Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is MOM?

The “Media Ownership Monitor” (MOM) has been developed as a mapping tool in order to create a publicly available, continuously updated database that lists owners of all relevant mass media outlets (press, radio, television sectors and online media). 

MOM aims to shed light on the risks to media pluralism caused by media ownership concentration (for more information: Methodology). In order to grasp the national characteristics and detect risk-enhancing or risk-reducing factors for media concentration, MOM also qualitatively assesses the market conditions and the legal environment

2. Who is behind MOM?

Since 2015, MOM has been incubated by Reporter ohne Grenzen e. V. – the German section of the international human rights organization Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF), which aims to defend freedom of the press and the right to inform and be informed anywhere in the world.

In 2019, the project was spun-off to the Global Media Registry (GMR), an independent, non-for profit social enterprise registered under German law.

In each country, MOM is implemented in cooperation with a local partner organization. In Serbia, RSF worked with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN). The project was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ).

3. Where can I download this report?

The website affords a PDF download containing all website content. The PDF is automatically generated and thus updated on a daily base. It exists for all website languages. In order to generate the PDF, scroll down to the website footer, choose your preferred language and “Download complete website as PDF”.

4. Why is transparency of media ownership important?

Media pluralism is a key aspect of democratic societies as free, independent, and diverse media reflect divergent viewpoints and allow criticism of people in power. Risks to diversity of ideas are caused by media market concentration, when only a few players exert dominant influence on public opinion and raise entrance barriers for other players and perspectives (media ownership concentration). The lack of transparency of media ownership presents the biggest obstacle in fighting concentration: How can people evaluate the reliability of information, if they don´t know who provides it? How can journalists work properly, if they don´t know who controls the company they work for? And how can media authorities address excessive media concentration, if they don´t know who is behind the media´s steering wheel?

MOM thus aims to create transparency and to answer the question “who eventually controls media content?” in order to raise public awareness, to create a fact base for advocacy to hold political and economic players accountable for the existing conditions.

As we consider ownership transparency as a crucial precondition to enforce media pluralism, we document the openness of media companies/outlets to provide information on their ownership structure. Considering their answers, we distinguish different levels of transparency – which is indicated for each media outlet and media company on their profile. 

Media owner’s motivation to remain hidden or even actively disguise their investments can vary from legitimate to illegal and be rooted in personal, legal or business-related reasons – or a mix thereof, in extreme cases even including criminal offenses like tax evasion or breaches of anti-trust laws. Some of those reasons include the following:

• In several countries, media ownership is restricted by law in order to avoid concentration. So if one individual wants to extend his or her media empire beyond these limits, proxy owners and/or shell companies registered abroad, even off-shore, are frequently being used.

• Sometimes, media owners receive personal threats or face other dangers either originating from governments or competing businesses and therefore decide to remain unknown to protect themselves.

• In many cases, media ownership is intertwined with undue political or economic interests, even more so if individuals are involved that hold a public office and who don’t want to disclose such a conflict of interests.

• In rare cases, the disguise of media ownership happens unintentionally because over time and through mergers and acquisitions, corporate structures became so complex that the original beneficial owner is difficult to identify • Last not least, there are ‘normal’ – i. e. non-media-related reasons for owners to hide, such as tax evasion.

5. What kind of concentration regulation does MOM suggest?

MOM doesn’t make normative statements – it doesn’t suggest how to control media ownership. Which form of media concentration control can work depends on the country context, the existing legal and market conditions, the ownership landscape.

MOM provides a transparency tool to enforce a democratic discussion on that issue as well as good governance: decisions are likely to be of higher quality and to better reflect the needs and wishes of the people if they have access to adequate information and broad consultations, with views and opinions freely shared.

6. How is data collected and validated?

Official data sources, and/or sources with a high level of reliability and trust are preferably used. In Serbia, that entails the Serbain Business Registry, Media Registry, etc.

Whenever not publicly available, information was directly requested from media companies and research institutes. All sources are thoroughly documented and archived in Library. Further information is available upon request at BIRN.

For TV audience data MOM cooperated with Nielsen Serbia. Nielsen globally used a
standardised and independent methodology for media consumption data based on peoplemeter research, which they sell to companies. MOM purchased data for a reduced, non-commercial price.

Audience data for Print and Radio were purchased from IPSOS Serbia. Online audience data are provided by Gemius Audience, a free online audience measuring service, which is available here. For MOM study we have used data from Gemius for March 2023.

7. How is 'most relevant media' defined?

The main question is: which media outlets influence the opinion-forming process?

In order to scan all relevant media, we included all traditional media types (Print, Radio, TV, Online).

The media were selected according to the following criteria:

  • MOM focused mostly on media with the highest reach, measured by audience share. The basis for selection was audience research data for the selected period provided by Nielsen (TV March 2022-March 2023), IPSOS (Print March 2022-March 2023 and Radio March 2022-March 2023) and Gemius (Online, March 2023).
  • News worthiness and opinion content. The study focuses on general information with a national focus. As such, media with specific thematic focus (music, sport), social networks, search engines and advertisement were excluded.
  • The selection based on these criteria initially consisted of around 10 media outlets per media type (TV, radio, print, Online). Shedding light on these most relevant media outlets already allows revealing tendencies in media concentration. More media outlets were and will be added – if they prove to be relevant in terms of their owner or of their influence on public opinion (readmore - “How are the Media Outlets selected?”).

8. How are the media outlets selected?

TV stations were selected according to their audience reach nationwide, based on Nielsen’s TV Audience Measurement (1 March 2022 – 31 March 2023), which uses electronic metering technology. The MOM Serbia sample includes the top 10 TV outlets with national frequencies, including cable channels. In Serbia there are two public service broadcasters and only four Media companies that have licenses with national frequencies.

Radio stations were selected on the basis of IPSOS Radio Audience Measurement, which lists the top 10 radio stations by average weekly listeners regardless of their geographic coverage. MOM Serbia print sample includes all national daily newspapers with informative content (8 outlets) and five weekly newspapers. Audience share was provided by IPSOS for the period of March 2022-March 2023.

For the online market, news websites were primarily looked at as they build up public opinion. Social networks, online stores and advertisement websites were excluded, as they are not relevant when it comes to the editorial content and ownership. Online audience measurement was provided by Gemius Audience that measures online audience, which is available here. Gemius provides audience measurements in the
number of visits, real users and pageviews.

9. Why Serbia?

In 2023 Serbia ranked the 91st out of 180 countries in the 2023’s World Press Freedom Index published by Reporter without Borders, which ranks nations on indicators such as media independence, self-censorship, rule of law, transparency, and abuses.

This result points to the problems that Serbia is facing related to press freedom, which include a problematic relation to media pluralism, media independence, and transparency. It highlights Serbia as a country worthy of an in-depth look into the risk of media ownership concentration.

In addition, Serbia is a candidate country for accession into the EU and since February 2017 opened chapters on 23 and 10 of the accession negotiation which include provisions relevant to media regulation and pluralism.

Moreover, availability of a competent partner organization in a country is critical for effective implementation of MOM. MOM would not have been possible without the commitment and passion shown by the local team convened by BIRN.

10. Does MOM only exist for Serbia?

MOM was developed as a generic methodology that can be universally applied – and potentially will be. Notwithstanding that media concentration trends are observable worldwide; implementation and analysis will first take place in developing countries. MOM has been implemented in around 20 countries over the course of three years. All country projects can be found on the global website.

11. What are the limitations of the study?

  • Market concentration based on market share could not be calculated since complete and credible numbers were not available publicly. Financial data was available only for companies and was not media outlet-specific, as media in Serbia are not recognized as legal persons.
  • Official audience measurement data is not publicly available apart from online measurements; it is being sold by research companies. No public information or studies are available on the advertising market for Serbia.
  • Some investigations, particularly into the diverse local markets as well as into more hidden ownership structures and telecoms influence over media market, would require more time and resources.

12. Who do we target?

The data base

  • allows each citizen to get informed on the media system in general;
  • creates a fact base for civil society’s advocacy efforts to further promote public consciousness on media ownership and concentration; 
  • is a point of reference for consulting competition authorities or governmental bodies when establishing suitable regulatory measures to safeguard media pluralism.

13. What happens next?

The database is a snapshot of the current situation, contextualized by historical facts. We aim at updating the website, depending on the situation. New country editions are being added frequently.

14. Are there similar projects?

The Media Ownership Monitor is mainly inspired by two similar projects. Especially the indicators for a later ranking rely heavily on the EU-funded Media Pluralism Monitor of the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) at the European University Institute (EUI, Florence). Moreover, Media Pedia, an ownership database developed by investigative journalists in Macedonia served as inspiration for the Media Ownership Monitor. An overview over other similar projects can be found in the table below. 

ORGANIZATION

DESCRIPTION

Access Info 

A Spanish NGO that works in the field of media ownership transparency in several European countries.

Article 19

An NGO which works in the field of press freedom. It implements media concentration projects.

Deutsche Welle

The Media Freedom Navigator of Deutsche Welle provides an overview of different media freedom indices.

European Audiovisual Observatory

A database of television and audiovisual services in Europe.

European Journalism Center

 

The Website provides a summary and analysis of the state of the media in Europe and neighbouring countries.

 

European University Institute in Florence

The Media Pluralism Monitor assesses risks for media pluralism in the EU Member States.

IFEX

The network provides information of the state of the media in many countries.

IREX

The Media Sustainability Index (MSI) provides analyses of the conditions for independent media in 80 countries.

mediaUk

The Website provides information about media ownership in Great Britain.

Pew Research Center

The organisation publishes an interactive database about media in the United States.

SEENPM

Monitors media ownership and the impact on media pluralism in southeastern Europe and EU member states.

The Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia Business School

A research that works with authors from 30 countries in the world about media concentration using a common methodology.

The Institute for Media and Communication Policy

A database of international corporations of the world´s biggest media.

UNESCO

Media Development Indicators - A framework for assessing media development.

  • Project by
  •  
    Global Media Registry
  •  
    Funded by European Union