Where Facebook Rules Everything Changes

Michael Hedges May 19, 2010 Follow on Twitter

Social media platform Facebook gets considerable attention in media circles. It’s popular, very popular, as more traditional media platforms appear to suffer. That ‘digital dividend’ just keeps on giving.

More than one-third of Macedonia’s population, some 692,000 people, have Facebook pages, reported AdriTalk.com (May 10). By percentage, there are more Facebook users in Macedonia than in the other former Yugoslav countries. Poor Serbia has only 2 million Facebook users, roughly 25% of the population.

Internet penetration in Macedonia is about 55%, according to European Commission (EC) analysis, growing from 19% in 2005. It’s certainly not the highest in Europe, think of Scandinavia, but in southeast Europe the number of people accessing the internet is rather astounding. Or is it?

As with all the former Yugoslav countries, the EC and international aid agencies streamed into Macedonia during the reconstruction period. After Romania and Bulgaria joined the European Union, Macedonia was added to the hot list of potential new members. With that came more attention aimed at bringing the country up to European standards, including funding for ICT development.

With assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) wireless internet (WiFi) hot spots began to dot Macedonia’s major cities. Internet kiosks are being extended into rural areas.

Ethnic tensions may have subsided in Macedonia. Albanians, Turks, Roma and Serbs make up about one-third of the population of 2 million. Ethnic Albanian militias waged a violent insurgency through 2001, further destabilizing the country. Hate speech filled local airwaves and newspapers, which became polarized along ethnic lines. Nearly a decade later, safety and security issues complicate Macedonia’s development. Intimidation tactics – from beatings to bombings – continue to plague broadcast and print journalists.

Traditional media in Macedonia, officially released from State control, continues to lack a popular dynamic. Newspaper circulations have fallen, even with some international – and professional – investment. WAZ Group owns three titles.

Public broadcaster Macedonian Radio and Television (MRT) lived through a financial collapse in 2007 after direct government financial intervention. The public broadcasting license fee, about €55 annually, proved insufficient to support MRT once private sector television competitors became reasonably serious about their business model.

MRT offers three terrestrial television channels, one of which broadcasts in six minority languages. There are four national public radio channels. Local media watchers note a strong pro-government bias in MRT news reporting.

For a country of its size, Macedonia has plenty of radio and television stations. According to the national statistics office there are 62 radio stations and 54 television channels, including MRT channels. Local public radio stations operated by city councils largely disappeared in 2007 under a privatization scheme. There were few buyers.

Of course, it is advertising that floats private sector media in Macedonia. Figures on ad spending, as with audience and circulations, are notoriously unreliable. Ad spending in 2003, reported by EUMap, was about €20 million. According to less reliable figures, ad spending in 2007 had risen to €150 million, most of which comes from governmental agencies. Allocating that money, says local media watchers, is rife with political favoritism.

On the scene for many years, international NGO’s have kept a sharp eye out for undemocratic and anti-competitive behavior. “Some media are linked in many ways, not because of money but because the owners are friends,” said Roberto Belichanec of the Skopje-based NGO Media Development Center in a 2008 report. “We need legal provisions against such synergies.” The realities of small countries where everybody knows everybody sometime escape NGO media watchers. Of the five privately owned national television channels, three are owned by families directly related to political parties.

But political and business connections seem not to translate into sufficient financial return for Macedonia’s biggest TV operators. That has run smack into the country’s plans for digital TV – and analogue switchover – something else the European Commission watches.

The national television operators withdrew from the Boom TV digital multiplex, citing copyright concerns, reported local sources including Sitel TV (May 14), one of the television channels. “Six months of negotiating and we failed to reach an agreement,” said a statement from the four national commercial television operators. “They (Boom TV) make a profit from our programs and we do not get anything. Without our consent they are now stealing our signal. It is an act of piracy.”

To promote DVB-T development the Macedonian government licensed a multiplex operator with an explicit requirement to carry the three MRT channels and the five national private TV channels. Deep in the last century regulators passed “must carry” rules requiring cable operators to carry local television channels. Broadcasters pushed for these rules lest cable operators forget them. The digital dividend has turned that up-side-down.

Television operators in Macedonia withdrew from the Boom TV digital multiplex, citing copyright concerns, reported local sources including Sitel TV (May 14), one of the television channels. “Copyright concerns” translates to payment concerns.

Boom TV expressed surprise, claiming broadcasters had signed retransmission agreements. He said; she said. The Macedonian Broadcasting Council said if the TV operators couldn’t reach an agreement legal action would be taken and set a May 25th deadline.

Confusion reigns supreme, which brings us back to Facebook. It is possible that in Macedonia the miserable condition of traditional media along with widely available Web access is driving people to entertain and inform themselves. It’s a concept.

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