The Serbian Anti-Monopoly Commission confirmed that it approved Telekom Serbia’s takeover of the Kurir portal, tabloid and TV, or more precisely, businessman Igor Zezelj’s company Mondo, which publishes several media, making it state-owned officially as allowed by amendments to media laws adopted in 2023.
The front page of the tabloid a day after the Commission gave its approval for the takeover said: “It’s wonderful to hear this wise man! I wish there were more leaders like him, I believe in him!” Everyone is talking about President Vučić, who amazed the world in an interview for American television!”
“The Commission for the Protection of Competition received the notification of market concentration between Telekom Srbija a.d. and Mondo INC, which it approved in accordance with the Law on Protection of Competition,” the Commission stated in its response to the Raskrikavanje portal.
Thus, the Commission confirmed to the portal Raskrikavanje a deal that was exposed five years earlier. Investigative journalists had discovered — and Marinika Tepić publicly showed on camera — a contract from 2018 in which Telekom committed to invest as much as 38 million euros into Igor Žeželj’s parent company Wireless Media, or more precisely, its subsidiary Mondo.
Žeželj soon after acquired Adria Media Group, becoming the owner of one of the most circulated tabloids — Kurir.
“So, the SNS-run Telekom provided him with our money to buy Kurir,” Tepić said back in 2020.
That contract was signed just a year after Aleksandar Rodić publicly apologized to Serbia in an article where he admitted that media in Serbia are not free, that censorship exists, and that he himself took part in what he called a “project of beautifying reality.” But Rodić would soon be out of the picture, and Kurir would continue beautifying reality.
“At that time, the law did not allow the state to own media. Through strange transformations and bad contracts, it became questionable whether money from Telekom was used to buy Kurir. After that, the editorial policy completely changed, and we got the Kurir we have today. Now the state will literally have its own media outlet to push whatever message it wants. It already did, obviously — it just wasn’t formalized,” said BIRN journalist Radmilo Marković.
But why would Telekom even want a media outlet that already played by the state’s rules?
“They don’t need Kurir, but maybe it’s necessary to send out new money from Telekom for a new purchase — this time a formal one — of Kurir, i.e., Mondo,” the journalist noted.
As long as the wheel keeps turning and individuals continue enriching themselves with taxpayers’ money. Former REM (Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media) member Judita Popović, entirely unsurprised, claims there doesn’t even need to be a rational reason for the state-run Telekom to buy the already-tamed Kurir.
“The media are definitely in the hands of one regime and one center of power. What just happened doesn’t really change anything, because I think the circle was closed long ago when it comes to media. We haven’t yet identified complete media darkness — but we’re well on our way to it,” said former REM member Judita Popović.
But not if you ask Kurir’s soon-to-be new boss. On Friday, Vladimir Lučić appeared as an exclusive guest on Kurir TV and, like in every other opportunity in the past month, used the occasion to attack United Media. Yet, no one exclusively asked him how much it costs when the state exclusively takes over Kurir.
Source: N1
