Feral, Thompson, And Some Czechs

Feral Tribune is back on its feet after a month of uncertainty - not independently, but as a member of the EPH press group, which already owns Jutarni list, Globus and a variety of other publications including the family/showbusiness magazine Arena. Feral's managing editor Zoran Erceg has cosily told JL that the satirical weekly will continue to be editorially independent, although broader coverage and a graphic redesign are likely now that Feral is financially secure.

Meanwhile, some showbusiness ethnopolitics from further north than usual: the lustration debate in the Czech Republic is spreading into entertainment after the singer Václav Neckář, formerly a member of the late 1960s Golden Kids trio with Marta Kubišová and Helena Vondráčková was accused by Lidové noviny of reporting on his colleagues (including Kubišová, a Charter 77 signatory) to the Czechoslovakian secret police between 1978 and 1987.

Radio Prague reports that Neckář's participation at the annual Trutnov festival (the oldest and largest Czech open-air festival) is now in question unless he provides a written explanation of his conduct at the time, according to a statement by its organiser Martin Vechet:

'Trutnov festival has a very specific tradition which is unusual in western countries. The festival began on the basis of police persecution in communist Czechoslovakia, when police broke up gatherings and illegal concerts, held secretly on various farms. Young people met at such concerts and were dispersed by the police. It would be crass for anyone who even indirectly supported the regime to play at a festival like this one.'

Trutnov first took place as an underground event broken up by the secret police in 1987, and thus celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, with headliners including the Boban Marković Orchestra.

Lastly, Večernji list reports that a New York Times journalist interviewed Marko Perković Thompson after his Maksimir stadium concert. Not that it sounds as if Thompson told us anything we didn't know:

'We talked about my songs, the Maksimir concert, and he was also interested in the iconography. I said that I and my audience, who are people from 7 to 77 years old, are patriots, not fascists. I also mentioned that on several occasions before the concert I said that those who want to wear uniforms ought to wear the uniforms of the victorious Croatian army which won the Homeland War.'

Not that they ever seem to listen...

All Over For Feral?

Readers of Feral Tribune haven't been in a position to appreciate the weekly satirical magazine's take on Marko Perković Thompson's concert, or, for that matter, on anything else: after 15 years as an independent publication (separating from the Split daily Slobodna Dalmacija when the state took SD over in 1992) the newspaper has controversially been forced to cease publication due to an unpaid VAT bill of €68,000.

From a British perspective, it might be hard to see why the press are liable for VAT at all, but from a Croatian one, that might not be the point: a statement from the Social Democratic Party last week alleged that the government chooses not to pursue the tax debts of certain publishers 'because of the ideological character of their publications' (not to mention those owned by the state - the daily Vjesnik and the national broadcaster HRT), while sticking to the letter of the law in the cases of more oppositional media such as Feral.

Although the government announced its intention to reduce VAT on magazines to 10% from its current level of 22% when news of Feral's debt crisis broke earlier in the month, the magazine is already unable to service its existing debt - a financial situation which its editor Viktor Ivančić blames on 'a cruel corporate diktat' by which large corporations avoid advertising in media which are opposed to government politics.

However, among the widespread hand-wringing on Feral's behalf, there's one note of caution from Jurica Pavičić, a former contributor: namely, if the market is so unforgiving towards publications like Feral, why have its editors never followed the lead of Bosnia's Dani or Serbia's Vreme and elevated it from often puerile satire into a mature news magazine? A case in point is the Croatian weekly Globus - which began as a sensationalist tabloid flirting with the radical-right party HSP, but developed after a change of editor into the focus of support for Mirko Galić's Forum 21 initiative which aimed to detach HRT from direct state control.

Nonetheless, it would be a sad day for Croatian civil society if Feral finally petered out, seven years after losing its 'natural enemy' with the death of the nationalist president Franjo Tudjman. The Galić era, meanwhile, did its petering out some months ago when he took up an ambassadorial post in Paris and was replaced - eventually - by Vanja Sutlić. It's taken some time for HRT to assume its post-Galić shape, but the decisive stroke may have come today when the director of HTV Marija Nemčić resigned - along with her radio counterpart Ivanka Lučev - leaving both no 2 positions free for Sutlić appointees.

Nemčić's resignation is likely to have repercussions in the news department (don't forget 2007 is an election year) - and also at entertainment, long thought of as a Nemčić stronghold under its current editor Aleksandar Kostadinov. The Gazette won't be surprised if the new Mr Music Man turns out to be Mario Sedmak, who'd look like a safe pair of hands after the success of the Strictly Come Dancing and Just The Two Of Us formats.

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Multi-Channel World

There's unfortunate news for Ceca Ražnatović, whose performances and videos have apparently been dropped from the playlist of the Serbian channel TV Pink after a witness in a court case against the Zemun Clan accused her of suggesting the kidnap of Pink's owner Željko Mitrović. In certain quarters, Pink and Ceca have been all but synonymous, despite Mitrović's attempts to take his station upmarket by cutting back the amount of newly-composed folk music it broadcasts.

Should the collapse of Ceca's relationship with Pink become permanent, it'll be almost as unfortunate news for tabloid picture editors across the ex-Yugoslav region, who like nothing better than to illustrate the briefest mention of Pink with a picture of the woman herself. (Of Ceca, that is. Not of Pink.)

In the long run, however, one wonders if the image of Mitrović and his channel might benefit from 'dececaizacija', if its first associations - according to a Globus journalist who interviewed him in 2005 - remain 'the folk programme, silicone beauties and prettifying the wartime reality of Serbia under sanctions.'

The contemporary TV Pink now uses 12 studios across the ex-Yugoslav region and is broadcast in every ex-Yugoslav state except Croatia (although Croatian viewers with the right satellite or cable connection can pick up the Pink BiH signal). However, Mitrović has shown interest in investing in the 'huge potential of the Croatian media market' (as he told Globus) for some time - whether by buying into its largest record label Croatia Records, building a film-making complex in the country, or becoming involved with one of the private national terrestrial channels, Nova TV.

Turning to some (for now) thoroughly unrelated news: Večernji list reports that multi-channel digital terrestrial television is coming to Croatia, with 32 new channels expected to go live across the country by the end of 2009 and concessions to be awarded in 2008. (If you thought the politics involved where four national channels were concerned were intricate enough, wait until there are 36 of them.) Assuming the Croatian digital landscape evolves in the same way as the UK's, expect the multiplex to be made up of existing channels broadening their portfolios, plus new arrivals taking their first steps into the national media market.

New arrivals like... well, perhaps like Željko Mitrović?

Women In The Media (And In The Charts)

The official Croatian singles chart, HRtop20, has published its chart of 2006, which actually bears quite a resemblance to any weekly chart from August/September. And isn't it funny how the Bosnian Eurovision entry comes in at no 2 on the zabavna chart, while Croatia's own representative only makes it into no 15?

Moving towards something much more heavyweight: via Bosnia Vault, MediaCentar Sarajevo has published its new book of the representation of women in print media in Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania. Look out particularly for Danijela Majstorović and Vladimir Turjačanin's discourse analysis of images of women in Bosnian tabloids; Mima Simić's discussion of Croatian and Serbian teenage girls' magazines and their promotion of 'active heterosexuality', Sanja Sarnavka and Suzana Kunac's in-depth analysis of the Ana Magaš murder case in Zadar; and Ivana Kronja's reflections on 'the link between political extremism and pornography' in Serbia.