Update
The week on television: 21-27 September 2026
The ruling majority took three-quarters of political airtime and no negative coverage at all. Presid...
On 10 September 2026, REM's professional service began round-the-clock monitoring of the election campaign, applying the sample inherited from its 2023 methodology. It currently covers eleven television channels - the two RTS and two RTV programmes and the national broadcasters Pink, Prva, B92 and Hepi, plus the cable channels N1, Nova S and K1. TV Informer is not among them.
At its session on 22 September, Council member Rodoljub Šabić proposed adding Informer, and the Council agreed that all members would submit proposals to widen the sample within 72 hours. All eight members then stated in writing that Informer should be included. Yet when the formal decision fell due on 28 September, four members reversed their position, and the vote ended 4-4. With no majority, the decision failed, and Informer remains outside REM's systematic campaign monitoring.
Council member Dubravka Valić Nedeljković said all eight members had agreed, and that the reversal came on the morning of the vote, on the basis of an official note she said she had never seen. She noted that REM received 131 complaints about Informer's content last year - placing it, with TV Pink, at the top of the list - and that Informer's reach is now far greater than in 2023, including through local outlets it has acquired.
The members argued that there is a fundamental distinction here. A clear line must be drawn between the formal constitution of REM and the existence of a functional, independent regulator. They said the European Commission's July 2026 assessment - which found that the authorities and parliament had taken a constructive approach and the necessary technical steps - should be revisited in that light. They asked the EU, OSCE/ODIHR and other international actors to formally record the development and weigh it in their assessments of the electoral process, and said their own participation should not be read as proof that REM functions normally or that the elections are democratically legitimate.
At its session on 22 September, Council member Rodoljub Šabić proposed adding Informer, and the Council agreed that all members would submit proposals to widen the sample within 72 hours. All eight members then stated in writing that Informer should be included. Yet when the formal decision fell due on 28 September, four members reversed their position, and the vote ended 4-4. With no majority, the decision failed, and Informer remains outside REM's systematic campaign monitoring.
Council member Dubravka Valić Nedeljković said all eight members had agreed, and that the reversal came on the morning of the vote, on the basis of an official note she said she had never seen. She noted that REM received 131 complaints about Informer's content last year - placing it, with TV Pink, at the top of the list - and that Informer's reach is now far greater than in 2023, including through local outlets it has acquired.
"A clear line must be drawn between the formal constitution of REM and the existence of a functional, independent regulator."
On 1 October, the four independent members - Valić Nedeljković, Ira Prodanov Krajišnik, Mileva Malešić and Rodoljub Šabić - wrote to the international community, including the EU Delegation, OSCE/ODIHR, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos and European Parliament rapporteur Tonino Picula. They said they had returned to the Council to spare Serbia a campaign without a functioning regulator, but that this first substantive test showed the regulator remains unable to apply objective criteria to a major broadcaster.The members argued that there is a fundamental distinction here. A clear line must be drawn between the formal constitution of REM and the existence of a functional, independent regulator. They said the European Commission's July 2026 assessment - which found that the authorities and parliament had taken a constructive approach and the necessary technical steps - should be revisited in that light. They asked the EU, OSCE/ODIHR and other international actors to formally record the development and weigh it in their assessments of the electoral process, and said their own participation should not be read as proof that REM functions normally or that the elections are democratically legitimate.
