A third player going into cable television is perfectly legitimate, and the planned collaboration between Telekom and Telenor isn't at all questionable. In fact, Šolak's SBB used to have a similar business relationship with Telekom, but now they seem to mind.

The media outlets working under the umbrella of United Group – TV N1 chief among them – are proving yet again that they work solely for the economic and political interests of their owner Dragan Šolak!

The latest, and possibly best, proof of this sort of abuse of the media, as well as of the trampling of specific norms of journalism, is the aggressive campaign mounted recently by N1 against the collaboration of Telekom Srbija and Telenor. The claim that N1 has been purveying for days is that the ultimate goal is to destroy Šolak's SBB: "Telekom Srbija and Telenor have agreed to collaborate with the aim of destroying the cable operator SBB and United Media, within which the free media outlets N1 and Nova S operate," describing the collaboration as – cartel-like. In doing this, N1 has the help of several guests, who keep making more or less the same inane comments and claims about an alleged conspiracy against United Group and its very own SBB.

From now on, there will be a market triopoly

Right off the bat, two things are especially interesting here. Firstly, United Group and Dragan Šolak have demonstrated they don't respect the principles of the market and market competition. And secondly, it's beyond pretentious – not to use a harsher word here – for United Group to describe its own TV channels as "free media" no less, seeing as their treatment of the topic in question has amply shown that they couldn't be farther from any sort of freedom.

But, let's start from the beginning. Let's first look at what the market shares are in TV distribution, as well as why United Group – which SBB is part of – is opposed to any changes. At the moment, there is a duopoly in TV distribution – consumers can choose between the packages offered by Telekom (landline/mobile/internet/TV) and by SBB (landline/internet/TV). The possibility of Telenor becoming the third serious player as it expands from mobile telephony to internet and TV packages is perfectly legitimate. Moreover, the domestic market wouldn't be polarized anymore; rather, there would be a triopoly. This will quite possibly result in better TV packages and in more accessible prices. You could say that the consumers would stand to gain from all this.

What do Grand and IDJ have to say?

To be fair, Telenor would be joining the market using Telekom's technological resources, but such collaboration isn't at all questionable. What's more, we should bear in mind that SBB used to use Telekom's resources. And now it's attacking Telekom and Telenor over this. Nothing more than Šolak's double standards.

At the same time, it is clear that even N1's viewership – opposed to the current administration as it is – can see right through this media outlet's campaign.

On the other hand, N1's campaign has revealed other things as well. One of them is that one gets the impression that this media outlet's reporters are under orders to share news stories in which Telekom and Telenor are attacked on their profiles. A question poses itself whether that is one of their job duties, whether it is specified as such in their employment contracts, and whether they feel like "free journalists" in such circumstances. It would also be interesting to see what the staff at other TV channels owned by Šolak, e.g. Grand, IDJ, Pikabu, Sport Klub etc., would have to say about all this.

Kurir.rs