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Over 80 participants from the NGO-sector, state institutions, national agencies and other local stakeholders have been participating in public meetings, organised by the Macedonian Broadcasting Council (BC), whose aim is to draft the new five-year National Strategy for Development of the Broadcasting Sector for the period 2013-2017. One of the main tasks of the new strategy is to identify the regulatory directions of the new Law on Audiovisual Services as well as to identify the shortcomings and gaps in the existing legislative acts that indirectly regulate the media sector, like protection of...

In her regular report to the OSCE Permanent Council on 21 June 2012 the themes highlighted by OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović were Internet regulation and journalists’ safety. The report covers the period from 29 March to 21 June 2012. “A global struggle for control of the Internet is under way,” Mijatović told the council, which is the governing body of the organization. “There are competing views about rights, freedoms, security and regulations online. The discussions of freedoms and rights and the discussions around security often appear to be running on parallel...

The Stabilisation and Association Council set up between the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the EU (SA Council) held its ninth meeting on 24 July 2012. The EU Commissioner responsible, Štefan Füle, thought the meeting had been a useful opportunity to review the progress of the accession process, including the priority areas under the High Level Accession Dialogue (HLAD). He welcomed the report prepared and adopted by the government, taking stock of the implementation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement. Based on this initial report, various recommendations could be developed for future...

With the analogue switch off deadline set for 1 June 2013 the Macedonian authorities have a quite challenging task to reform the legislative framework, which shall allow smooth transition from analogue into digital broadcasting without endangering media pluralism. The latest amendments to the Law on Electronic Communication proposed by the Government set out rules which will allow the transmission of TV channels by a multiplex (MUX) operator under principles regulated by law. The existing Law on Broadcasting and the Law on Electronic Communications proved to be a very rigid piece of legislation,...

The Macedonian Parliament amended the Law on Broadcasting in order to ensure a stable financing of the Public Broadcasting Service, Macedonian Radio and Television (MRT), which has been suffering from underfunding for years. The amendments proposed by the Government envisage an increase of the broadcasting fee from MKD 120 per month (EUR 2) to MKD 190 (EUR 3). Another measure planned in the Government’s proposal is an increase of the advertising limits for the PBS from 4 to 12 minutes per real programme hour including the prime time, which was until now reserved only for advertising broadcast by...