The United Group which owns the SBB cable operator has said on Monday it has rejected to take part in the competition for the distribution of the state RTS television programmes because it was illegal and against the policy of any public broadcaster whose content should be available to a broad audience.

The Group’s statement added that it had a partnership with the RTS for years and that so far it had distributed its channels on all Group’s platforms.

Unfortunately, the Group has said, this year the RTS has offered a ten times higher fee for rebroadcasting its programmes abroad than the Group has been paying so far and a 27 times higher than an average cost the state TVs pay for the same service.

“We have always been guided by the principles that the public broadcaster has to be available to everyone. Its purpose should be to spread the national culture, language, tradition and interests to its citizens, as well as to Serbia’s diaspora,” the United Group’s statement said.

It added that the Group supported “the RTS to charge for the rebroadcast of its programmes outside Serbia. We have been paying the fee for all these years, but a reasonable fee, in line with the prices of other European TVs and with a possibility of watching them on all platforms.”

“We have offered them even three times higher fee, but they have never answered,” the statement said.

It added that the Group had notified all relevant institution about the illegality of the competition.

“We have never asked, nor did we have any exclusivity for airing the RTS,” the statement said.

“We fear that the establishment of a business model according to which a third party, local or foreign, and not the RTS, has an exclusive right to something which is of general interest to Serbia’s citizens, seriously endangers the public interest of our country,” it added.

The statement recalled that the RTS demanded an additional fee for broadcasting its channels on the EON platform and the use of programme backward possibility what was also not in line with the world’s practice and the United Group did not pay for that service to any channel additionally.

“Those are ways of watching TV programmes and are a standard part of the agreements with all channels. It includes internet, watching on multiple devices as well as after the broadcast,” the United Group statement said.

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