REM sends N1 and Nova license requests back as incomplete
The expert service found the requests incomplete, and at the same session the Council opened two proceedings against Informer and did not adopt the campaign monitoring report.
The Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) did not decide on the requests by N1 and Nova television for a license to broadcast in Serbia, because the expert service judged them incomplete and sent them back for supplementing. The requests were on the agenda of the session held on October 6, 2026, and it is not known when the Council will take them up again.
At the same session the Council opened two proceedings against Informer television, while the report on campaign monitoring was not adopted.
Why were the N1 and Nova requests sent back?
N1’s management filed its request on Friday, October 2, without the knowledge of the newsroom and without consulting it. TV Nova’s management filed its own request the same day. N1’s newsroom found out by chance, when news director Branislav Sovljanski received a call from a person who introduced herself as a REM employee and asked him to supplement the submitted documents. The editorial team voiced concern and asked management to explain why the move was made without a single editor or journalist being told. We previously reported that Sovljanski did not know about the N1 request sent to REM.
TV Nova’s newsroom said that employees had not been informed of management’s move and that no employee’s data had been used in the application.
Council member Rodoljub Sabic spoke about it to Nova.rs:
We received the N1 and TV Nova requests today as part of the agenda. In any case, we did not make a decision on these requests because they are incomplete.
Sabic added that there are a number of problems in communication between the owners and the editorial teams at these newsrooms, and then said: “The requests are incomplete and the expert service demanded that they be supplemented. What lies behind this idea of sending requests under a veil of secrecy is for now a matter of speculation.”
What was said about Sovljanski’s ID card?
Council member Dubravka Valic Nedeljkovic recalled N1’s statement that the request was sent with misuse of Sovljanski’s ID card. Sabic specified that Sovljanski said the ID card had been used without his consent.
Council president Stevica Smederevac expressed the view that this was not forgery, and that the data had been taken from the Business Registers Agency. Valic Nedeljkovic answered him with the words “But the man did not give permission,” comparing it to her walking into a bank with someone else’s card.
Sabic: five votes to grant a license, six to revoke one
Sabic does not expect a quick decision. He explained to Nova.rs why:
These newsrooms have been under a political shadow for a long time, ever since the conversation between Sten Miller and Vladimir Lucic, when they talked about the need to meet the wishes of the former president, Aleksandar Vucic. That political shadow may even be an attack on media freedom, and for that reason I do not believe a decision on the request from the management of these newsrooms will be made at a REM session any time soon.
Five votes in the Council are needed to grant a license and six to revoke one. Sabic warned the managements about that difference: “The managements of the newsrooms must know that even if they receive a broadcasting license, for which five Council members need to vote, it can just as easily be taken away from them. Revoking a license takes six votes.”
Two proceedings against Informer
The Council decided to open two proceedings against Informer television, on complaints from Council member Rodoljub Sabic and from the Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI). It was said at the session that violations of several articles of the Law on Electronic Media had been established. President Smederevac proposed the decision with the words: “My proposal is that we make a decision to open an examination procedure against this media service provider.”
The Council also did not adopt the monitoring service’s report on the first 15-day cross-section for media service providers that were under 24-hour supervision during the election campaign. It was the first regular session of the new Council.
