Radio-television of Serbia has announced a competition for general director. Under the administration of Dragan Bujošević, the opposition criticized RTS for being the mouthpiece of progressives, and Aleksandar Vučić was furious at any sign of disobedience. The battle for the independence of the Public Service is now entering a new phase
Radio and Television of Serbia announced a competition for the appointment of a new one general manager, which was published on the RTS website and in the daily Politika.
The conditions of the competition are that the candidate is a citizen of Serbia and has a residence in its territory, a university degree and at least 10 years of work experience in managerial programming or jobs with media service providers of radio and television, or in managerial jobs in other areas that are important for the work of a public media service.
Along with documents confirming this, the candidate should submit a signed statement that he is not a holder of a public office or a position in a political party, proof that he has not been convicted and that no criminal proceedings are being conducted against him, as well as the work and management program of RTS for the period of appointment.
The term of office of the general director is five years and one person can be appointed a maximum of two times. A person who cannot be a member of the Board of Directors cannot be appointed, except for employees of media service providers. The deadline for registering candidates is 30 days from the date of publication of the public competition in the “Official Gazette”, a daily newspaper and on the RTS website.
The Board of Directors of the RTS Public Media Institution will appoint a general director within 45 days of the opening of applications for the competition. Candidates will be notified of the results of the public competition within eight days of the decision on the selection.
The current director Dragan Bujošević’s second five-year term expires in February 2026, and he no longer has the right to be elected to that position.
Fierce criticism of the opposition, students and part of the employees
Under the management of Dragan Bujošević, RTS came under sharp criticism from opposition parties, students who have been organizing protests for a year, and journalists who claim that the public service no longer serves the public, but has been turned into a propaganda outlet of the ruling structure.
Opposition parties have long pointed out that RTS is not a “public service” in the full sense, but that in a large part of its broadcasts it serves the interests of the ruling party and Aleksandar Vučić. Analysis by independent organizations indicates that RTS does not adequately cover protests and critical public debate.
At the protests that were organized two years ago, Bujošević was told that “RTS should stop being the service of Aleksandar Vučić and open its doors to those who think differently from him.”
The most radical at the time was the MP of the Ecological Uprising, Aleksandar Jovanović Ćuta, who warned the RTS leadership “not to let things go like October 5”.
In April of this year, students organized a blockade of the RTS building in Belgrade for two weeks precisely because of the attitude that the Public Service ignores or downplays their activity and favors the government’s narrative.
The academics protested because RTS did not adequately inform the public about their demands – that it covered up, minimized or distorted events related to protests and civil discontent. Bujošević replied that the blockades of RTS were not a fight for media freedom, but an attempt to change the government.
Some of the current and former employees of RTS were against Bujošević, who assessed that the current situation in RTS is “the most shameful episode in the history” of this media company.
One of the key problems is that RTS employees claim that they do not know who edits the program, that an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship is being created.
RTS was also included in the “European Federation of Journalists” report, where it is stated that RTS journalists who opposed the editorial policy or put their signatures on open letters – “suffered discrimination, termination of engagement and professional isolation”.
The last in a series of scandals was the case of the show “Important Things”, where a part of the episode in which the girl says that she would not want to live in her town because of the bad water was cut, and before that there was a complete refusal to repeat the episode in which, among other things, it is heard that “students are fighting for justice”.
Because of this, disciplinary proceedings were initiated against Jelena Popadić Sumić, the editor of RTS’s Children’s Program.
She received support from the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) and the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS), from media experts, but also from RTS employees, colleagues who protested in front of the building in Takovska.
RTS lied that “Vreme” condemned the student blockade
In mid-April, during the blockade of RTS, in the Second Daily on the National Public Service, “Vreme” was falsely included in the list of regime media Informer, Pink, Alo, Kurir, Večernje novosti, B 92, Prva, Tanjug, Politika and Euronews, which condemned the student blockade of RTS. That’s when our newsroom reacted.
“The position of ‘Vremen’ on the media, social and political scene of Serbia was defined more than three decades ago, and nothing has changed there. The classification of ‘Vremen’ among newsrooms that, to a greater or lesser extent, by order of the authorities, target professional journalists and other critics of the regime of Aleksandar Vučić, is a malicious distortion of the meaning of the comments of the editor-in-chief of ‘Vremen’ Filip Švarm,” our editorial office said.
The most recent of countless examples of unprofessional, politically instructed work of RTS is reporting on the voting of the European Parliament’s Resolution on Serbia, which strongly criticizes the autocratic rule of Aleksandar Vučić. On the day when the resolution was agreed upon by all parties of the EP, RTS did not mention it in Dnevnik 2, the central news program, with a single word.
Source: Vreme
