(ANEM/IFEX) – The following are the conclusions and recommendations from the recently-held conference on Media for a Democratic Europe: Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) Council of Europe MEDIA FOR A DEMOCRATIC EUROPE – TRANSFORMATION OF BROADCASTERS IN FRY Belgrade, 10 – 12 December 2000 Conclusions and recommendations for public broadcasting in Serbia Radio-Television Serbia […]
(ANEM/IFEX) – The following are the conclusions and recommendations from the recently-held conference on Media for a Democratic Europe:
Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM)
Council of Europe
MEDIA FOR A DEMOCRATIC EUROPE – TRANSFORMATION OF BROADCASTERS IN FRY
Belgrade, 10 – 12 December 2000
Conclusions and recommendations for public broadcasting in Serbia
Radio-Television Serbia (RTS) should be replaced by a public service broadcaster, as defined by the Council of Europe, operating for the benefit of all the citizens of Serbia and accountable to them. This paper refers to the future public broadcaster as the Public
Broadcaster in Serbia (PBIS).
During the process of transition, it will be vital to assist those media which, during the years of RTS’s subjection to complete political control, provided citizens with objective information and analysis, free of political manipulation. These media upheld the essential values of public service broadcasting under extremely difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions. Many of these local radio and television stations are themselves public media. Appropriate legislation should be designed to regulate the status of these media.
The future public broadcaster will bear little resemblance to today’s RTS. The establishment of real public service broadcasting would be impossible without decisive and even courageous action by parliament and government. The challenges involved will only become harder to overcome with the passage of time. Hesitancy in the coming weeks would prevent success, harming the rights of the public and obstructing the normalisation of all the broadcast media. The authorities should demonstrate both leadership and vision by urgently seizing the present opportunity.
Concretely, the conference agreed on the following points:
1. Serbia needs new media legislation, in keeping with the high international standards that it is committed to respect. This legislation should establish public service broadcasting. In preparing appropriate laws, the parliament and government should co-operate with experts in the non-governmental sector. As the conference confirmed, international expertise is also available.
2. The PBIS should be established as a public corporation, accountable to the public, and enjoying both institutional autonomy and editorial independence. Various models of financing and management structure are available to ensure these principles. While participants in the conference discussed alternative models, they agreed that PSB means, in the first place, a certain kind of content, namely a comprehensive range of programming comprising information, education, culture and entertainment which is accessible to all citizens. The structure should be designed to provide such content.
3. The conference agrees that the PBIS should have a supervisory council, and possibly other supervisory bodies to be established by law. The supervisory council should appoint (and may remove) the director-general. The supervisory council should be appointed for
staggered terms. It should represent society as a whole, and not in any sense be delegated by political or other special interests. Active politicians, state officials and others should not be eligible for membership.
4. The PBIS should be funded by the public. In order to ensure adequate quality and pluralism in programming, this funding may be supplemented by advertising and sponsorship revenue, within clear and strict limitations, as well as other sources of revenue such as the sale of programmes.
5. The PBIS should be a national network. As such, it would need at least two terrestrial television and radio channels to create a viable service. The second channel of television should have substantial regional and local input, including in minority languages.
6. The PBIS should concentrate on its core role and service as a broadcaster. It should be divested of additional activities. Also, the transmission facilities should be divested into an independent company with a legal framework to ensure its best usage.
7. The conference also believes that the role of RTS during recent years should be subject to transparent examination. This examination might be conducted by an independent group of professionals or academics.
PROPOSED CONCLUSIONS (RECOMMENDATIONS) OF PANEL 1
First subsection:
– Since it is impossible to bring order into the frequency spectrum without adopting new coherent distribution and assignment plans, it is important that the competent state authority start working on it as soon as possible.
– Regional co-ordination of frequencies with neighbouring countries is necessary in order to solve existing problems.
– It is necessary to establish full technical and technological unity of transmission systems. New sets of basic technical transmission standards and technical production standards should be adopted.
– Competence for adopting frequency distribution and assignment plans should be either at the level of the federation, or at the level of republics. The present situation, where the Federation is responsible to ITU, whereas it implements its decisions only in Serbia, and where Montenegro has its own Telecommunications Act (which is about to be adopted by the Assembly of Montenegro) and Agency for Telecommunications, is not tolerable. The solution to this problem shall depend on inter-republican arrangements.
– The full transparency of the work of organs which shall pass frequency plans must be achieved. It shall also be made so that the biggest possible number of terrestrial broadcasting frequencies is available, thus observing international standards. The plan should be published in the official gazette.
– As for new technologies, legal regulations should be passed as soon as possible.
Second subsection:
– The present system of frequency allocations in Yugoslavia is inadequate, and shall therefore be completely abandoned. A new system, based on European experience, shall be created. No reform of the present system could produce the desired results.
– New regulations and a new system shall be introduced in accordance with existing European standards, whereas an independent regulatory body, which would decide upon granting licenses to broadcasters (terrestrial, cable and satellite), should be established. The regulatory body shall be fully independent from executive power and subject only to scrutiny by the courts. Its members should be prominent experts as well as representatives of civil society. State officials, officials of political parties, then owners, shareholders, managers and employees of media, either broadcasting or print ones, may not be members of the regulatory body. It should have clear criteria for granting licenses, set forth in the law on broadcasting. The work of the regulatory authority must be completely public and transparent.
– It is necessary to perform a thorough revision of all presently allocated frequencies and immediately adopt provisional solutions which shall enable an equal starting position in the new process of allocation, which shall be made according to new regulations, to all existing stations. Particularly, a full revision of contracts on co-operation made between the RTS and private boadcasters, under which RTS ceded its transmitting infrastructure to private broadcasters, shall be made.
– The basis of the new system of frequency allocation should be a transparent frequency plan, as recommended in subsection 1 conclusions.
– The new system shall differentiate the process of granting licenses to broadcasters (content criteria) from the process of licensing transmitters and links (technical criteria).
– Competence for issuing licenses by the independent regulatory body shall be at the republican level, regardless of the eventual federal competence for licensing transmitters and links.
– Fees for the use of frequencies should be legally introduced in the new system, but the amount of fees should adhere to the present economical situation. The amount of fees may depend on programme content.
The “Media for a Democratic Europe – Transformation of Broadcasters in FRY” Conference is a part of the broader project for creating a strategy of changes in the media field, where the number of experts and media associations from Yugoslavia and abroad are engaged.