Media daily is no longer alone in articles that draw attention to the fact that the Electronic Media Council (VEM) made a scandalous and harmful decision when it awarded the 101 MHz concession to Top Radio, and to put it mildly, the controversial Ivan Jurić KaćunićNacionalTelegramIndex, and some other media have also written about it these days. It is good for the hygiene of the media scene that at least the sanitary corridor isolates those companies and individuals who, due to their unfair business, have no place in the market, when the frigid Council or the Ministry of Culture and Media are not capable, and which has not yet addressed the public about this topic.

That there is no need of VEM’s existence was once again confirmed in the Index’s answer to the question of whether they checked the taxes of other companies whose manager until recently owned the newly established TOP radio in which VEM, that is the Electronic Media Agency, answered that they “are not competent to verify any debts of related entities as they do not participate in the concession award procedure.”

They are not “competent” for debts, they say in VEM, but they are certainly competent to give such people a concession for the award on the highest quality frequency in Croatia, even when their program offer was actually not the best. VEM and the mentioned Ministry, thus set a “good and encouraging example” to all those media that regularly pay taxes to the state and obligations to employees and creditors how they should behave if they want to be “successful” in winning the concession. It would be said that smart people know what the PIN is for, but that only applies to small-toothed cattle, and not to capitalists. Because when you owe a little for taxes, then you are a thief, and when you owe it millions of euros, then you become its partner.

After analyzing the program offers of all bidders, today we will do the same with the technical, personnel, spatial, and financial conditions, to determine who had the best offer.

For reference, we will use the same comparative table (Comparison-offer-for-concession-for-Zagreb-and-Zagreb-county-8) of VEM, as well as previous decisions of the regulator, which shows the way of deciding and evaluating the best offers.

One of the items that VEM often emphasizes in its explanations is the reality and balance of financial and other data. Let’s see how the offers stand.

In its study, VEM stated that the real financial income that a company that receives 101 MHz can expect is around 2.7 million kunas a year. This means that bids that deviate extremely from this amount are NOT REAL, so the VEM should evaluate them when deciding.

The only offer that SIGNIFICANTLY deviates from real and balanced revenues is the one from TOP radio! Namely, they were the only ones to state revenues of as much as HRK 8.65 million in the first year of operation, while other offers ranged from HRK 2.5 million to HRK 5 million. And that’s not all because in the case of Nepce svijet, accidentally or intentionally, VEM published the combined revenues of the Culture and Radio Factory even though they, according to their claims, did so separately. These expected revenues are planned at the annual level of HRK 4 million, confirmed Nepce svijet for Media daily. By the way, their program calculations in the comparative table were not accurate, so the Agency for Electronic Media published a new table that is even more in their favor. Why AEM published the wrong data is a good question. Is it just negligence or intent? Who knows?!

To the left is the corrected AEM table published 2.8.2021 and to the right the “original” published 29.7.2021.

When assessing staffing conditions, VEM has always given preference to companies that were existing concessionaires, so that its employees would not lose their jobs, so by that logic Radio 101, which was the previous concessionaire, should have an advantage. Everyone else just needed to attach a statement that “I swear by my mother” would hire an army of people. Everyone else attached a statement but not TOP radio. Namely, they have already employed 10 people, as if they knew in advance that they would get a concession, and at the same time stated that they would employ a total of 18 people and 11 freelancers. How convincing, balanced and realistic can you estimate this on the example of the proprietary National Radio, which has only 8 employees with a national concession !? (data from 2020).

In the assessment of technical requirements, the current premise of VEM in decision-making was similar to that in personnel conditions. It is logical that only the existing concessionaire has the equipment, and that everyone else will enclose a statement or pre-agreements with the bidders. And in this case, one can notice an unusual situation that TOP radio, again as if they were sure in advance of obtaining a concession, attached pictures of the equipment in the premises!?. The villains would say that this was not a problem for them, since the owners of as many as five radio stations in Zagreb and the surrounding area are already hidden, so they have something to paint. By what was it realistic and more convincing than e.g. offer of the previous concessionaire of Radio 101. Probably none of the six members of the VEM who gave their secret vote for the TOP Radio picture book would know how to explain this because they ignored our public call for an explanation of the decision.

When it comes to spatial conditions, it was enough to attach a contract or pre-contract for space, which has never been a particularly important category, because VEM is aware that making a fictitious contract or pre-contract is extremely easy. However, if we realistically try to look at the situation, the average Zagreb (regional) radio station needs a space of 150 to a maximum of 300 m2, and more than that is an UNREAL exaggeration that does not justify the planned number of employees and rental costs, so it should be estimated by the VEM. After all, the best example is the current concessionaire Radio 101, which has 160 m2 of space. The largest spaces were offered by Zwei 01 (468m2), which received one vote, Dvadesetčetirisedam (450m2), which did not receive a single vote, and TOP radio (440m2), which received six votes. In this case, the offer of the winners of the TOP radio competition was not realistic, balanced, let alone the best.

The overall analysis of technical, personnel, spatial, and financial conditions shows that the VEM should not have given the most votes to an offer than is not  realistic and balanced,  and the opposite happened, which once again confirms that the decision was not made based on legal preconditions.