Serbian Competition Commission Probes B92 Sale

Four years after the controversial sale of the station, the Commission for Protection of Competition says it needs to determine whether laws on competition and media concentration were broken.

The fate of the Serbia’s flagship broadcaster, B92, remains unclear after Serbia’s Commission for Protection of Competition launched a probe on Wednesday into the sale of the company in 2010.

The owners of B92 may now be forced to divide the company, divest shares or terminate the sale contract, should the Commission determine that competition law was broken.

According to the Commission, B92 increased its capital from 2006 to 2009 by issuing new shares, with the most significant issue occurring in autumn 2010, when Astonko took 85 per cent of the company.

“The change in ownership was not reported to the Commission, or examined, which is a legal obligation,” the Commission said in a statement.

In November 2010, Astonko Ltd, a Greek-Swedish joint venture, purchased 84.99 per cent of the station from former shareholders MDLF and NCA.

The B92 Trust Ltd, led by the founder managers of the company, retained 11.35 per cent of the shares and small shareholders another 3.66 per cent.

A report by Serbia’s anti-corruption council in 2011 suggested that B92 and another national broadcaster, TV Prva, have the same owner, which would violate broadcasting law Article 99, on media concentration, and competition law.

“TV Prva is a great example of how the lack of transparency of ownership, contrary to the law, allows the same owner to acquire a large number of media [outlets] with national coverage,” the report said.

The broadcasting agency, RRA, approved the sale, not revealing any information about the new owner.

Immediately after the sale, BIRN published an investigation on the controversial sale, the mass layoffs at the station and its future course in terms of programming, which all turned out to be accurate.

Following the sale, the station, once famed for its independent reporting and investigative programmes, changed direction towards more entertainment-orientated programming.

The history of B92:

B92 began life in May 1989, when Veran Matic founded Serbia’s first independent radio station, Radio B92. The target audience was intellectuals and urban youngsters opposed to the authoritarian nationalist regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

The station was banned several times, but continued broadcasting via the internet. After the regime fell in 2000, B92 extended its independent professional journalism to television. TV B92 started daily broadcasts on October 5, 2001.

The political changes in Serbia in 2000 did not mean better days for B92, however, as it now competed with a growing number of other independent media. Milosevic-era media players like TV Pink inherited nationwide frequencies and profited under the new system, while it took five years for B92 to obtain a national frequency and thus reach the rest of the country.

The high cost of producing investigative programmes and tough competition meanwhile pushed the company in a more commercial direction, prompting the decision to start broadcasting Serbian versions of Western reality and quiz shows.

Veran Matic, from the B92 Board of Directors, at first refused to make any comment on the Commission’s work. However, on Thursday, he said that the relevant authorities had approved the sale.

“What the Commission is examining now is whether, in addition to our application – which was approved by the RRA – our shareholder, the Astonko company, should also have filed an application for concentration [of ownership] with the Commission for Protection of Competition,” Matic said.

Who owns B92:

The Greek company Lake Bade along with Swedish investment fund East Capital, which already owned shares in B92, formed Astonko as a joint venture in 2010.

Astonko bought 84.99 per cent of B92 from former shareholders MDLF and NCA in 2010.

The B92 Trust, led and managed by the founders and managers of the company, retains 11.35 per cent of the shares, while small shareholders hold another 3.66 per cent.

Lake Bade’s owner is Stefanos Papadopoulos, a co-owner of TV Macedonia, which is believed to be part of the Antenna media group. This became the majority owner of former TV Fox, now called Prva Srpska Televizija, in December 2009.

Antenna is owned by Greek businessman Minos Kyriakou. Under Greek rules on media concentration, Antenna Group is not the official owner of TV Macedonia – but is managing the station, according to a report of Serbia’s Anti-corruption Council from 2011.

Serbia’s Agency for Business Registers says the board of B92 now consists of: Stefanos Papadopoulos, Georgios Xanthopoulos (also co-owner of TV Macedonia), Tim Umberger, Jacob Grapengiesser, Ivana Mikovic, Nebojsa Samardzic, and Veran Matic.

The B92 Trust, founded on February 27, 2004, has 10 members. They are listed as Tomislav Grujic, Vojkan Rados, Veran Matic, Sanda Savic, Katarina Zivanovic, Srdjan Andjelic, Milivoje Calija, Gordan Paunovic, Vladimir Jankovic and Bozidar Podunavac.
Veran Matic holds 93.484 per cent shares in B92 Trust, and the others have 0.72 per cent each.