International Freedom of Expression Exchange: The global network for free expression
27 May 2009
Radio B92 celebrates 20 years of social responsibility
Radio B92 - a Belgrade local radio station that blossomed into a national media network famous for its staunch independence and commitment to social responsibility - celebrates its 20th birthday this month.
B92, a member of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), was founded as a small youth radio station in 1989 in the former Yugoslavia. The station was a rare outlet for independent news and information in Serbia under President Slobodan Milošević, and was a force behind many demonstrations that took place in Belgrade during the turbulent 1990s.
Its popularity swelled in the early 1990s, when it was taken off the air and forced to go underground, whereupon it grew into a movement.
Today, it is Serbia's leading commercial radio station, garnering the highest ratings in the country, and has ventures in television, Internet, music production and book publishing.
Speaking to RTV B92, Veran Matić, one of the station's founders and B92's editor-in-chief, said that "social responsibility was always the backbone of B92's policy."
"The struggle for democratic change, freedom of thought, political expression, opposition to the violence of the Nineties, it's identical to what we're doing in tackling domestic violence, poverty, prejudice and anomalies in society," said Matić.
Read the full interview with Matić, here:
B92, 20 years later
RSS