Over 100,000 diaspora households using NetTV Plus platform could find themselves without access to the Radio Television of the Federation (FTV), one of three public emitters in Bosnia who recently sold their broadcasting rights exclusively to a Portuguese company, said to be a partner company to Serbia's Telecom.

According to NetTV Plus, the Vip Team United from Portugal got the exclusive rights for the distribution of FTV's programme for the entire world – except for Bosnia and Croatia. This was the result of a public competition published on December 25, 2019. In the meantime, the Portuguese company's attorneys notified NetTV Plus saying that they must remove the FTV from their platform “unconditionally.”

“We have a strong indication that Vip Team United is a partner company of the Serbian Telecom (Serbia's state-owned telecom company) and that they are acting in unison. Our biggest problem is that we never received the Vip Team's offer for FTV's programme on NetTV Plus platform. We wouldn't want a large part of Bosnia's diaspora to be without FTV but we can't promise that it won't happen. What we want to know is why FTV, which is a public broadcaster financed by Bosnian citizens, is working in the interest of Serbia's Telecom,” asked Nikola Francetic from NetTV Plus.

When N1 asked about the ways and conditions of choosing the exclusive distributor of their programme, and indications that the Portuguese company is working in partnership the state-owned telecom of neighbouring Serbia – the Radio-Television of the Federation (FTV) offered no response.

Samer Residat, the head of the Commission for information of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity, confirmed for N1 that the Commission is considering N1's inquiry, after which they should contact FTV for a statement on the circumstances of the case.

“A similar thing happened with Hayat TV. According to our information, Hayat TV gave exclusive distribution rights to the Vip Team United. Not only that, Hayat TV and its director and owner personally notified us that we should talk with Telecom Serbia, one of Telecom's directors, on the distribution rights. Those talks were unsuccessful and we never received their offer,” Francetic noted.

Recently, United Group announced that all their efforts to extend the distribution contract with Hayat TV were in vain and that they were told to talk to Serbia Telecom regarding the contract.

Hayat's owner Elvir Svrakic told N1 that he personally never told anyone to talk to Serbian Telecom and that he gave all the negotiating rights regarding the distribution of their programme to the company who bought these exclusive rights. Yet, he never denied that he knew this company was connected to Serbian Telecom.

N1 learned that NetTV Plus was told to speak to Vladimir Lucic, one of the directors in Serbian Telecom. Apart from Hayat TV and FVT – OBN, RTRS, ATV, BN and K3 all gave exclusive distribution rights to Go4YU company, owned by Serbian Telecom.
Bosnia's communications watchdog, the Regulatory Agency for Communications (RAK) told N1 that they do not give permits for the distribution of Bosnian channels abroad because that falls into the category of commercial agreements between TVs and cable companies, which also applies to public broadcasters. They added Bosnia has not regulated the distribution of TV programmes via the OTT technology, meaning via the open internet.

N1 and NetTV Plus are both part of the United Group. United Group is majority-owned by the British investment fund BC Partners, with minority owners being the US investment fund KKR and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).