Ownership Changes Unsettle Serbia’s Critical Media Ahead of Elections

Branislav Sovljanski said he had yet to receive a call from his news channel’s new owners telling him to pull this or that story, invite or deinvite a certain guest. He expressed hope it would remain that way. Three months after a change of ownership at Adria News Network, ANN, which owns the Serbian N1 news channel where Sovljanski is director of news, journalists are holding their breath. Broadcasters N1 and Nova S, the news website Nova.rs, daily newspaper Danas and weekly Radar have long been a collective thorn in the side of Serbia’s government, alone in criticising the country’s democratic backsliding under President Aleksandar Vucic and the ruling Progressive Party, SNS, since they first came to power in 2012. On May 29, when it was announced that United Group would sell Adria News S.à r.l - the Luxembourg–based company under which Adria News Network operates – to Alpac Capital, it sent shockwaves through part of Serbian society, amid fevered speculation that Vucic would call elections for the autumn. He subsequently did, setting the date for October 25. Alpac Capital, a Portuguese investment fund, previously bought pan-European broadcaster Euronews in 2022; subsequent reporting by Le Monde and Hungarian investigative media Direkt36, revealed that the acquisition was heavily financed by Hungarian state capital and companies close to the powerful propaganda apparatus of then Prime Minister Viktor Orban. In Serbia, there are already signs of a shift.