How much and to whom do the citizens of Montenegro pay for advertising
How much and to whom do the citizens of Montenegro pay for advertising

Author(s): Damir Nikočević
Subject(s): Media studies, Government/Political systems, Public Finances, Fiscal Politics / Budgeting, Marketing / Advertising
Published by: Centar za građansko obrazovanje (CGO)
Keywords: Montenegrian media; Montenegrian municipalities; promotional activities; Taxpayers money; advertisement;
Summary/Abstract: The project “How much and to whom do the citizens of Montenegro pay for advertising” is part of the sub-programme Media and Democracy of the Centre for Civic Education and it aims to raise awareness about the ways in which the taxpayers’ money is being spent by public institutions, and increase their accountability in this regard. The specific objective of the project is to examine the relations between public institutions and the Parliament and various media in Montenegro, based on the allocation of service contracts, as well as to see if any changes occurred in this area compared to 2011. Centre for Civic Education (CCE) collected the data between 11 January and 19 February 2013, making use of the provisions of the Law on Free Access to Information. The data refer to all media, PR agencies, polling agencies and production companies that the Government of Montenegro and its bodies, as well as the Parliament, engaged during 2011 on the basis of several types of service contracts. In the course of data analysis, the research team took into consideration the type of contract, as well as the total amounts paid for media services by each institution included in the study. It should be stressed that this study only covers one part of public funds that is spent on the media, PR agencies, agencies for public opinion research and production companies within various arrangements, it only examines the amounts allocated by central bodies of the Government and the Parliament of M Montenegro. Most importantly, the study leaves out the spending by local authorities, which is a sizeable portion of these funds. This subject will be covered separately in a forthcoming study about spending patterns of local governments. Other channels through which the taxpayers’ money can be directed to the media are expenditures by state-owned companies. For the purposes of this study, CCE sent requests or information to five public companies which are known to spend large amounts on advertisements. Two companies we contacted delivered complete data, one company provided partial information, while the other two companies did not respond at all. In the report, the data for public enterprises are presented in a separate entry and analysed independently from the information on ministries and other governmental bodies.

• Details
• Contents