Announcement from the meeting of the Independent Media Commission

The Independent Media Commission (IMC), on June 23, 2023, under the leadership of the Chairman of the IMC, Mr. Jeton Mehmeti, held its third regular meeting for this year, where it approved the annual budget, licensed two distribution operators, has extended the licenses of seven mediums and started the procedures for licensing two radios in the language of non-majority communities.

After the report of the Chief Executive Officer, the Commission has reviewed and approved the budget for 2024, namely the request for funding of the Independent Media Commission for the Medium Term Framework 2024-2026. The request is addressed to the Ministry of Finance, Labour and Transfers, and among others, it foresees three capital projects, the one for the e-IMC electronic system, the one for updating the digital system for frequency management and the one for updating the media monitoring system, and which in total have an approximate cost of 1,308,000 euros. The 2024 budget also contains the request for new additional employment of 27 positions. The need for increased staff is a result of increasing the competences and responsibilities of the IMC.

Within the framework of requests for renewal of licenses, the Commission has examined a total of 11 cases of audio and audio-visual media service providers. In this case, the Commission made a decision to renew the license of Radio Prishtina, K - Sport 1, K - Sport 2, K - Sport 3, K - Sport 4, K - Sport 5 and Turbo Channel. The Commission has made a decision on the licensing of two distribution operators according to cable and IPTV platforms, namely: VALNET Sh.p.k., and Negenet Sh.p.k.

In this meeting, the Commission made a decision on the establishment of two commissions for the evaluation of applications for the IMC license for two radio stations, one in the Bosnian language in the Municipality of Peja and one in the Turkish language in the Municipality of Prizren. The Commission has not approved the license renewal requests for entities that have not paid the license fee in previous years. IMC  is reviewing the mechanisms for collecting debt from licensed entities, which amounts to about 778 thousand euros.