SELECTIVE BANS

AIM, Skopje, May 16, 1995

About 250 different radio and tv programs are interwoven in the air above Macedonia, and just in Skopje, apart from state television, about 11 privately-owned television stations telecast, or used to telecast, their programs.

A handsome thirty-year old, J. Petrevski, a bank clerk from Skopje suburb called Karpos 3, is not even trying to hide his anger in the past few days with the "state" for it prevented him to publish his ad calling "young and attractive persons of the female sex between the age of 20 and 40 (attach a photograph) to apply for entertainment and possibility of marriage". Without warning, that same "state" abolished the portion of pornographic treats he had got used to, and by reducing the rights he had had in this way without any obvious need, put his loyalty to serious test in some future elections. Namely, not long ago Macedonian authorities, to be more precisely, the Ministry of Transport and Communications, reached a decision to "close down" TV Amazon, a Skopje studio which had become renowned in the past few months of its existence for the pornographic messages it telecast and that same genre of films, but some other privately-owned television stations, too. This wave of bans, as the official agencies are trying to make it appear, is an attempt to introduce certain order into this sphere which has, to be perfectly honest, slipped out of control. Data speak of about 250 different radio and television signals which are interwoven in the air over Macedonia, and it is in fact simply impossible to state for sure how many there actually are, but not because of the incompetence of relevant state services, but due to the simple fact that different radio and television stations are "turned on and off" practically every day.

To have one's own radio or television station has become a matter of social prestige around here, and the ease with which the newly risen businessmen invest into electronic media makes Gutenberg's great grand-children's hair stand on end. It may sound absurd, but it is much easier and cheaper to make a tv station which will telecast about twenty hours of someone else's program, most commonly rolling the long forgotten video-tapes or satellite programs stollen from world commercial stations, than publish a bulletin of a philatelic society, for instance.

On the other hand, Macedonia still does not have an adequate legal solution for this sphere, since the attempt to place broadcasting within legal landmarks failed in the last Assembly mandate. Current decisions to ban telecasting of programs of some television stations in Skopje is interpreted as a specific method of feeling the pulse before the relevant draft law is entered into parliamentary procedure. Sources close to the lawmakers suggest that, according to the future Law on Broadcasting, "Macedonian sky" is to be considered as property of national interest and corresponding concessions would have be paid for using it. The price of such a concession, in this case, channel, would amount to about 60 thousand German marks, which is, from the aspect of a close neighbour, comparatively cheap, but here it is exceptionally discouraging.

The interpretation according to which the latest decisions on closing down a part of Skopje television stations is an attempt to prepare the ground for introduction of such a solution could be considered to be well grounded, had it not been for the unintelligible criteria according to which these bans were issued. Namely, apart from the three channels of state television, neither more not less than 11 privately-owned or independent channles, as their owners like to call themselves, count on the spectators in Skopje. The first wave of bans hit ERA, BTR, Sutel and the already mentioned Amazon. The first listed station telecast its program in Albanian language, and its contents were, naturally addressed at the problems of the largest non-Macedonian ethnic community. Transmission of the daily news news program from Thirane was an inevitable part of its program. BTR and Sutel were turned towards the Romany population and, in accordance with the folklore of its consumers, completely unselective when the language and messages of the program conveyed are concerned. The last on the list, by its telecasting films which are classified with a special code even by the sworn fans of pornography, was with no doubt the cause for many sleepless nights of honest Macedonians, but at the same time, during the "decent" hours, it unsparingly exploited casettes which dealt with the life and adventures of a certain Zika and his dynasty, and carried the intoxicating sounds of Cyrillic "turbo-folk" music.

The primary sellection, regardless of what it was motivated by, started a series of perhaps unnecessary questions and enabled speculations about a highly delicate sphere. In fact, the question was put whether, in the name of order in the sphere of broadcasting, the state is actually trying to introduce order into another, the political sphere. It turned out that the prohibitted television stations are actually telecasting under the same conditions as the programs of others are viewed. Due to the lack of a relevant law, they are all operating in a void space in the legal sense, but some are allowed to work, and the others are not. The issue of language, actually the fact that their programs are not translated which was discreetly implied in some "interpretations", sounds quite curious because state television also has segments of program lasting a few hours in which, proportionally to the share in the total population, Albanian, Turkish, Romany and Serbian are spoken. Having become aware, although too late indeed, that their decision offered possibilities of various speculations (or perhaps not speculations at all), competent state agencies issued subsequently identical decisions of banishment to two pro-Macedonian television stations - MC and RTA (although in the beginning, they too relied on Serbo-Croat or Croatian-Serbian transmitters of sound and picture), showing that they really do not know what they want, but that they want it now.

At first sight it seems that the "state" does not have the courage to strike a blow at the most powerful Skopje television stations. The largest and the most influential independent television A1 remained untouched by the ban. On the one hand, thanks to the unconcealed financial support of the Soros Foundation, and undoubtedly great personnel potentials and modern editorial policy on the other, this studio is a very serious competition to the state network. TV Sitel was not touched either, which is property of the powerful financial magnate, Ljubisav Ivanov, governor of the Kratovo district and an everlasting deputy in the Assembly, and neither was KRT affected, the party television of the most powerful opposition VMRO-DPMNE, nor NOMA, the youngest child in the family of the newspaper publishing company chain of Nova Makedonija. All things considered, nevertheless, this is not a matter of fear but of a tactical move which the competent state agencies have made in order to carry out their intent as painlessly as possible. Had they, for instance, reached a decision which would bring all television stations into the same situation, they would have created a monolithic front with the, at this moment, protected, but at the same time the most influential tv stations at its head. It is a question whether with such a relation of forces any draft law at all could ever be adopted, because after all, it would mean limitation of certain obviously democratic and even civilization achievements.

Budo Vukobrat