TV must grow to become viable.

Serbia has been making slow progress in the E.U. statehood process, and this slowness is mirrored in the television industry, particularly with regard to broadcasting law. The Serbian Broadcasting Act was adopted in 2002, but full implementation has yet to happen.

Last year, following the lodging of many complaints (some disputes have not yet been settled), six nationwide broadcasting licenses were finally granted, in addition to six TV frequencies for metropolitan Belgrade (the capital city with a population of 2.5 million). This past summer, more than 20 regional licenses were also granted, which would indicate some progress if it weren't for the 148 awards still pending, and more than double that number of applications submitted.

The latest efforts to apply order to the Serbian TV sector come in the form of the General Binding Rules recently published by the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RBA) on the behavior of broadcasters in relation to their programming content.

From now on all programming that includes violence and "harder" erotic scenes can be broadcast only in late evening hours. For now, the RBA Council--whose members are, according to law, motivated by "knowledge and conscientiousness"--represent an independent body and take every opportunity to emphasize their independence.

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However, one cannot help but notice how some decisions made by the Council bear close relation to the wishes of certain politicians--members of the former and current governments.

In the past year, three of Serbia's broadcasting organizations--public broadcaster RTS, privately-owned TV PINK and TV B92--managed to establish themselves as market leaders. Only seven years ago, there was a tremendous difference in their programming concepts--RTS was under the direct sponsorship of late dictator Slobodan Milosevic's family, and was the main support of their propaganda machinery. TV Pink had the approval of the former regime since it did not engage in politics and broadcast frivolous entertainment content. TV B92 represented an urban guerrilla directly confronting the regime. Today, they have begun to closely resemble one another by airing similar genres and formats.

RTS and TV PINK vie for the highest-rated channel position on an almost daily basis, with a total audience share of 40-50 percent. TV B92 takes third place, with an audience share of eight-to-10 percent.

The ratings of other broadcasters are so low they are symbolic--some of them even on the level of statistical error. At the moment, it seems that TV FOX is the only up-and-coming commercial TV channel with the potential to join the three leading broadcasters, providing that it successfully gets through its growing pains. Serbians have a good appetite for cable television content, and broadcasters from Croatia and Hungary have found loyal audiences in Belgrade, particularly in the province of Vojvodina.

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Aside from news, the TV genre that attracts the most viewers is formats, such as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Big Brother, followed by countless variations of reality shows. Series in Serbian (or Croatian or Bosnian) are usually hits with audiences, whether they are produced in Serbia or in the other former Yugoslav Republics. Current production cannot meet the market requirements, so TV series from the 1970s and 1980s are repeated, and despite the fact that these series are, in some cases, being repeated for the 100th time their ratings are still considerably high.

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In Serbia, production is hindered by high costs and the unwillingness on the part of broadcasters to take risks and experiment with new ideas. Regardless, there is some production going on, albeit at a lower level than reached in the former Yugoslavia.

There is no hard data regarding how much revenue is generated by Serbian broadcasting, but it's been estimated that it reaches somewhere between 120 and 150 million euros ($U.S. 165-207 million) per year. That amount is bound to increase due to the improvement of media-related regulations and the reorganization of the broadcasting industry. However, the amount is far from impressive when compared to, for example, neighboring Croatia, which has only 60 percent of the population of Serbia (7.5 million) but a TV ad pie that is three times as large.

The revenue generated by the Serbian TV industry is certainly not sufficient to support its 200 TV stations. Plus, the transition from analog to digital broadcasting and IPTV is not far away, which will add more challenges to the current ones. When technology forces its changes, the industry will face a game with a new set of rules, without ever having dealt with the old ones.

Rastislav Durman is a writer, TV director, producer and founder of Media Art Service International, a company involved in media publishing, media consulting and radio and TV Production. He is editor-in-chief of LINK (a magazine for media professionals, which has a presence in countries of former Yugoslavia) and executive editor of DISCOP LINK.