Serbia State TV Apologises to Viewers, Admits Bias After Vucic's Party Loses Election

A television channel in Serbia has apologised to its viewers, admitting responsibility for biased news coverage and for failing to question the government of former president Aleksandar Vucic. The state broadcaster Radio Television Vojvodina made the announcement after Vucic's party was unexpectedly defeated in the election on Sunday (25 October).

Goran Eror, a news presenter at Radio Television Vojvodina, the state broadcaster of a northern province of the country, said, 'For many years we have failed to do our duty.' He said, 'We stayed silent, we closed our eyes, we presented events one-sidedly and we failed to ask the necessary questions. For this we apologise to our viewers.'

After the defeat of Vucic's party, the acting editor-in-chief of Radio Television Vojvodina, Nenad Cacic, resigned. At the same time, the channel began its news broadcast with scenes of the Student List movement celebrating its election victory. The channel had failed to broadcast those scenes on election night.

With almost all votes counted, the Student List movement was found to have received 52.8 percent of the total vote. As a result, the movement is set to win about 140 seats in the 250-seat parliament.

Vucic, known as an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, ruled Serbia for 12 consecutive years as prime minister and president. In this election, a popular movement called Student List defeated his party. The election result is being seen as a historic defeat for Vucic's party.

On Monday (26 October) evening, protesters entered the office of another television channel, Informer TV. A live broadcast was under way at the channel at the time. About 30 protesters entered the newsroom and surrounded the channel's editor-in-chief and owner, Dragan Vucicevic. Some of the protesters chanted 'This is how it is in a free Serbia' and 'Where is Vucic now?' Several of them also demanded Vucicevic's arrest.

Mass protests began in Serbia after a railway station canopy collapsed in the city of Novi Sad in 2024, killing 16 people. In continuation of those mass protests, which ran for two consecutive years, Vucic's party suffered its historic defeat in this election. Throughout the protests and marches, students regularly alleged that the publicly funded Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) was not properly broadcasting news of their growing movement.

In a letter on Tuesday (27 October), the students demanded the resignation of the director general of RTS, his deputy, the chief editor in charge of news presentation and all news editors. In the letter, the students said they considered it particularly unacceptable that insulting comments and messages targeting students and other citizens for their opinions were broadcast without any criticism.

On election night, after Vucic conceded defeat, the state broadcaster RTS stopped broadcasting events in Belgrade. Yet across the capital at that time, huge numbers of people were celebrating the election victory until dawn.

Meanwhile, the victorious 'Student List' movement is planning to remove corruption, nepotism and political control over important state institutions. In this situation, analysts fear widespread changes in the country's media and action against officials.