About the MSI
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IREX designed the MSI to measure the strength and viability of any country’s media sector. The MSI considers all the factors that contribute to a media system—the quality of journalism, effectiveness of management, the legal environment supporting freedom of the press, and more—to arrive at scores on a scale ranging between 0 and 4. These scores represent the strength of the media sector components and can be analyzed over time to chart progress (or regression) within a country. Additionally, countries or regions may be compared to one another. IREX currently conducts the MSI in 80 countries, and IREX currently conducts the MSI in 80 countries, and produced the first Europe & Eurasia MSI in 2001.
MSI Overview [9] | Africa [10] | Asia [11] | Europe & Eurasia [12] | Middle East & North Africa [13]
MSI Methodology [14]
Download the Complete Montenegro MSI Chapter (PDF): 2013 [15] | 2012 [16] | 2011 [17] | 2010 [18] | 2009 [19] | 2008 [20] | 2006/7 [21] | 2005 [22] | 2004 [23] | 2003 [24] | 2002 [25] | 2001 [26]
MSI Montenegro - 2013 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 2.23
Montenegro’s ruling coalition, led by the Democratic Party of Socialists, won reelection in an early parliamentary vote on Oct. 14, 2012, making the country one of the rare constitutional democracies in which there has been no change of government for the past 22 years. Prime Minister Milo Đukanović also returned to his post for the seventh time, the sole original post-Yugoslav politician to still be in power. This resistance to democratic change is primarily the consequence of the long-lasting control that the ruling parties have had over public resources and the state apparatus, but also of the opposition’s ideological and political weaknesses and the country’s identity issues.
The proclaimed focus of the new government’s policy is economic recovery and the continuation of Euro-Atlantic integration, including EU and NATO accession talks. As for internal issues, the greatest challenge for the government and the society in general will be improving rule of law, economic performance and social stability. The EU talks have moved on to these issues, as well as the difficult questions of organized crime and corruption.
Montenegro’s economic struggles reflect both the global crisis and domestic structural weaknesses. GDP growth was insignificant last year (1 percent) and average monthly wages went unchanged (€485), while state debt exceeded 50 percent of GDP and the real unemployment rate is approaching 20 percent. The unfavorable economic environment has been a challenge for the media industry.
Media also took an active part in political divides and the electoral campaign. The most influential were divided between support of the government (RTCG, Pobjeda) and opposition (Vijesti, Dan, TV Vijesti). The remainder of media voices tried hard to stay outside political conflicts, but their public impact remained secondary. All this reflected on the work of the journalists’ self-regulating body, in which the anti-government media did not take part.
The media market is saturated with outlets, about 70 for a population of 650,000, including four national dailies. The €9 million advertising market cannot hope to support this menagerie. Two national public stations and ten local public stations compete for the funds. Private organizations stay alive either with funding from their owners or by cutting back on programming. Only the above-mentioned opposition outlets manage to operate without losses. One major television broadcaster went bankrupt in 2012.
A positive recent development in media law was the decriminalization of libel and slander, making Montenegro one of the only Eastern European countries where this is the case. Professional and commercial responsibility and solidarity are lacking. There are frequent cases of public disputes among journalists, such as when private media criticize the work of public media and vice versa. In this context, the panelists noted a general erosion in media sustainability, particularly on issues of transparency, breadth of coverage, and support from civil society.
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