Cheap signal - eight local radio and TV stations for sale at auction on February 19th

Eight local radio and TV stations should become the property of private owners on February 19th. State-owned Radio and TV Valjevo, JPI Mladenovac, Radio and TV Požega, public company Barajevo, Radio Leskovac and Radio Despotovac will be offered for sale at the auction in the Privatization Agency.

It will be the third attempt of Radio Valjevo to find the new owner, but it is most likely that it will be unsuccessful because there are no interested buyers. The starting price of this media company is 5.8m RSD, with minimum investments of 403,000 RSD. In addition to the property - transmitter, apartment in Valjevo, studio, automobiles and equipment, new boss will also "inherit" 27 employees.

Also, Valjevo's TV station will, probably, stay in the state's possession until further notice. Its starting price is as low as 147,000 RSD, but the potential buyer must promise to invest minimum 1.3m RSD and repay significant debts.

Both local media are still financed from the city budget in order not to go bankrupt.

All eight media companies that the state wants to sell have total of 123 workers. When all their starting prices are summed up, we can come to the conclusion that all of them can be bought for 11m RSD. The employees in the media are warning about devalved price of media, and one of the proofs is the fact that eight radio and TV companies are offered for sale at the price of one apartment in Belgrade's center.

About 50 electronic and small number of printed media are still owned by the state. Employees in privatized companies are constantly warning that the state-owned radio and TV stations represent unfair competition. Since 2002, when the state started to sell media, 460 privatization contracts have been terminated.

Boss and butcher

People who buy local media often have nothing to do with journalism. Among them are butchers, priests, confectioners... Most of them are "fresh businessmen" and people who are willing to give money to gain media power and the opportunity to affect local community. At one of the auctions, one of state-owned TV stations was bought by a grammar school student - Miloš Bojović from Čačak.