples more visible and make it all the more difficult to those who exert pressure to opt for such a move. On the other hand, it would strengthen media's position and their capacity to resist them on their own.

Negligence in the system has long term consequences. As a society, we have entered reforms of legal framework for broadcast media which are not completed yet, while continually facing numerous obstacles from "within", the system itself. The last in the long series of obstacles to reforms comes from the Parliament, in the form of an Act on Local Self-Management and Country's Capital, which questions privatization and virtually stops it, creating once again the possibility of local public stations remaining state-owned.

It cannot be good if every few years we question the basic premises of the reforms we should have already carried out in order to move on. By constantly returning to the beginning, we are going nowhere.

Commercial media are expected to be independent from political and financial power, while at the same time, through new legislation on local self-management and country's capital, the authorities are allowed to use the budget – the tax-payers' money – to finance the media whose editorial independence is not provided by the system, and which remain mere tools of biased political promotion and disloyal competition to commercial media.

The similar power and energy is exercised by the so-called business systems which not only protect reputations and products of their companies, but attempt to spread information about themselves in small doses they deem useful for them. Their ability to adapt to certain political and social changes is incredible. At the same time, their power is utterly non-transparent. You never know what is the real reason behind a launch or cancellation of certain commercial messages and content. You are not even close to being able to asses how the advertising market would develop, what its major directions and who the major players are going to be.

Thus, your maneuvering space is restricted to a period of 45 days, at most. Serious strategy is out of the question. You can be blackmailed at any given time. Unless you already have some kind of strong political support, that is. But strong political support also comes with a price – you cannot be critical towards the chosen side. Despite the fact that the advertising market had serious growth in the last few years, the prime motive for the majority of advertisers is not media exposition of their products and services. Instead, they use their advertising budgets primarily as a means for preventive amortization of a possible prompt reaction by the given media to an affair or uncovering an affair linked to them. The idea of advertising in this country is still in its infancy.

It is a thin superstructure of overall financial structure for majority of clients, whose sole purpose is mere presence on the market or possible amortization of crisis. Essential reasons for the need to advertise – improvement of product's sale or given client's services – are on the backburner. The most absurd thing in the whole situation is the fact that mediators in the majority of business dealings between clients and media are companies whose owners have unquestionably realized or unrealized political aspirations, which is a unique phenomenon for Serbia and does not have its counterpart in the region.

The only way for a media to defend itself from those ties is to work constantly on its popularity, immaculately execute all of its business deals and firmly defend its own business and editorial credibility. If only one of the three said categories is not working, media inevitably becomes dependent of the powers that are trying to rule the advertising market. One of the phenomena in the last few years is an incredible scope of media in every category, startlingly few of which manage to resist becoming dependent of certain clients in the described way.

Thus, on one hand, you have an illusion of the offer and diversity being larger than ever, and, on the other hand, the level of media's "castration" being greater than ever. As a consequence, you can count on fingers of your one hand journalists who can be proud of their results in the field of investigative journalism. In the majority of cases, media have succumbed to a sad destiny of being mere messengers for various spheres of influence, with viewers/readers/listeners themselves at the receiving end of the whole information conundrum.

The best assessment of the ratio of political and business influence on media in general may be the serious analysis of chargeability of commercial contracts between media and their business partners. If the chargeability is almost one hundred per cent, we can easily detect the kind of political support which allows certain media to have a constant income in the form of business obligation, without it having anything to do with ratings or circulation of the media in question. The same goes for privatization or additional privation of media which the state or certain political parties have crucial influence on. Privatization of media in Serbia is easily being dragged on, stopped or redefined – if there is a serious political interest in it.

This is why the first thing that should be done must be financial transparency of media's business, its capital, ratings, circulation, ownership and acceptance of basic rules of the game – respect of journalist code adopted by two largest journalist associations in Serbia. The other important thing would be for media to oblige themselves not to take part in smear campaigns and hate speech against other media.

We are in a situation when it is necessary, along with providing transparency, to additionally protect commercial media, not for their own sake or the sake of their owners, but because of the purpose they have in a democratic society, in order to guarantee the pluralism of media sources.

First of all, there is too much commercial media, which makes it difficult for them to survive solely on marketing principles. Countries with significantly more developed advertising market do not have five national commercial radio and television networks. In addition, there are numerous regional networks and even more local stations. The result is market conditions which do not guarantee self-sustainability and commercial media prone to unprincipled influence by financial powers. We have been pointing this out even before the latest cycle of frequency distribution which started two years ago.

What else should be done? Further obstruction of media reforms must be prevented. Privatization of non-privatized media should be carried out fully as soon as possible. Conditions under which commercial media can apply for financing from the budget should be regulated in order to prevent discrimination and provide editorial independence. When you have a high percentage of paid subscriptions to Radio Television Serbia, conditions for advertising with the public service should be made additionally stricter. By directing a major part of the marketing budget to commercial media, they would be able to support themselves more and, thus, resist pressures from political and financial powers.

Two months ago we witnessed the broadcast media being accused of bias and lack of patriotism due to a different use of terms. There were media who used terms "hooligans" and "bullies", and those who used the term "troublemakers". The mere interpretation of these terms does not indicate the vastness of irreconcilable differences between the media. The interpretation was used only as an excuse for deeper hostility and single-mindedness. Politicians use media to get across what they cannot in direct communication with citizens.

In that sense, the "cursed" media become useful tool for uncovering the enemies. When media take part in such games, it is the most obvious sign of deep social and political crisis which can cause much more tragic and dangerous consequences than mere concern and fear of journalists and editors of certain media for their safety.