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MONTPRES

Association of Independent Print Media in Montenegro

• BACKGROUND

Apart from the state-owned television and radio and the daily POBJEDA, there is a small, but very effective group of independent and private print media in Montenegro: independent daily VIJESTI, weekly MONITOR, weekly ONOGOST, biweeklies KRONIKA (in Albanian), and monthly reviews GRAFITI, POLJA and ZID. Among these printed media, the daily VIJESTI and weekly MONITOR have the biggest influence. Our satisfaction is even greater because the success is achieved in a professional manner and our daily attained the image of trusted and objective media. Regional publications ONOGOST and POLJE (covering Northern Montenegro) are also of the great importance for the developing of the democratic process in the country, as well as biweekly in Albanian KRONIKA, whose significance for developing a multiethnic society is enormous. Influence of the two youth magazines - GRAFITI and ZID - who give an insight in Montenegrin reality in a distinguished and satirical manner, is notable.

• PROBLEMS

Our problems in Montenegro are generally financial. Montenegro is a poor market and economy is mostly controlled by the state. Thus, it is almost impossible to develop the advertising section of media and obtain indispensable funds for the regular financing of the project. Unlike countries with the privatized economies, free and developed markets, where newspapers get 70 or 80 percents of the revenue from advertising and only 20 percents from sales, we have a reversed relation, so that our income form advertising makes only 15-20 percents of revenue. Another problem is the unfair practice of the actual authorities, which subsidise the dumping price of the state printing media. 

One of the biggest problems for all the printed media here is how to provide enough supply of the newsprint.

Recently, price of newsprint, which we purchased in Russia, increased from 940 DM to 1100 DEM per ton.

Apart from that, the latest problem which seriously brings into question the survival of the independent printed media here is the pricing of the newspaper and advertising after the introduction of the dual currency system in Montenegro. In October last year, when Deutsche Mark was legalized as an official currency along the Dinar, state papers formed new prices of its issues as well as its advertising services, which were significantly under the market prices. Having huge subsidies from the governments' budget dailies POBJEDA and DAN lowered their prices to 30 pfenigs, which was under the price counted in Dinars at the time, which was around 38 pfenigs. The same was done with advertising prices, which are lowered to a symbolic amount. This forced the independent media, primarily VIJESTI and MONITOR to adapt their prices. For example, VIJESTI put the its price of 35 pfenigs per copy, but few days later, after numerous protest of its readers whose main argument was that POBJEDA and DAN cost 30 pfenings, it had to lower its price to the same amount. Similar thing happened with MONITOR - it started with 1.5 DM only to return to 1.2 DM per copy. A monopoly position of the state media is allowed by state subsidies that are, for example, given to POBJEDA in the amount of 4.230.000 DM for this year! This does not include additional investment in equipment (for POBJEDA's new printing plant the Government nominated an extra 3.000.000 DM). 

Ironically, the Government of Montenegro has lately appeared as an applicant on behalf of all state media before the international organizations, thus state media increasingly becoming beneficiaries of the kind of aid reserved so far for the independent media. The biggest foreign investment will be directed towards the state media with regard to extending the network of links and transmitters throughout Montenegro, in order to cover a good part of Serbia, which will all be used by the state TV. This kind of treatment by the state as well as the most powerful international organizations, puts independent media in a critical situation, left to itself and cruel lows of the market here, where none of them can be self-financed.

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P.O. Box, CH-8031 Zürich, Switzerland
Phone +41-1-272 46 37,  Fax +41-1-272 46 82, email: info@MEDIENHILFE.ch