By decision of the general director, Olivera Kovačević was removed from the position of supervisor and editor of the Pesma za Evroviziju (Song for Eurovision) festival. As she told the N1 portal, she was removed because she did not want to prevent support for students at PZE, that she signed a letter of support for a part of the employees at RTS, and that she sued Aleksandar Vučić.
Kovačević says that it was presented to her that she had ignored the general director’s order “to prevent the participants of the competition from expressing their views and support for student protests at the festival.”
“More specifically, the wearing of badges, the showing of a red hand, the raising of an index in a live program, as well as the performance of the song ‘For a Million Years’ was interpreted as a political message. It is true that as an editor I did not want to censor anyone at the festival and that ‘PZE25’ showed that RTS is open to all its citizens and that artists have the right to their own opinion without any indecent or offensive behavior,” said Olivera Kovačević.
She also reminded that the festival was organized with a boycott by a large number of musicians who canceled their performances in the revue part of the program.
“The fact that I publicly supported the students, signed a letter from a part of the employees demanding that the Information Program do its job professionally, and finally, that I sued Aleksandar Vučić for a series of untruths that he stated about me and the RTS festival Pesma za Evroviziju, are a sufficient and, apparently, necessary reason for my removal,” said Olivera Kovačević.
Pro-regime media reported the news with a statement from a member of the RTS Board of Directors, Predrag Ajzdeković, that the dismissal was the epilogue of his complaint against Olivera Kovačević to the European Broadcasting Union.
However, as Kovačević stated, the European Broadcasting Union has no jurisdiction over the national selections of the participating countries of the Eurovision Song Contest.
“And they didn’t have any complaints about our festival either, because they broadcast the final night of ‘PZE25’ on their official YouTube channel,” she states for the N1 portal.
She recalled that she came to RTS in 2006 at the invitation of Aleksandar Tijanić.
“In the Information Program, I set up, edited, and hosted the show ‘OKO’, then ‘Da, možda, ne’ until 2019, when the show was canceled and I was transferred to the Entertainment Program. I was selected in the competition for the editor-in-chief of the Entertainment Program, where I worked for eight years. During that time, I launched several formats such as ‘Luda noć’, ‘Najlepše narodne pesme’, ‘Pesma za Evroviziju’, ‘Bunt rok festival’, ‘Karavan najlepših narodnih pesama’, eight New Year’s programs, as well as the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the First World War, 20 years since the death of RTS workers, 60 years of television in Serbia, celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Radio Belgrade, etc. After my mandate expired, I was not returned to the Information Program, but to the RTS Entertainment Program, and I was never an assistant, advisor to the general director or anyone else at RTS,” she said.
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Source: N1, Photo: Antonio Ahel / ATAImages