Hot Topic - Media in Serbia

Beware, Crusading Newspapers: Punishment Comes - September 25, 2017
The closing of a newspaper does not attract much attention these days. Economics are unforgiving, we’ve learned. And no media platform can escape. There are other pressures, equally powerful, ready to crush.

Election Campaign Antics Cross Borders, For What It’s Worth - October 17, 2016
That the news media rides on the coat-tails of startling headlines and sound bites is far from a revelation. Social media throws little snippets of color onto a revolving pallet, often revolting. Managing all this, for one purpose or another, occupies the most sacred of democratic processes, elections. Facts are transient, spin normal. To deny, disclaim, has become high art.

The Future Is At Hand – State Broadcasting Returns - May 30, 2016
Public broadcasters working under constrained independence, administrative and financial, risk default to State broadcasting. Those separated barely a generation from dogmatic control face stiff resistance to new and open practice. Authorities always prefer a pliant mouthpiece.

Market Development Struggles Between Waiting And Wanting - November 3, 2014
The health of a media market can be measured by one particular vital sign, the radio sector. Listeners are engaged by stories and songs, dialects and sounds making radio stations part of the local conversation. Reliable and accessible yet always changing radio is the perfect bridge to the new media environment. Advertisers benefit from this and, in turn, make radio broadcasting a good business. That is, in theory, the way it’s supposed to work.

Ambitious New Beginnings In Media Investment - January 9, 2014
Opportunity and cash are charting the ebb and flow of recent media transactions. With most developed markets, strategic investors are buyers and financial investors are sellers as valuations continue to rise. In developing markets, media asset values have plummeted to historic low levels, changing the equation. Speculators are having a field day.

Better Out Of Control Than Out Of Business - November 18, 2013
Self-regulation bodies that set standards in the media sphere are widely seen as good things, a mature approach to proscribing bad practices. The distasteful alternatives range from irresponsible chaos – yelling fire in a crowded theater – to legislated regulation – government censorship. The printed media has, more or less, adopted self-regulation as a means of keeping politicians out of their newsrooms while keeping a watchful eye on the politicians.

Another Big Media Company Sours On Eastern Europe - June 30, 2010
For media companies, foreign development carries risk and reward. Expansion opportunities beyond home borders advance on business models well-honed by experience. The best plans, though, can be laid to waste by changing local politics.

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Western Balkans - The Struggle For Order And Independence

ftm reporting explores media development and investment in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia / Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Albania. Emerging from conflict broadcasters, publishers and governments face ghosts of the past to forge a new future. Includes Resources, 78 pages PDF (February 2013)

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