Protecting professional integrity, as well as depoliticised and stable funding of public service broadcasters, is key to their quality work, was the message of the first panel „The role of public broadcasters in the contemporary media landscape” at the conference „Who has power over RTCG and to whom should it belong?“, organised today by the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) within the project „Media for Democracy: Strengthening the independence of RTCG for Montenegro’s future“, supported by the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Sunčica Bakić, Director of the Agency for Audio-Visual Media Services, pointed out the importance of assessing the quality, rather than the quantity, of media content in Montenegro. She emphasised that all segments of programming are strongly conditioned by the political context, which burdens and diminishes quality, especially when it comes to cultural and educational programming. „If you ask representatives of political structures, they will evaluate the quality of the programme through the prism of political influence and presence, that is, through how issues important to them were analysed. This is something we will not free ourselves from for a long period of time,“ Bakić stated.
She stressed that different programme types – documentary, cultural, artistic and others – have different standards and objectives, and therefore cannot be viewed as a single whole, particularly when comparing national and local broadcasters. According to her, Montenegrin society functions within a narrative that is often not genuine reality, but a construction of various media actors. „The public service must be a medium free from such a narrative – that is its essence“, Bakić said.
She also noted that expectations placed upon the regulator are often unrealistically high. „There is an expectation that one institution in the country will determine what the truth is and which narrative is acceptable, and that is not the regulator’s job,“ she explained.
In her view, public service broadcasters cannot be expected to satisfy absolutely all citizens. „A certain degree of dissatisfaction is even useful, because it encourages progress. The problem arises when the public service is ‘good’ for one group, and absolutely ‘bad’ for another. This is the key criterion for assessing whether RTCG and local broadcasters fulfil their role and respond to the public, as the law and good practice prescribe,“ Bakić concluded.
Vanja Vardjan, Director of the RTV Slovenia Academy, said that he hopes for stronger regional connections within the European Union, emphasising that public service broadcasters belong to citizens. „Public service broadcasters belong to us, to all of us who finance them – the taxpayers,“, Vardjan said, adding that they also belong to the employees who work in them.
Commenting on working conditions in public broadcasters, he stressed that independence is crucial for quality journalism. Political and other pressures, he noted, directly affect programme quality and professional integrity. He explained that in Slovenia, €14.20 per electrical connection is allocated monthly for the public service broadcaster, but that this amount is not sufficient for its stable functioning. „About 70 per cent of the funds go to salaries, and only 30 per cent to programme. The less money we have, the more dependent we are“, Vardjan said. For this reason, Slovenia is conducting an intensive debate on shifting the funding model for the public service outside the political sphere.
Speaking about the role of the RTV Slovenia Academy, Vardjan emphasised that the institution increasingly serves as a platform for exchanging good practices. „At the Academy, people learn on the basis of concrete experiences, and we recently hosted representatives of RTV Vojvodina, who wish to develop a similar model themselves,“, he said. He added that media technology and communication channels are evolving extremely fast, and thus the Academy continuously adapts to new needs, specialising in training for certain TV professions that are not included in the existing education system, as well as in language cultivation.
Neda Tadić, Director of BHT1, stated that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a specific case in both the regional and global context , and that in recent years „we have been witnessing a systematic undermining of the public service of B&H by the same state that should be protecting it“. As she explained, this process has been ongoing for a long time and has been particularly intensified in the past decade. „We are marking 80 years of existence, whilst simultaneously facing the possibility that the coming year may be the one in which the service will be shut down unless key problems are urgently resolved“, Tadić warned.
She explained that the constitutional arrangement of B&H produces an extremely complex public broadcasting model, consisting of one state-level service and two entity-level services. „The law envisaged that the RTV fee be collected in the entities and then distributed according to the 50-25-25 formula. The failure to apply this model and the withholding of funds from the fees have led BHT1 to drastically reduce staff, save on programme production and postpone the payment of bills, all in order to secure net salaries and keep the few remaining professionals,“ she said.
Despite this, she emphasised that a strong professional core still exists within BHT1, resisting political pressures and attempts at infiltration. „That is why we are a constant target of pressure, but we are fighting for survival“, Tadić stated. She added that politics directly affects the funding of the public service, both through legislation and through management boards, but that editors nevertheless manage to preserve professional autonomy.
Tadić also pointed to the departure of many professionals to private media, which further weakens the capacities of the public service, while young people show little interest in working at BHT1. „The poor financial situation has also led to programme degradation, and we are struggling to keep the audience. The news programme is perhaps the only one that still connects citizens strongly to the public service – and people recognise this as a value”, she concluded.
Iva Pavlović, Director of RTV Budva, said that it is particularly important that the voice of local public broadcasters be heard as much as possible. „When I look at the media scene, I think we are among the few who are not under the media paw of large systems,“, Pavlović stated, adding that „there are no free media, and media councils are protected like polar bears“.
She recalled that, as programme editor from 2017 to 2019, she worked under conditions of significant financial limitations and frequent changes in local government. „This is a period when you want to improve something, but it is simply not possible – neither because of debts nor due to political instability“, she said.
As an advantage of RTV Budva, Pavlović highlighted the fact that the broadcaster operates within a financially stable municipality, but warned that this can be a “double-edged sword”. She also pointed to current problems – serious technical limitations, premises in poor condition, and a lack of young staff willing to work in front of the camera. „Young people mostly choose jobs behind the camera, and it is extremely difficult to find those who want to work in front of it“, she added.
Speaking about editorial policy, Pavlović emphasised that local public broadcasters are obliged to deal with topics of local relevance, but also to convey issues of national relevance when there are clear reasons within the public sphere. „At the local level, we are obliged to address topics that are important at national level too, when there is a clear public interest“, Pavlović concluded.
Maja Marinović, Programme Associate