Serbia Mulls Banishing Reality TV to Night-Time

Serbia's Regulatory Authority of Electronic Media, REM, on Monday adopted guidelines which could prevent broadcasters from airing reality-TV programmes before 11pm.

Goran Karadzic, the president of REM, an independent body with the authority to set policy, said on Monday that the guidelines will be enforced after a period of public debate.

"The instruction, once it enters into force, will became obligatory. After public debate which should last at least 15 days, we will send it to the Ministry of Culture and Information? and when we adopt it, everyone will have to respect it," Karadzic told Beta news agency.

The prevalence and content of reality shows has become a controversial topic in Serbia in recent months, with allegations that they are harmful to young people's moral values.

There have been frequent examples of reality-show contestants having sex on screen, while one participant was ejected from the 'Maldives' series in July because he punched a fellow participant and another, on the current series of 'The Farm', is a convicted criminal whose jail sentence was delayed so he could complete the filming of the show.

An internet petition calling for the withdrawal of four popular shows, entitled 'Serbia against "The Farm", "Couples", 'Maldives" and "Big Brother" has been signed by 105,864 people so far.

Four out of six Serbian television stations with national coverage are currently broadcasting reality shows: TV Pink, Happy TV, Prva TV and B92.

Milomir Maric, the editor of Happy TV, said on Saturday that REM's reaction was wrong and that 'Couples', which is broadcast on his channel, was not harming anybody.

"If 'Couples' is to people's taste, who has the right to change it? The show is the last slum fun. If they...