MMA and MRT accuse Arena Premium channels of operating without licence, fault AAVMU for treating them as foreign services
MMA and the public broadcaster say Arena M1/M2/M3 Premium operate without domestic permits and are being listed as foreign services by AAVMU.
Members of the Macedonian Media Association (MMA) together with Macedonian Radio Television (MRT) say they have gathered evidence that the sports channels Arena M1, M2 and M3 Premium have been operating in North Macedonia without a domestic licence, while the national regulator, the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services (AAVMU), treats them as foreign services.
The claim includes that production staff, journalists, commentators and guests work and record in Skopje, and that studio programmes are produced in the country and broadcast in Macedonian, yet AAVMU’s operator records list the channels as foreign services broadcasting in Serbian.
Calls for criminal and administrative probes
The MMA and MRT also note that those same channel names do not appear in the registry of Serbia’s Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), which — they argue — indicates the channels are not domiciled in Serbia. They asked law-enforcement bodies to check whether the licence rules were circumvented, whether the state budget suffered loss through unpaid licences, and whether the owners, managers of the TV services or officials at AAVMU bear responsibility.
In a public statement the associations said: "The MMA and MRT have material evidence that the sports channels Arena M1, M2 and M3 Premium have been operating for an extended period without a domestic licence and our regulator AAVMU in a 'magical way' treats them as foreign programming services that are re-broadcast in Macedonia, even though the production, journalists, commentators and guests are in Skopje, studio shows are produced here, and the programme is broadcast in the Macedonian language."
They also demanded an inquiry into potential unauthorised use of premium sports TV rights — what they described as TV piracy — and warned that a practice tolerated as an exception today could become standard practice tomorrow. The associations said they will submit formal complaints to the Public Prosecutor's Office and to the Ministry of Internal Affairs so that actions and possible responsibility of AAVMU officials can be examined.
Finally, MMA and MRT warned they will oppose any attempt to apply the same approach to newly announced services such as Euronews Macedonia, saying they have received information that such plans come from channel owners and, as they put it, from structures in Belgrade.
Photo: Printskrin
