B92

B92 is a television broadcaster with national coverage headquartered in Belgrade, Serbia. The network's key demographic is chiefly urban and young audience. Veran Matić is the CEO and one of the founders of B92. Dragan Đilas was also one of the founders of B92, he was a news editor at the radio station. Since 19 March 2012, B92 uses a cube-shaped logo in which its name is spelled with a lowercase b (as b92).

The station was a rare outlet for Western news and information in FR Yugoslavia under Slobodan Milošević, and was a force behind many demonstrations that took place in Belgrade during the turbulent 1990s. Due to this, B92 won the MTV Free Your Mind award in 1998, and many other awards for journalism and fighting for human rights. B92 is the subject of the best-selling book This is Serbia Calling.

In April 2008, B92 launched their second TV channel with 24-hour news coverage named B92 Info. This channel is cable only.

On November 3, 2014, B92 started broadcasts in 16:9.

History

The radio station originally went on the air in 1989 with financial help from the Soros Foundation and USAID,^[1] though it was shut down by authorities a few times in its early years.

It was forced off the air for a time in 1999 when NATO bombed Yugoslavia, and government agents cracked down on pro-Western reporting. The government took over the station in 1999 but the team continued broadcasting in borrowed studios as B2-92. In a dawn raid in May 2000 government troops seized everything but Internet broadcasting from secret studios continued until after the ousting of Milošević in October 2000, when the two stations were unified. It has continued as a combined music and news radio station since.

During the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, B92 was one of the very few sources for news not controlled by the government. Although the government did everything in its power to prevent B92 from transmitting its programs they failed. With the help of Dutch internet provider XS4All, B92 started broadcasting their programs over the internet in 1996. These broadcasts were then also re-transmitted via the BBC World Service while several local stations on the ground made the programs available throughout Serbia^[2] In 1996 the Internationale Medienhilfe organisation awarded the title "Radiostation des Jahres" to Radio B92.^[3]

Later on, TV station, Internet portal and ISP were introduced, as well as CD and book labels.

Radio

The B92 radio station was founded in May 1989 in Belgrade as a predominantly youth-oriented station on 92.5 MHz FM. Throughout the years it has become a national radio with wide audience. The radio station has about 400,000 daily listeners which makes up 35% of all radio listeners with almost 80 stations competing for airtime. As of recently, radio B92 covers the whole of the territory of Serbia.

The most notable radio shows were Kažiprst (index finger), featuring usually live or occasionally live-to-tape interviews with notable public figures, Peščanik (Hourglass), liberal talk show, radio blog of a sort, edited by Svetlana Vukovic and Svetlana Lukić and the morning program Dizanje (getting up).

In the afternoon of July 9, 2015, most of the radio employees were fired. Among the people who lost their job on that occasion were all employees in the news and music section - sections that made Radio B92's trademark. On that same day all radio shows were cancelled, leaving only the radio broadcasting music and two remaining employees responsible for that.

On July 13, 2015, the new, Play Radio began on 92.5 MHz FM, broadcasting only music and the promo of the station, this time mentioning the B92 name. Following the name change, the B92's site's radio section now redirects to the Play Radio website, which includes a stream, which lets visitors listen to the station. However, Play Radio began as a summer schedule announcement on the now-closed Radio B92. The station starts broadcasts on August 31, 2015 at 6am. ^[4]

Television

B92 headquarters in Novi Beograd in September 2007.

History

Network logo 2000-2003

In October 2000, B92-TV began broadcasting as a local TV station reaching Belgrade's greater municipal area and parts of Vojvodina. Over the next few years, the station expanded its network of repeaters and could be seen in most of Serbia.

In April 2006 B92 was officially given a national commercial broadcasting license along with TV Pink, Fox Televizija, TV Avala and TV Košava. The station's most notable regular TV programmes include Utisak nedelje (Impression of the week) by Olja Bećković, Poligraf (Polygraph) by Jugoslav Ćosić and Antonela Riha, and Timofejev by Aleksandar Timofejev. The Insajder (Insider) series by Brankica Stanković runs intermittently and is one of the rare cases of investigative journalism on Serbian television. In recent years, B92 has undertaken a noticeable shift towards commercialization. Since 2006, it broadcasts the Serbian version of Big Brother reality series (Veliki brat), for which it received both a huge boost of ratings, as well as much criticism from its traditional viewers. The trend has continued with shows like Uzmi ili ostavi and Želite li da postanete milioner? quizzes (local versions of Deal or No Deal and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, respectively).

B92 also held the Serbian market TV rights for the UEFA Champions League (2003-2006).

2007-08 season

Network logo 2003-2011

In rating seasons starting September 2007 lasting until July 2008 B92 has introduced a much more commercialised line-up. It has heavily advertised its shows during the non-ratings season of summer 2007.

The network has bought out rights to broadcast a new local show called Naša mala klinika based around a small medicinal practice on the outskirts of town. The show features many famous Serbian actors and actresses. Another local show called Vratiće se rode will be shown on B92. The network has also filmed a new season of popular comedy show Mile vs. Tranzicija. All other popular political and quiz shows will return for the year.

2008-09 season

Network logo 2011-2012

The season started in October. The most important project this season for the station is Operacija Trijumf. Operacija Trijumf (Star Academy) is the biggest musical reality show in the Balkans and it will be shown on television in Montenegro (IN TV) Croatia (Nova TV) Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia. The station also bought TV rights for Wimbledon (for next 4 years). Champions league matches are also going to be transmitted by B92.

2011 season

The season started in April. In 2011, in addition to news and series, B92 introduced more sports programming. The station broadcasts many tennis events featuring Serbian players (Grand Slam tournaments, ATP Masters 1000 series, ATP World Tour Finals), football (UEFA Europa League, La Liga) and basketball (Liga ABA).

The station also underwent a visual makeover.

2013 season

In 2013 B92 aired the popular Croatian telenovela Larin izbor and in September it started showing Turkish television drama for the first time as the last major Serbian commercial TV station to do so.

Proposed re-branding as OTV

In late October 2014, Serbian newspaper Blic reported that B92 will, by the end of 2014, be possibly renamed to OTV, with the result made after a petition made by former B92 employees telling the network to change its name, and around 1,500 people signed for the petition. One last step by that decision was the removal of the Sunday political late-night talk show Utisak nedelje. However, B92 didn't confirm or deny the information obtained by the newspaper. Because of that, B92 is broadcasting from reportage cars since its decision to move to the headquarters, currently used by Prva Srpska Televizija.

OTV was said to be an entertainment-oriented TV station. The logo of the tentative new station OTV, is currently unknown.

The change does not affect B92 Info, the cable channel, which will continue to air with this name, and Radio B92.

Broadcasting of B92 has continued since January 1, 2015.

Entertainment

Internationally created shows currently broadcast by B92 (correct as of November 2013):^[5]

Original name	Local name	Origin
According to Jim	Život prema Džimu
Friends	Prijatelji
Lud, zbunjen, normalan	Lud, zbunjen, normalan
America's Next Top Model	Američki top-model
SpongeBob SquarePants	Sunđer Bob Kockalone
The Penguins of Madagascar	Pingvini sa Madagaskara

Ratings

News

In recent years the daily newscast on B92 has become popular with viewers. Its news service is now the second most watched in Serbia after the national broadcaster. The afternoon edition is at 4pm and the central edition in at 8pm. This is an only edition with two presenters (both male and female). The evening news cast at 12am is particularly popular and has had a large surge in the ratings. The news provided by B92 is very comprehensive and which has contributed to the ratings going up in recent years.

On 11th October of 2004, the B92 News introduced the ticker, which was replaced by flipper on 19th March of 2012. The ticker was returned on 04th February of 2013, which was replaced by flipper again on 03rd February of 2014.

Music and book publishing

B92 also runs a record label, although in recent years its releases are few and far between. Some of the notable Serbian acts B92 helped launch include: Eyesburn, Darkwood Dub, Kanda, Kodža i Nebojša, Intruder, Vrooom, Kal etc. The label also released albums by somewhat more established acts such as Boban Marković, Rambo Amadeus, Eva Braun, Jarboli.

B92's book publishing arm is Samizdat B92 featuring prominent young authors such as Marko Vidojković and Srđan Valjarević, as well as a number of foreign authors.

B92 also runs the Rex cultural centre in Jevrejska Street.

B92.net (ex OpenNet)

B92.net was established as OpenNet in late 1995 as the Internet division of Radio B92. In its first few months of operation a dial-up connection with Amsterdam provider XS4ALL was used. At the beginning of 1996, OpenNet became Yugoslavia’s first Internet provider, using an analogue leased line from XS4ALL and six local dial-up lines.

OpenNet also supported the local network of Radio B92, ANEM Radio and ANEM Television by providing non-stop live Internet broadcast of Radio and TV B92 programs, together with the distribution of audio and video materials among the ANEM radio and television stations. In this way, everything produced by ANEM and Radio B92 was available on the Internet.

During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, when government representatives raided the Radio B2-92 premises and disabled its transmitter, OpenNet continued to broadcast the radio program over the Internet. The signal was rebroadcast via satellite and by several radio stations in neighbouring countries. All of this was done with support from RealNetworks.

B92 Net has been the leading Serbian Internet site since 1996. At present the average number of page views per day exceeds 1.000,000, while the daily average number of visitors peaks at 200,000. Alexa.com ranked B92 site at number 917 while Google Page Ranks puts it at 7, making it the best positioned southeast European website.

B92 Info

B92 Info is a news broadcasting channel launched by B92 on 7 April 2008, as a Serbian version of CNN. The channel is broadcast on all major cable systems in the country and over the Internet. All of B92’s most popular news-related shows, including Poligraf, B92 Investigates, Insajder, Kažiprst, Dizanje, and sports programs, will be broadcast on the channel. B92 has called Info channel launch the biggest project of the company's television segment.^[7] B92 Info is now also available in Austria.^[8]

References

• Collin, M.: This Is Serbia Calling: Rock 'n' Roll Radio and Belgrade's Underground Resistance, Serpent's Tail, April 2001, ISBN 978-1-85242-682-8 (U.S. edition: Guerrilla Radio: Rock 'N' Roll Radio and Serbia's Underground Resistance, Nation Books, April 2002, ISBN 978-1-56025-404-1)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to B92.

• B92 official web page
• B92: About Us
• Rex Center
• B92 - A Content Production Revolution - Poynter Online

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