Sorry About the Interruption of the Broadcast

When you do all that, sit back and think, just like Channel 3 editor in chief Stefan Grubac did. Since his political experience tells him that nothing is accidental in Serbia, that enemies of all colors never sleep; he saw resemblance with Mira Markovic, wife of the Serbian President. As is customary in a situation as grave as that of social importance, just hours after the show was due to go on air (December 31, 22:00), Grubac brought in "some Radio TV Serbia employees" (for example, director general Dragoljub Milanovic) to check out the show; those employees immediately saw the same enemy handwriting on the wall; then those "employees of Radio TV Serbia" decided to stop the infection from spreading, removed the tape to a safe place and instead of the listed show, aired 150 minutes of old music video clips, waited for the new year, wished each other well and tried to sweep the mess under the carpet.

It all started when channel three was late with its new year programming. Grubac, still new in his job, had just two weeks to come up with something but he relaxed and almost forgot about it. When his staff showed him that they had just two weeks to come up with a show he decided: script writer Vojislav Zanetic was hired, director Vladimir Aleksic was chosen, a group of well known young Belgrade actors was brought in, along with a couple of popular rock bands.

"The program was called 'Sorry About the Interruption of the Broadcast'," director Aleksic told VREME. "The whole thing was wrapped around a girl who stole the tapes of the new year show. The channel three staff then have to come up with something quickly: they dance and sing and joke for two hours. There were no political allusion, none of the people involved has anything to do with politics.

It took 15 days to tape the show and it was all finished on the morning of December 31. Grubac spent four days on the set: he saw Vesna Trivalic who played a fortunteller with flowers in her hair, and some say he even laughed a couple of times. Everything was OK. The new year could come.

It continued at around 4:00 p.m. on December 31. Grubac called Aleksic into his office and asked him if he could re-edit or delete all the scenes with Trivalic. When he was told that was impossible because she appears in over 40 minutes of the show, Grubac said he'd inform Aleksic about the fate of the show. Grubac didn't dare mention Mira Markovic then: he only spoke of associations and interpretations. Two hours later, Grubac phoned the director to tell him the show would be broadcasted and that there were no problems.

VREME sources in Belgrade TV said Grubac immediately called in state TV (RTS) director general Dragoljub Milanovic. Then Milanovic told Grubac to come see him at once with the tape. Then they and "some RTS employees" carefully watched the show; at 8:30 p.m., they concluded that the sorceress was not politically and morally suitable and that the associations were obvious and that there is no need to air that kind of damaging content when viewers were having fun, filled with optimism. Milanovic gave Grubac a tape with old tracks video clips, wished him a happy new year and the festivities went on.

And there was no Channel 3 show. The clips were played for 150 minutes.

The actors, the show's editor (Sanja Ignjatovic), script writer, musicians slowly realized that their show would not be aired. Some thought it had been moved to after midnight; one of the actors waited till 3:00 a.m. to see himself on TV.

Then the first day of the new year came: Grubac like everyone else in this country had the right to a holiday; he wasn't in his office and the show producers decided to organize a meeting with him so that he could explain what happened. On January 2, they phoned Grubac. He wished them a happy new year and agreed to see them in his office that evening at six.

Surrounded by two secretaries and a bodyguard, Grubac was surprised to see all the actors, director and script writer. "I though I was only meeting Sanja (Ignjatovic) and Vlada (Aleksic), but I see you're all here," he said roughly and soon rallied and pounded his desk. "Let's understand each other. As editor I have the right to order a show and I have the right not to air it. I used that right."

Then he tried to explain why the show wasn't aired: it wasn't because "the new year is a holiday and there shouldn't be certain elements included in it." He had discussed the "elements" with Aleksic and blamed the director for the whole mess because he refused to edit them out.

Zanetic asked: "Since I don't know exactly what you're talking about would you be so kind as to tell me what parts of the show Vlada was supposed to cut out?" Grubac responded: "I won't tell you. It's my right as editor not to tell you."

Actor Dragan Jovanovic spoke up with an interesting suggestion: "OK, editor, if there's something that's politically debatable we will gladly re-shoot the scenes and the show can be aired on Serbian Orthodox new year (January 13-14)."

Grubac thought about that and added that he wished the problem could be solved that easily because he's very sorry to have lost two hours of good programming over certain elements. The meeting ended there.

The show Sorry About the Interruption of the Broadcast that cost about 40,000 DEM to produce is in Grubac's desk. Mira Markovic has been fully protected as the RTS rules envisage. Flowers in women's hair are banned from TV for now.

Who is Stefan Grubac

In the 1980s Grubac was a journalist for TV Revija magazine where he covered soccer and new books.

On the wave of the eight session (when Milosevic came to power) he became politically active with a pro-regime stand; he started publishing articles in Dnevnik daily, NIN weekly and was a regular guest at patriotic tribunals and a frequent guest on TV Novi Sad and Belgrade. When the war began, Grubac was on the right side again; as one of the patriotic journalists he got a job in TV Belgrade and his own column in the Saturday evening news.

His comments are attacks on the Serbian opposition, in support of Karadzic and Milosevic, he revealed international plots, attacked independent media.

Months before Milosevic's new peace policies, Grubac was dismissed as commentator. When virtually everyone was convinced he had been forgotten, the RTS director general appointed him editor in chief of channel three.

In an exclusive statement to VREME; Stefan Grubac said: "The show wasn't banned nor the broadcast stopped. When the editing was completed I saw that it didn't keep to the script. That's why I didn't air the show."

Sorceresses

Viewers who carefully watched the new year TV shows could see that they included sorceresses and seers. Dubravka Melka (known as Vava) was the central figure on TV Politika; her visions said the West is in for a bad time in 1996 but Serbia under the wise leadership of Slobodan Milosevic is facing a period of unprecedented development.

Kleopatra said almost the same thing on TV Pink; Vojvodina seer Vesna made everyone happy when she said 1996 would be one of the best years of their lives.

None of them had flowers in her hair.