Kurir

The daily newspaper Kurir is part of the biggest media group in the Balkans – Adria Media Group (AMG), which is formally owned by Igor Žeželj as of January 2019. Before Žeželj, Kurir was owned by Aleksandar Rodić.

Aleksandar Rodić is the son of Radisav Rodić, who founded Kurir in 2003. Since then, the newspaper has played an important role in the tabloidization of the media in Serbia, inventing political affairs and spreading false information. Kurir also inspired the founding of other tabloids on the Serbian media scene. This began in 2005, when a group of editors left Kurir and founded the newspaper Press. Then, in 2012, the journalist and editor of Press Dragan J. Vučićević founded Informer, while in 2016 the former editors of Kurir, Milan Ladjević and Saša Milovanović, founded the tabloid Srpski Telegraf.

During 2009, Radisav Rodić was arrested on suspicion of tax fraud, while Kurir came under government pressure. At the time, media linked the arrest of Rodić with his conflict with then Minister of Economy and Deputy Prime Minister Mladjan Dinkić. During the same year, controversial changes to the Law on Public Information were made, which, according to the writing of the media, were intended to discipline Kurir. The adopted changes drastically increased fines for media which do not respect the rules of the profession.

Following the arrest of Radisav Rodić, his son Aleksandar took over the management of the daily newspaper. Since its founding, Kurir has changed its editorial policy several times, but has for the most part remained the ‘voice of government’. Under the management of Aleksandar Rodić the editorial policy leaned in favour of the then ruling Democrats. Following the Democratic Party’s defeat in the elections of 2012, Kurir changed its editorial orientation – it began to attack the officials of the Democratic Party and report in favour of the Serbian Progressive Party. This editorial line has essentially been maintained to the present day, with a short break in 2015. During this year, Kurir sought to take over the daily newspaper Politika, which led to a conflict with the government and Serbian Progressive Party.

In November 2015, the now famous front page of Kurir with the headline, “Serbia, sorry” was published, as an introduction to an article by Aleksandar Rodić in which he apologized to the citizens of Serbia for, as he put it, being forced to act as part of Aleksandar Vučić’s propaganda team. This conflict between Rodić and Vučić lasted for several months, with mutual accusations and warring with pro-government media. Kurir soon returned to its usual editorial line.

During the course of 2017, Kurir sought to find a strategic partner several times among foreign companies, but such attempts ended unsuccessfully.

The framework agreement on the sale of AMG was signed on 1st October 2018, with the public learning about the agreement for the first time in a BIRN text published ten days later. AMG reached an agreement on a strategic partnership with the company Wireless Media and the website Mondo, which was owned by state company Telekom Srbija. In this way, the state once again indirectly became a media owner, despite its obligation to end its ownership in the media sector.
As the negotiations between Wireless Media, Mondo and AMG drew to an end, so the editorial policy of Kurir changed as well – today it is hard to find a text critical of the current Serbian president.

The company Mondo Inc became the owner of a 100% stake in Adria Media Group (AMG) on 28th December 2018, with the decision on the change in ownership structure being published on 4th January 2019 on the website of the Serbian Business Registers Agency (APR). Instead of Rodić, the new owners were listed as being Žeželj and Mondo Inc. The public does not know the value of this sale, as none of the contracts relating to the sale were published.

Key facts

Audience Share

3.6%

Ownership Type

Private

Geographic Coverage

National

Content Type

paid content (45 rsd)

Data Publicly Available

ownership data is easily available from other sources, e. g. public registries etc.

2 ♥

Media Companies / Groups

Adria Media Group

Ownership

Ownership Structure

Kurir daily is published by Adria Media Group, owned by a businessman Igor Zezelj.

Individual Owner

Media Companies / Groups
Facts

General Information

Founding Year

2003

Founder

Radisav Rodic

Affiliated Interests Founder

Radisav Rodic is a controversial Serbian businessman who founded Kurir in 2003.

Before entering the media business, he owned "ABC Product" during the 90's. He bought a state-owned printing house "Glas" (later "ABC Grafika") which became the largest private printing house in the era of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in the 90s. All the opposition papers, including "NIN", "Promene", "Demokratija", "Naša borba", "Vreme", "24 časa", were printed there as well as the Radical Party's paper "Velika Srbija" and Socialists' "LID".

Offshore company Ronaco System from Delaware had an impact on his fast-growing empire. Rodic himself claims that his partner Bruce Ralston and he are the owners of Ronaco System. In 1998, he founded daily newspaper "Glas javnosti" and in 2003 the Kurir daily paper.

In June 2009, he was accused of tax evasion. District Attorney's Office in Serbia pressed charges against Rodic and three more persons for an alleged fraud by getting a loan of 22.8 million RSD from the Serbian Commercial bank with false documents, which was never paid back and the bank was damaged. The Court sentenced him to two years in prison, but he was acquitted since he had already served the sentence during the court process.

Radisav Rodic is the father of Aleksandar Rodic, today owner of the largest media group in the Balkans - Adria Media Group.

Ceo

Aleksandar Pejovic

Editor-In-Chief

Nemanja Pajic, Editor-In-Chief; Ivan Corbic, Editor

Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief

Ivan Corbic worked as a journalist in Blic daily (1996-1998).

He was Editor in Chief and journalist in daily Glas javnosti (1998-2005). Later he worked as Deputy editor in Standard magazine (2005-2007).

From 2007 he was in Ringier Axel Springer Media AG, first as Deputy editor in chief and Crime news editor in Alo daily and Crime news editor in Blic daily. And later he was appointed as Editor in chief at Alo daily.

Contact

Vlajkoviceva 8

11000 Belgrade, Serbia

Tel: + 381 11 6357 100

redakcija[at]kurir-info.rs

Website: www.kurir.rs

 

 

Financial Information

Revenue (in Mill. $)

Missing Data

Operating Profit (in Mill. $)

Missing Data

Advertising (in % of total funding)

Missing Data

Market Share

Missing Data

Further Information

Meta Data

Financial records from the Serbian Business Registry are for 2017, as those for 2018 have yet to be made publicly available. The exchange rate used for USD is 108.8543 as the average for 2015 when the financial reports were produced, according to the Serbian National Bank.

Financial information is publicly only available for the publisher, not media outlet.

In January 2014 company „Kurir info” requested several changes to be made in the Serbian Business Registers Agency: to change the title from „Kurir“, to „Kurir magazine“ and then to "Kurir: the most influential newspaper in the Balkans". So, „Kurir“ daily was shut down and its last issue was published on 2 February 2014, and already on 3 February of the same year, on newsstands one could buy the first number of the new print media "Kurir: the most influential daily newspaper in the Balkans".

It was disputable whether this legal because according to the Media Law from that time there is an article that states: "In the event of termination of the public media by deleting from the register of public media or otherwise, and termination of printing or publication of such media is not allowed to establish a public media under the same or similar name that may cause confusion as to the identity of the public media".

Documents

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