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On 4 November 2026, the Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) imposed its first serious sanctions since the previous Council's mandate expired in November 2024. It banned TV Prva from broadcasting its news programme "Vesti" for one day and its morning programme for five days, and banned TV Informer from airing the programme "Prve info" for seven days. At the same session it opened nine new proceedings against five broadcasters.
The measures against TV Prva were imposed for a particularly serious breach of the law, in proceedings opened at the previous session, on 29 October, over the rules on media coverage of the election campaign. They concern content broadcast in "Vesti" on 1 October and in the morning programme on 5 October. The Council decided unanimously on TV Informer: the complaint, filed by the Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI), concerns the programme of 2 October between 7:00 and 8:15, in which an Informer presenter expressed a political position during the campaign. Informer is the same broadcaster the Council had kept out of its campaign monitoring in a 4-4 vote on 28 September - a decision that prompted four independent members to write to the EU and OSCE/ODIHR.
Council president Stevica Smederevac said after the session that the measures were imposed in line with the Law on Electronic Media, which he described as very strict, and that the Council cannot impose a milder measure than the one the law prescribes. In his view, broadcasters had grown lax during more than two years without a Council. He added that the ban may also cover "formats of the same kind" - informative programmes similar to the one in which the breach occurred - which REM's legal service is to define. He rejected a request by Informer's legal team that Šabić be excluded from the vote, saying Šabić had not filed the complaint in question. Asked why Informer had been left out of campaign monitoring, Smederevac said the Council was constituted two weeks after the campaign began, that the service had applied the 2023 monitoring plan, in which Informer did not yet exist, and that it had advised that widening the sample would compromise monitoring already under way. Instead, he said, the Council monitored the campaign in practice through complaints, which he described as a faster tool; REM has received more than 200 of them. Informer's editor-in-chief Dragan Vučićević described the decision as censorship.
The nine new proceedings cover Kurir (two cases), TV Informer (four cases - the programme "Kolegijum", the programme "Državnik" of 12 October, its programme of 6 October over insults directed at Council member Rodoljub Šabić and BIRODI director Zoran Gavrilović, and its broadcast of a rally at the Arena on 3 October), K1, VP Valjevo (for relaying a rally without the required labelling) and TV Prva (the programme "Dan na dan"). For N1 ("Utisak nedelje") and Nova S (programme of 6 and 7 October), which hold licences in Luxembourg, REM will write to the Luxembourg regulator, which decides on any further action.
The Council also set a timetable. On Friday, 6 November, it will decide on opening further proceedings; on Tuesday, 10 November, the broadcasters concerned are to be invited to respond, and the Council will decide on measures in all proceedings opened on 4 and 6 November. At the same session it adopted Council member Šabić's proposal to send a statement to the Government of Serbia over terrestrial broadcasting without a licence, asking the Government to demand that such broadcasting stop. It adopted the draft rulebook on appointing members of the governing boards of the public service media, which goes to public consultation from 12 November to 2 December; according to Smederevac, adoption is expected within 40 to 50 days, after which a competition for the RTS and RTV governing boards will be announced. It formally noted the end of director Rajka Galin Ćertić's employment and decided to announce a public competition for the post; until then, lawyer Milan Todorović will act as REM's legal representative. At the request of Council member Dubravka Valić Nedeljković, the finance service is to report on the regulator's outstanding receivables - who owes REM money and which claims are in court.
The session took place under visible political pressure. Informer's editor-in-chief Dragan Vučićević attended it, and several dozen supporters of the broadcaster gathered outside REM's headquarters at a rally called by the Association of Journalists of Serbia (ANS) and the Novi Sad-based Centre for Social Stability. Among them were acting President of the Republic Ana Brnabić, caretaker Minister of Defence Bratislav Gašić, Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) president Miloš Vučević and Danilo Vučić, son of the former President. Addressing the rally, Vučićević said Informer could not lawfully be banned and that it would fight. The gathering followed an initiative by 32 media associations and civil society organisations, submitted on 27 October, to revoke Informer's broadcasting licence, which the Council had agreed on 29 October to put on the agenda of its next session. People at the rally disrupted and insulted an N1 crew, and Insajder reported that they also insulted its crew and pushed and insulted Council member Šabić. The Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (NUNS) called for those responsible to be urgently identified.
The decisions mark the first time in two years that the regulator has imposed serious sanctions. The sanctions relate to content broadcast in early October, during the election campaign, but were imposed only after the vote on 25 October.
The measures against TV Prva were imposed for a particularly serious breach of the law, in proceedings opened at the previous session, on 29 October, over the rules on media coverage of the election campaign. They concern content broadcast in "Vesti" on 1 October and in the morning programme on 5 October. The Council decided unanimously on TV Informer: the complaint, filed by the Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI), concerns the programme of 2 October between 7:00 and 8:15, in which an Informer presenter expressed a political position during the campaign. Informer is the same broadcaster the Council had kept out of its campaign monitoring in a 4-4 vote on 28 September - a decision that prompted four independent members to write to the EU and OSCE/ODIHR.
Council president Stevica Smederevac said after the session that the measures were imposed in line with the Law on Electronic Media, which he described as very strict, and that the Council cannot impose a milder measure than the one the law prescribes. In his view, broadcasters had grown lax during more than two years without a Council. He added that the ban may also cover "formats of the same kind" - informative programmes similar to the one in which the breach occurred - which REM's legal service is to define. He rejected a request by Informer's legal team that Šabić be excluded from the vote, saying Šabić had not filed the complaint in question. Asked why Informer had been left out of campaign monitoring, Smederevac said the Council was constituted two weeks after the campaign began, that the service had applied the 2023 monitoring plan, in which Informer did not yet exist, and that it had advised that widening the sample would compromise monitoring already under way. Instead, he said, the Council monitored the campaign in practice through complaints, which he described as a faster tool; REM has received more than 200 of them. Informer's editor-in-chief Dragan Vučićević described the decision as censorship.
The nine new proceedings cover Kurir (two cases), TV Informer (four cases - the programme "Kolegijum", the programme "Državnik" of 12 October, its programme of 6 October over insults directed at Council member Rodoljub Šabić and BIRODI director Zoran Gavrilović, and its broadcast of a rally at the Arena on 3 October), K1, VP Valjevo (for relaying a rally without the required labelling) and TV Prva (the programme "Dan na dan"). For N1 ("Utisak nedelje") and Nova S (programme of 6 and 7 October), which hold licences in Luxembourg, REM will write to the Luxembourg regulator, which decides on any further action.
The Council also set a timetable. On Friday, 6 November, it will decide on opening further proceedings; on Tuesday, 10 November, the broadcasters concerned are to be invited to respond, and the Council will decide on measures in all proceedings opened on 4 and 6 November. At the same session it adopted Council member Šabić's proposal to send a statement to the Government of Serbia over terrestrial broadcasting without a licence, asking the Government to demand that such broadcasting stop. It adopted the draft rulebook on appointing members of the governing boards of the public service media, which goes to public consultation from 12 November to 2 December; according to Smederevac, adoption is expected within 40 to 50 days, after which a competition for the RTS and RTV governing boards will be announced. It formally noted the end of director Rajka Galin Ćertić's employment and decided to announce a public competition for the post; until then, lawyer Milan Todorović will act as REM's legal representative. At the request of Council member Dubravka Valić Nedeljković, the finance service is to report on the regulator's outstanding receivables - who owes REM money and which claims are in court.
The session took place under visible political pressure. Informer's editor-in-chief Dragan Vučićević attended it, and several dozen supporters of the broadcaster gathered outside REM's headquarters at a rally called by the Association of Journalists of Serbia (ANS) and the Novi Sad-based Centre for Social Stability. Among them were acting President of the Republic Ana Brnabić, caretaker Minister of Defence Bratislav Gašić, Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) president Miloš Vučević and Danilo Vučić, son of the former President. Addressing the rally, Vučićević said Informer could not lawfully be banned and that it would fight. The gathering followed an initiative by 32 media associations and civil society organisations, submitted on 27 October, to revoke Informer's broadcasting licence, which the Council had agreed on 29 October to put on the agenda of its next session. People at the rally disrupted and insulted an N1 crew, and Insajder reported that they also insulted its crew and pushed and insulted Council member Šabić. The Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (NUNS) called for those responsible to be urgently identified.
The decisions mark the first time in two years that the regulator has imposed serious sanctions. The sanctions relate to content broadcast in early October, during the election campaign, but were imposed only after the vote on 25 October.
The sanctions relate to content broadcast in early October, during the election campaign, but were imposed only after the vote on 25 October.
Accordingly, they could not correct the imbalance in campaign coverage while it mattered to voters. Smederevac presented complaints as the faster alternative to monitoring; even so, the first measures came ten days after the vote. The decisions due on 10 November will show whether the Council can apply the same criteria consistently across broadcasters, and within deadlines that make enforcement meaningful. The full record of the REM Council selection process, and what is disputed at each step, is set out in CRTA's tracker on how Serbia was left without a functioning media regulator; further coverage is collected on the REM and media regulation page.
