A RADIO THAT WILL DIE BY ITS OWN HAND

AIM ZAGREB, December 2, 1998

Two years after large-scale demonstrations of support to Radio 101, this station started collapsing from within. The conflict between leading journalists and the recently appointed new management, with whose work journalists were dissatisfied, has suddenly escalated and reached the air so that many listeners of the popular "Hundred-and-one" have become witnesses of the growing problems of this station which were pushed to the background during its struggle for allocation of a frequency. Radio 101 was allocated frequency and signed a five-year contract with the Ministry of Maritime Transport and Communications, but problems with property relations, disastrous financial situation, extremely large personnel and paper work, as well as other problems besetting all registered firms in Croatia, remained unresolved. According to journalists, after five months, the new Radio management has achieved nothing. The finances proved to be the gravest problem and triggered a crisis. The direct cause of the journalists' strike was a six-month delay in the payment of wages and fees. Naturally, the real reasons lie much deeper and everything assumed catastrophic proportions when top journalists and editors, primarily of the political and cultural editorial offices, resigned.

Until recently Radio 101 was the most listened to Zagreb radio station and a rare one which had its own information programme which broadcast relevant news. In other words, the radio had a programme that was not influenced by the ruling party, which is a rarity in Croatia where over 120 radio stations currently operate. Attempts at disciplining Radio 101 started five years ago when, under circumstances which are still unclear, Miroslav Ciro Blazevic, selector of the Croatian football national team, and Stjepan Braco Tudjman, President's younger son, became its owners. The Radio managed to get rid of these owners, as well as its management, which was running it at that time. Zrinka Vrabec Mojzes, Silvestar Vrbanac and Dario Dusper became new members of the Management Board of the 101 and remained in charge until this summer, i.e. during its hardest times. However, as long as they had a clearly set objective - resolution of relations with the Ministry of Communications and signing of a Contract on radio licence - other problems were pushed to the sidelines, and although they were much discussed at the Radio itself, it was to no avail, as it is evident today.

How some people became owners of the Radio is still unclear. Namely, some 25 percent is in the hands of the City of Zagreb, while the remaining 75 percent is equally shared by 20 people. According to a decision of the Municipal Assembly adopted in early 1996, when the opposition was in power in Zagreb, everyone who worked for the Radio for more than five years was to become its co-owner. Until today, 76 potential owners have been registered, but despite a relatively simple procedure for the acquisition of shareholding rights, not one has managed to exercise that right. Among them is also Tamara Novak Pavlica, who was this July elected member of the Radio 101 Management Board, when Zrinka Vrabec Mojzes and Silvestar Vrbanac were relieved of duty. Dissatisfied with their work, some twenty co-owners took a vote of no-confidence, while the third member of the Management, Dario Dusper, in charge of the finances, was saved by a tied vote.

One of the major problems lies in the fact that Radio 101 has no editor-in-chief, director and financial director, but only a Management Board which should consist of three members, each in charge of one part of the firm's operations. The reason for such a situation is that the Radio has not yet adjusted its work to the Law on Public Information so that the journalists complain that they are not sure whether they, or anyone else for that matter, is responsible for the work of the Radio and its programme. However, it turned out that that is not the only thing that the journalists may be cheated on. At the mentioned session this July, when the old management was replaced, the journalists, despite the promises made to them, did not get their representative in the new management.

Two trade union organisations are active on Radio 101 - the trade union of journalists and the trade union of workers in radio-broadcasting organisations, each with an equal number of shareholders among the mentioned 20 Radio owners. Before the mentioned session, an agreement was reached for the person in charge of the programme to be nominated by the journalists' trade union and the official in charge of business by the other trade union organisation, while the appointment of the financial manager would be resolved by compromise. The journalists voted in favour of the proposal of the other trade union organisation, but the latter trade union did not support the journalists' proposal. After the session the old financial manager remained in position, and the second member of the management was the only one elected - Tamara Novak Pavlica. Although the Radio can work even with the incomplete management, for the third time in a row, the journalists have been deprived of the possibility to have a say in the design of the programme and in the work of the entire organisation, which was headed for both financial, as well as programme disaster.

In mid November, the Journalists' Trade Union went on a one-day strike while at the same time 37 Radio employees signed a public statement expressing their dissatisfaction with the way the Radio was being run and drawing attention to some events which were unbefitting a media that liked to call itself democratic and open. Apart from the unrealised distribution of right to ownership share. which was prepared by a team of seven lawyers and five public notaries, it warned that out of three members of the Supervisory Board two had resigned and that Radio had neither the Statute nor an editor-in-chief. That is what they saw as the reason for the incomplete programme. It further stated that there was no collective agreement, nor any specific plan for the resolution of financial problems. Such a situation was made even worse by national disagreements and accusations that a Serbian lobby (that was the epithet used to label one of the most popular shows "Week Report") was active on the Radio, while Zinka Bardic one of the three editors of the "Week" was threatened by physical assault.

The one-day strike went on, fueled both by the present as well as the former management. Journalists made it known that the management had said that all the malcontents could leave the Radio and since these included a few of the founders of the Radio some fifteen years ago, it became obvious that a quick solution to this problem would not be easy to find. The report on the conflict was broadcast and after that was presented in daily and weekly papers. After some journalists disclosed what was happening in the Radio, the management sacked them and threatened to sue those who had signed the statement. Those few sponsors who regularly paid for their advertisements cancelled their orders, journalists started packing, some went on a sick leave or holidays, others even resigned.

Although those who stayed behind are trying to maintain the quality of the programme, the Radio is not the same old one, which is best attested to by the statistical data on the number of listeners. And, instead of continuing its development, which it started some fifteen years ago, as an open, uncompromising media which employed people who knew what they wanted, the Radio started falling apart from within. What Ivan Pasalic, President's adviser and member of the Telecommunication Council, failed to accomplish two years ago, was achieved by those in charge of running the Radio now. An atmosphere marked by internal skirmishes, bad management and newly journalist stars is not one in which anyone would want to work, let alone without pay. It is highly unlikely that a loan of DEM 100 thousand, wheedled out of the Zagreb Mayoress, Marina Matulovic Dropulic, will cool down the tempers and whether the 101 is capable of returning to the old ways will be seen in a few months, when this loan falls due. However, the saddest thing is that now that independent papers are having problems with collecting money for their sold out issues, which brings into question their very survival, the only good Zagreb radio station, became just one of the many stations which the Croatian authorities boast of when refuting foreign objections concerning the denial of the freedom of the press. For, this is not the matter of quantity, but of quality, which is declining rapidly.

MILIVOJ DILAS