COMMITTEE FOR REPEATING PRIVATISATION OF STATE TV'S THIRD CHANNEL

ZAGREB, June 4 (Hina) - The media council of the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights (HHO) believes the tender for a concession for Croatian Television's third channel should be repeated because of the inadequacy of the current law on telecommunications and instead carried out under the electronic media bill currently in parliamentary procedure. #L# The council warned the government in a statement on Wednesday that current provisions did not offer sufficient guarantees that the tender would be carried out in keeping with public interest. The HHO is of the opinion the current law on telecommunications, under which the tender was invited, enables the further concentration of media power because press publishers were not excluded from the tender. The HHO says the law contains "lax provisions concerning the programme", i.e. that it does not stipulate standards on the share of European production and that of small independent producers. Provisions on the minimum and share of domestic production are also "insufficient", says the HHO. It maintains the current law on telecommunications does not contain provisions on the protection of journalists, which the HHO says has proven to be a problem in private media. The aforementioned contentious issues have been resolved in the electronic media bill, the HHO media council said. (hina) ha sb