NUNS Warns Yettel’s Removal of N1 and Nova Threatens Media Pluralism

Serbia’s Independent Journalists’ Association has warned that Yettel’s decision to remove N1 and Nova from some customers’ television packages cannot be treated as a routine business choice. The company is testing the change with selected users and reducing their subscriptions by 300 dinars.

NUNS says the decision comes in a highly concentrated media-distribution market. Citing the latest RATEL figures for the first quarter of 2026, it says the Telekom Srbija group held 62.3% of the market by subscriber numbers, followed by SBB with 29% and Yettel with 5.4%. After Yettel and SBB were integrated, NUNS says distribution effectively became concentrated between two large business groups, one of them Telekom Srbija, which is majority state-owned.

“In such an environment, distributors’ decisions about the availability of news channels cannot be viewed solely as private business decisions,” NUNS said. “They can directly affect the reach of media outlets, their economic viability and, consequently, the position of the journalists and other media workers employed by them.”

The association also questioned Yettel’s explanation that the pilot aims to improve the customer experience. If N1 and Nova were selected in advance for removal, NUNS said, users were not given an equal choice to drop other news channels instead. It said the pilot may be testing whether customers would accept a cheaper package without these two outlets, rather than measuring general viewing preferences.

NUNS placed the decision alongside the disappearance of N1 and Nova from Total TV after its transfer to Telekom Srbija’s control, as well as previously documented claims and discussions about reducing the operations of United Media outlets in Serbia. It also pointed to the upcoming elections. According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026, N1, together with RTS, is among Serbia’s most-used news sources, reaching 38% of people weekly, while Nova reaches 24%. NUNS said both outlets are also among the country’s most trusted media organizations.

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In such an environment, distributors’ decisions about the availability of news channels cannot be viewed solely as private business decisions. They can directly affect the reach of media outlets, their economic viability and, consequently, the position of the journalists and other media workers employed by them.