Kopernikus Corporation

Kopernikus Corporation is a media group controlled by the Serbian businessman Srđan Milovanović, whose origins go back to a cable and broadband business established in 1998, and which owns the national television channels Prva and B92, which it acquired with the Serbian media of Antenna Group in a purchase agreed in December 2018.

Media assets

Television: the national channel Prva and its channels PrvaPlus, PrvaMax, PrvaWorld, PrvaKick, PrvaLife and PrvaFiles, and the national channel TV B92, which was called O2 TV until it returned to its former name on 1 March 2020. The Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) granted national licences to Prva and B92, both valid from 5 August 2022 to 5 August 2030. News portal: b92.net, which was part of the 2018 purchase. The same purchase included the radio station Play, which N1 reported was among the stations awarded national radio frequencies on 29 July 2022. The group-level assessment draws principally on evidence concerning Prva, TV B92 and b92.net; the other listed services were not separately assessed.

Ownership and governance

The REM register lists Kopernikus Corporation Ltd of Cyprus as the owner of 100 per cent of Prva televizija d.o.o., with Srđan Milovanović as its representative. According to data of the Serbian Business Registers Agency (APR) published by CompanyWall, Prva televizija d.o.o. is owned 100 per cent by Kopernikus Corporation (Cyprus) Ltd, and Jelena Agatunović and Srđan Milovanović are its directors. The same data show the company Radio difuzno preduzeće B92 d.o.o., which operates TV B92, as 100 per cent owned by Kopernikus Corporation (Cyprus) Ltd, while the REM register lists Astonko d.o.o. as its 100 per cent owner. A decision of REM of 7 June 2024 approved a planned restructuring of the ownership of B92 d.o.o., under which Astonko d.o.o. would be merged into the company and Kopernikus Corporation (Cyprus) Ltd would become its owner of 100 per cent, and it identifies Srđan Milovanović as the owner of 100 per cent of the capital of the Cypriot company. The REM summary entry still lists the earlier intermediary Astonko, and the direct ownership shown by CompanyWall is consistent with the restructuring having been carried out, but the approval alone does not establish that it was completed.

In 2018 Telekom Srbija, in which the Republic of Serbia holds 58.11 per cent according to the company, bought the cable operator Kopernikus Technology, reported as paying almost EUR 195 million on 1 November 2018. Vreme reported that the sellers were two companies registered in Cyprus, one owned by Milovanović, who held 49 per cent, and one by the Polish fund Abris, which held 51 per cent, and that Milovanović’s share was about EUR 95.55 million. In December 2018 Milovanović agreed to buy the Serbian and Montenegrin media of Antenna Group for about EUR 180 million. The price of the sale to Telekom Srbija was disputed: N1 reported that Insajder and Danas put the price at 17.5 to 25 times annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, while the director of Telekom Srbija said it was 10.6 times.

Nova, citing Politika, reported that Milovanović’s twin brother Zvezdan Milovanović was the commissioner of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in Niš, and Nova reported on 14 May 2021 that he had resigned from that role after five years and remained an ordinary member. His current party role was not identified.

Source of funding and budget

No consolidated accounts of the group were identified. According to APR financial statements published by CompanyWall, the total revenue of Prva televizija d.o.o. was RSD 5,932.3 million in 2023, RSD 6,963.2 million in 2024 and RSD 9,399.2 million in 2025, with net profits of RSD 181.9 million, RSD 817.8 million and RSD 1,839.9 million, and it had 306, 317 and 321 employees. The total revenue of Radio difuzno preduzeće B92 d.o.o. was RSD 1,600.3 million in 2023, RSD 2,240.9 million in 2024 and RSD 2,272.2 million in 2025, with net profits of RSD 4.4 million, RSD 371.8 million and RSD 217.2 million, and it had 154, 163 and 169 employees.

On 27 October 2024 President Aleksandar Vučić offered on Prva to say how much money the channel receives from the state and said that it was tens of millions of euros. N1 reported that its sources and two commentators considered such financing contrary to the Law on Public Information.

Editorial independence

The REM register lists Katarina Pavlović as the editor of Prva and Dragan Karadžić as the editor of TV B92.

The monitoring of the Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI) of central news programmes from 1 January to 31 July 2026 found that Prva gave President Vučić 11 hours 40 minutes of airtime, 17.4 per cent of his airtime across the seven monitored channels, including N1 and Nova S, 75.2 per cent of it positive, and that B92 gave him 21 hours 14 minutes, 31.6 per cent of his airtime and the largest share of any channel, 56.6 per cent of it positive and 21.9 per cent negative. The government received positive coverage in 77.6 per cent of its airtime on Prva and 75.4 per cent on B92. In its monitoring of the election campaign from 9 September to 15 October 2026 across RTS1, Pink, Prva, B92 and Happy, BIRODI found that the list of Vučić received 12,878 of the 24,595 monitored minutes, 96 per cent of them positive, and the student list 10,024 minutes, 95 per cent of them negative, combined across the five channels, and it asked REM to examine the compliance of the broadcasters with Article 61 of the Law on Electronic Media. The interim report of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (ODIHR) on the early parliamentary election of 25 October 2026, as reported by N1 on 10 October 2026, states that RTS, B92, Happy, Pink and Prva, along with most regional outlets, are widely perceived as pro-government and favourable to the ruling SNS.

The Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation’s content analysis of national television channels, covering 5 March to 5 April 2025, found that informative programming made up 8.24 per cent of Prva’s schedule, below the legal minimum of 10 per cent, and quality programming, a category made up of educational, documentary, children’s and cultural programming rather than a general assessment of programme quality, 3.25 per cent, against 17 per cent promised in its licence application. It found that the Prva programme Dosije NVO of 7 March 2025 presented protests as a plan to create chaos, non-governmental organisations as agents of foreign funders, and attacked named public figures personally, and that the news of B92 was scarce and set within clear ideological frames.

The Complaints Commission of the Press Council unanimously found on 30 January 2025 that a text of b92.net of 31 December 2024 about a donation to students breached the Code of Journalists of Serbia, including its provisions on accuracy and on independence from influence. On 28 August 2025 it unanimously found that a b92.net text of 22 July 2025 about a planned entry of protesters into the Faculty of Philology breached the provisions on accuracy and on the duty to the public not being subordinated to the interests of others. On 7 June 2024 REM imposed on Prva a temporary ban on broadcasting advertisements for one day between 18:00 and 21:00, because in its news programme Vesti in November and December 2023 it had aired blocks in which Aleksandar Šapić, as a public official, presented infrastructure projects within 30 days of the election date, and an interview with Vučić of 8 November 2023 that was not marked as election programming. On 6 August 2025 the expert service of REM proposed proceedings against Pink and B92 over a video of the Center for Social Stability targeting journalists of N1 and Nova S, but REM had no Council, and N1 reported in December 2025 that the proceedings could not be opened because the Council’s mandate had expired on 4 November 2024.

In January 2026 the Association of Electronic Media (ANEM) reported that the Basic Court in Novi Sad had issued a first-instance ruling finding that a video of the Center, aired on Pink, Prva, B92 and K1 on 25 to 28 March 2025, harmed the reputation of N1 and Nova S, but the respondent in the case was the Center and not the broadcasters. On 30 January 2026 the board of ANEM said that a film aired on Informer, B92 and Prva seriously endangered the safety of its president, Veran Matić. On 14 October 2026 the new REM Council decided not to take measures against RTS, RTV, B92, Pink, Prva and K1 over a campaign advertisement featuring children, with the motion to proceed receiving three of seven votes. No REM sanction against B92 for 2024 to 2026 was identified, and no internal ombudsman or editorial statute of either channel was identified.

On 20 February 2025 the chef Branko Kisić, a judge of the Prva programme MasterChef Serbia, wrote on Instagram that a representative of the programme had told him that he was not suitable for its next seasons because of his open support for the student protests. The article contains no response from Prva.

AI and digital policy

No publicly available Prva or B92 policy on artificial intelligence (AI) was identified for this update.

Classification rationale

Kopernikus Corporation is classified CaPr on the combination of private ownership, documented political connections and sustained evidence of coverage favouring the governing authorities. The monitoring, the regulatory findings and the attributed accounts of political pressure together support the classification, while the family connection of its owner to the Serbian Progressive Party and the claims of public funding serve as supporting context.

October 2026