N1 television's star reporter Hrvoje Kresic ventured to explain to the channel's viewers on Thursday why is the swift passing of a new electronic media bill - currently in the works - is in the public's best interest.
Kresic’s commentary comes days after cable television provider A1, which holds a 30 percent share of the cable television market in Croatia, announced they would stop carrying programming produced by United Media – which includes the news channel N1 and sports channels Sport Klub – on March 29, as the negotiations to extend the existing distribution contract had failed.
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“Why is passing a new law on electronic media in the public interest? So that people of Croatia could be provided with the highest possible level of pluralism in media, i.e. ways to access information that might be important for their everyday life for them to make (better informed) decisions, as well as about what has been going on for the past year or so in terms of public health and politics,” Kresic told viewers.
Croatia’s cable television market is dominated by two providers who combine to hold 90 percent share of the market. According to United Media, the other major provider, HT, had also hinted that they too might drop N1 and Sport Klub soon, which would practically remove all access to N1 for Croatian cable television subscribers.
“In order for people to have the option to choose, it is essential to create competition on the market, and it’s unclear whether this is possible at this moment, or whether this could be made even better. The current law bans vertical integration i.e. its provisions ban media companies from both producing and distributing content. This is a rarity – an exception, almost – in the EU, and this is something that, for a long time now, was supposed to get harmonized with European legislation – and it still hasn’t happened yet.”
N1 television, which also operates in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is part of the Luxembourg-based United Group, which in Croatia also owns the Telemach mobile phone network, Nova TV and Doma TV free-to-air channels. The group had announced a €100 million plan to build an ultra-fast 10Gb/s optical broadband network.
“The bill is presently in its second reading in Parliament, but the entire legislation procedure takes very long time, and it is difficult to resist the impression that – for the umpteenth time in Croatia – (someone) is looking for ways, from the political perspective, to retain certain levers of power, the levers that control the media market.”
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