United Media has issued a response to the accusations made against it by Telekom Srbija and Supernova in what has been described as a ‘cable war’.
Published by United Media’s N1 TV site and provided to Broadband TV News, it says it has “full trust in the rule of law, independence and autonomy of the institutions and equal treatment of all players in Serbia’s market.”
The dispute over the distribution of United Media’s channels has seen Telekom Srbija and Supernova call on the Competition for Protection of Competition to bring in a temporary measure. However, “United Media and (its parent company) the United Group as a whole have previous experience with proceedings before the Commission for Protection of Competition, and thus except that in case of launching any kind of procedure, we will be able to represent our legitimate interests in an appropriate court proceeding in the same way as other companies in the Republic of Serbia.”
United Media goes on to discuss its previous dealings with the Commission, including one in which it was allowed to take over the operator Ikom only after the imposition of strict conditions. This was in contrast to Telekom Srbija’s acquisition of several operators, approved “without any conditions and opposite to own practice in the past.” It concludes by saying: “The European Commission in its 2019 report for Serbia, in part dealing with competitiveness, has noted that the privileged position of the state operator has not contributed to achieving the goals of the competitiveness policy, neither it has been adjusted to the European Union’s regulations.
“United Media says it has full trust in the rule of law, independence and autonomy of the institutions and equal treatment of all players in Serbia’s market.”
In another statement looking specifically at the dispute, United Media said: “The citizens of Serbia should know that we never received an offer from Telekom Srbija to distribute their programmes such as Arena Sport, maybe because as a state company they are banned by law from owning a media outlet. We are calling the Telekom management to start negotiations in a serious and transparent manner on a comprehensive process to create equal market conditions for all operators and open the telecommunications market in Serbia for all participants under equal conditions and in line with the law”.
