What do citizens in Serbia really expect from their media, and who do they trust? A new comprehensive study, “Media User Preferences in Serbia”, presented today in Belgrade by The Council of Europe, in cooperation with the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), offers the first large-scale, evidence-based insight into how citizens in Serbia consume media, what content they expect, and how they perceive the quality, trustworthiness and diversity of media services.

The findings aim to support REM in fulfilling its legal mandate to monitor the needs of media users and to strengthen evidence-based regulatory decision-making in line with European standards.

Opening the conference, the Head of the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade János Babity underlined that placing citizens at the centre of media policy is essential for building trust, pluralism and accountability in the media environment.

The research confirms that Serbia’s media landscape is undergoing rapid digital transformation. While television with national coverage still reaches the widest audience, younger citizens increasingly rely on online media, social networks and video platforms, as their primary sources of information.

Report on Media User Preferences in English and in Serbian language.

The research and the conference were conducted through the Action “Protecting freedom of expression and of the media in Serbia (PROFREX)”, implemented by the Division for Co-operation on Freedom of Expression, under the joint European Union and the Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye”.