Wasting No Time, Serb Authorities Send a Message…With the Police

Less than a week after the Serbian Broadcasting Authority announced the winners of national TV and radio licenses, BK TV – one of the losers – was shut down by police.

The stations’ license was suspended, according VOA News, AP and Southeast European Times, for 30 days on charges of biased news reporting and failure to disclose financial information. Station owner Bogoljub Karic founded BK TV as the first private television channel in Serbia with notable assistance from the late Slobodan Milosevic. Karic became quite wealthy from the success of BK TV as well as other telecom ventures. After the late Mr. Milosevic removed to The Hague, Mr. Karic rearranged many of his associations but battled continuously with authority, eventually forming his own political party.

The Serb authorities charge BK TV with being a mouth-piece for Mr. Karic, who nobody can seem to locate, and being critical of the current government. Journalist organizations, including the highly respected Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), do not like this at all, even if they are not necessarily fans of Mr. Karic. “The suspension of a broadcast license on the grounds of such criticism is unacceptable and is seen as a serious attack on freedom of expression in this country,” said ANEM in a statement.

Immediately after the new television franchises were announced, BK TV not one of them, US Ambassador to Serbia and Montenegro Michael Plotz made a glowing statement about investing in Serbia, openness, seriousness, transparency, all in the context of News Corporation’s Fox Television receiving one of the new licenses. BK TV had been airing VOA TV news programs. Now the VOA programs are in limbo. Maybe Amb. Poltz sees no difference between VOA and Fox Television.

No company – media or the other world - with the predisposition to invest in developing regions acts without some understanding of uncertainty. Shareholders – generally – build some degree of risk assessment into their investments. What no shareholder tolerates, however, is even a reasonable risk of capricious and arbitrary acts of a government. Settling political scores through regulatory agencies is the one, absolute intolerable. - April 28, 2006

Keywords:media in Serbia,News Corporation

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