UNMIK on Air

Strpce Multiethnic TV Station

By Andrea Saula

 

SLUG: This week, a private TV Station was officially launched in the multiethnic Municipality of Strpce. Broadcasting programmes in Serbian and Albanian, this locally oriented project is still in its infancy, but the future this Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe [OSCE] venture is in question as the funding is due to run out in August.

 

Hello and welcome. This is UNMIK on Air programme,

 

“Dobro vece, pratite vesti”, “Mirembrema, po japim lajmet”…one can hardly hear both of these sentences on the same local TV channel in Kosovo.

 

But the new TV channel, TV “Hertz,” which began broadcasting on June 14th, brings together Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Albanians in a joint editorial team. TV Hertz's 12 staff members (three Kosovo Albanians and nine Kosovo Serbs) produce local news in addition to a variety live shows.

 

Igor Savic is a Serbian reporter with TV Hertz:

 

“We are currently covering local news, specifically issues that consider the people of our Municipality. We hope that in time we can expand our programme and start covering Kosovo wide issues and maybe regional issues. Currently we are producing only local news. We broadcast them four times per day and the length is 5 to 7 minutes.”

 

TV Hertz started in 2000 as a Radio Station, and in 2001 started a TV programme, mainly rebroadcasting movies and more than one foreign television series piped in from abroad.

 

Today, TV Hertz broadcasts 2 and half hours of original programming: two hours in Serbian and 30 minutes in Albanian.

 

Arta Hyseni works as Albanian reporter for TV Hertz:

“Monday to Friday we broadcast the half hour news edition of Voice of America, and every Saturday we make the news in Albanian language, which is about 25 minutes long than we broadcast another program called Objective, and later we prepare reportage.”

 

TV Hertz was a local initiative, but in November of 2003, the OSCE took interest extending to TV Hertz some 66,000 euros in financing, mainly spent on equipment, training and renting office space.

 

Dusko Zavisic is the coordinator for TV Hertz in Strpce. He says that OSCE recognized a great need for helping a project like this:

 

“The Serbian community doesn’t have enough local information here and we recognized that as a big problem. Very often local information comes via Belgrade. We are not considered and we think that Serbs but also any other minority communities should have local information produced locally.”    

          

Slavisa Staletovic is the vice president of the Strpce Municipality. Staletovic says even the local institutions supported the idea.

 

“Opening of this TV station helped people in the Municipality of Strpce to get better informed. Before we didn’t have any local TV station. We had couple of Radio Station but I think that people are more used to watching TV.”

                

The OSCE has agreed to provide salaries for the staff until the TV station becomes capable of sustaining itself financially.

 

But the question remains: is the station going to be capable of earning enough?

 

Igor Savic hopes that sponsors could be found: 

 

“OSCE helped us a lot. They will finance us for two more months and we hope that we’ll attract some sponsors and start to be self-financed. Currently OSCE is guarantying us some financial security. They provided us with part of the equipment, so we’ll se what to do next.”

 

OSCE representative, Dusko Zavisic, says he is aware of the fact that it is hard to find cash in a small market.

 

Zavisic sees exchanging of goods as a possible solution:

 

“We were discussing what kind of approach to have to small market like this. We think that with good advertising work and by adequate spending of resources, even in this market there is some potential. Also one should think on exchanging goods. TV Hertz will do some services for local business and they will pay also in providing some services. Like Hotels that TV Hertz advertise will provide rooms for free for their guests. Restaurants could provide catering for some events that TV Hertz organizes. We are aware that it is hard to come to concrete money and that’s why certain exchange of goods has to applied, especially in this phase when any kind of business that TV Hertz succeed to generate is more then welcome.

 

There is a hope among TV staff that OTHER international organizations will recognize the importance of local media and especially of having a multiethnic local media that is of great importance in any democratization process.

 

But the question of financial solvency is a question that will continue to have large implications as October elections are set to take place in Kosovo.

 

That is all for this edition of UNMIK on Air, thanks for listening and stay tuned as the question of financial viability in small media markets is explored in the weeks to come.