Aleksandra Krstic, associate professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences (FPN), stated that they are procrastinating with the assignment of the fifth frequency.
„The national frequency is a public good, and the owner of the TV is not the owner of the frequency, but has it for a certain number of years. The frequencies are at the disposal of the citizens, and REM must take this into account when deciding. It’s crucial that media pluralism is respected. It bothers me that it is not clear here how and whether REM did an analysis of why it announced a competition for only four frequencies,“ says Krstic.
A former member of the REM Council, Slobodan Cvejic, said it is disputable that the competition for the fifth frequency was not opened and that it is not clear why REM did not do that. He said that while he was in the Council, he mentioned that question, but that he did not get an adequate answer as to why it did not happen earlier, as if the fifth frequency died a natural death.
“We expect the REM to work transparently, and when announcing the competition, there was no reason why the fifth frequency has not been reopened. The REM Council pursues a certain policy in the field of electronic media, but they are expected to work transparently. We may see the reasons for this only when the minutes from the session at which the decision on announcing the competition was made are adopted at the next session of the REM Council,” Cvejic pointed out.
He stated that when making decisions on the allocation of frequencies, the previous business and the ethics of the content that was broadcast are considered.
