Activity Details (ID# 1635)

Activity Synopsis

Following the recent accession of BiH to the Council of Europe, the aim of the conference was to examine broadcasting regulation and practice in BiH against the background of the main Council of Europe instruments in this field. 

The conference was efficiently organised by our partner, the CRA, and received good press coverage. The main issues addressed were the following:
The independence and functioning of the Communications Regulatory Agency (CRA), where the discussion showed that the CRA has played an important role in promoting a structured development of the broadcasting sector in BiH, and in reducing the enormous amount of “hate speech” which existed on television in the years after the war. The degree of independence of this agency is in general terms satisfactory, but it has at times been subject to pressures, in particular of a financial nature. Legislative changes might therefore be necessary to ensure better financial independence of the CRA. As regards the monitoring of the media coverage of election campaigns by the CRA, it was felt that changes to the pertinent regulations would also be beneficial, since the current system foresaw too much airtime for political parties during the campaign. Furthermore, the question of how to deal with foreign channels broadcasting into BiH during election time required special attention and cooperation among the relevant bodies in the countries concerned. Finally, it was noted that a judicial review system of the decisions of the CRA was still lacking and should therefore be established by the State.

On the question of media pluralism, it was noted that media concentration was not an issue yet in the country. On the contrary, as in many of the new democracies, the number of operators in the country was higher than what a country of the size of BiH could sustain. Foreign ownership of the media was not deemed problematic either for the time being. Nevertheless, despite this situation, it was agreed that the CRA would create a working group on media pluralism, mainly to consider issues of how to improve media quality.

As regards public service broadcasting, it was noted that the State-level law on public service broadcasting had been finalised taking into account relevant Council of Europe standards in this area (namely, the principles in Rec No. (96) 10). As regards the funding of public service broadcasters in BiH, the “confrontation” between American and European views continues in this area: the former thesis sustains that the market is distorted in BiH by the existence of 3 State-level PSBs as well as a large number of local PSBs, which besides public funding have access to advertising revenues. Mixed funding is nevertheless acceptable from a European perspective.

 

Interest was expressed in ratification of Council of Europe conventions in the broadcasting field, namely the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, and possibly the convention on the legal protection of services based on conditional access. The arguments put forward in favor of accession were legal certainty and that these instruments could be used as a basis for making improvements/supplements to existing regulations.

Conclusions were adopted at the end of the conference with highlights of the meeting (posted on web sites of the CRA: http://www.cra.ba/ and of the Media Division: http://www.humanrights.coe.int/Media/.

Future assistance activities in BiH might focus on media coverage of election campaigns, on the regulation of the cable sector, which apparently is developing a bit “chaotically”, or on the print media sector, which seems to show a lack of abidance to professional codes of practice.
 

Broadcasters, regulators, policy makers, representatives of the international community (including OHR), members of BiH Presidency, other State and entity officials and media experts 

Ms Carolyn Morrison (United Kingdom)
Dr David Ward (United Kingdom)
 

Mr Ramon Prieto Suarez, Media Division, DGII