SLS Completes Delo Takeover
Danilo Slivnik is following in Peter Jančič footsteps
Danilo Slivnik, CEO of Delo newspaper yesterday tendered his resignation in what was a rather stunning turn of event. Thus he follows the fate of Peter Jančič, who “was resigned”, so to speak, after Laško Brewery re-claimed the paper from the grip of Janez Janša.
It is not entirely clear what percipetated Slivnik’s resignation, especially since the grapevine had it that he and Andrijana Starina Kosem, the head of Supervisory Board have managed to reconcile their differences. But apparnetly the divide was far to great for the two of them. There are only circumstancial clues as to what actually happened, but it would seem that Slivnik’s appetites grew bigger again, as the shareholders changed the company’s charter several months ago, allowing the CEO to serve as Editor-In-Chief as well. That didn’t happen and it looked that Slivnik was on the outs.
He somehow survived though, but now - only a day after presidential elections - the shareholders (meaning the board of Laško Brewery, meaning Laško’s CEO Boško Šrot and Andrijana Starina Kosem) - changed Delo’s charter again, transferring the right to name the Editor-In-Chief to the Supervisory Board rather than leaving it with the CEO. This seems so have been the final straw which broke the camel’s back and Slivnik realized that his dream of joining the two functions will not come true.
This opens up a whole plethora of political possibilities, with Editor-In-Chief Janez Markeš (once a close aide of Slivnik’s) suddenly becoming very critical of the government (and has been ever the polls started tipping the opposition social democrats as the top party), while SLS, the junior coalition partner, suddenly became immensly influential in the media, since Boško Šrot’s brother Bojan (the mayor of the city of Celje in his daytime job) is tipped to replace Janez Podobnik as leader of SLS in the comming weeks, making life very difficult for PM Janša…
…who (in related news) is apparently going to get hitched. At least the captain of his heart, Urška Bačovnik, MD said so in an interview for POP TV (Slovene only, her first live appearance ever). So the big question is - did Janez now that beforehand, or did she present him with a fait accompli… I would kindda like to think it’s the former, but who knows…
So, what happens to Danilo Slivnik? Well, now that he was replaced by Peter Puhan (until today, CEO of Slovene Railways, but in reality a trusted SLS cadre), he must embark on a long and paintful road through purgatory which might or might not end at his true master’s heels, listening to his voice. Again.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:56 am
[…] Sleeping With Pengovsky writes about recent developments in Slovenian media business. Share This […]
November 20th, 2007 at 11:29 am
[…] Perhaps even the fact that (while they were good chums) Janša controlled Delo daily via Laško brewery, had a cooperative supervisory board, a cooperative CEO (Danilo Slivnik) and an even more cooperative Editor-in-Chief (Peter Jančič)? You see, politicians all over the world find it hard to resist the urge of subjugating the media. Slovenia is no exception. It never was. Even the LDS is not without sin in this department. Janša was right on one point - that media cartels were established under LDS and we still feel the effect today. However, that does not make him any less responsible for media pressures that were (and apparently still are) exerted under his tenure. But are big bad media being accused of? […]
December 12th, 2007 at 11:31 am
[…] d) Pro-government journalists have a one-on-one with the PM (no counter-arguments allowed) or they invite journalists who criticise the government to their talk shows and they try do discredit them (contarty to the unwritten code that a journalist will never attack another journalist as long as they both do their job professionally) After three years the media and journalists finally took a stand against continous rape by the government (with a not-so-little help of opportunist capitalists who smell a change in power), which is of course suddenly suffering from a bad case of amnesia and basically claims that time started with Danilo Slivnik and Peter Jančič being removed from Delo daily. Nothing is being said about Jančič and Slivnik (the former being a stooge for the latter, both doubling as governmental hench-men) running out half of journalists of Sobotna Priloga (Delo’s most read Saturday supplement), of recalling journalists on foreing posts home just because they didn’t report in line with government’s foreign policy (I didn’t even know we have one!), of the foreign minister boasting that if there is something not printed in the papers, he’ll have it printed (or else…), of articles being rewritten by Jančič to the extent of being unrecognisable to their original authors, etc, etc… As I said, all of the above makes the pressures exerted by the political left (while it was in power) look like a picnic. Although their achievement are not to be diminished, either. I will refrain from ranting about how FM frequency were distributed and then re-accumulated by friends-of-friends, with the watchdog being as toothless and impotent as a 90-year-old siphylitic patient with Alhzeimer’s - I am, afterall, highly biased on that matter (which don’t mean I’m wrong, but still ). Instead, we can remember all the brouhaha about the government of Janez Drnovšek buying a jet plane and the not being entirely truthful (i.e.: they lied) about the price. […]
January 13th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
[…] Fast forward a year and a half and Janša gets stabbed in the back by Andrijana Starina Kosem, his hench-woman in the world of economy. Soon after that Laško (being now the sole owner of Delo) replaces Janša’s Board members at Delo and replaces them with its own people, naming Andrijana Starina Kosem president of the supervisory board. In the mean time Zoran Janković got elected as mayor of Ljubljana and is fast becoming a politial force to be reckoned with. Matjaž Gantar didn’t get the bank that was promised to him and quit SECO and joined LDS’s team of economic experts and Igor Bavčar and Janša became foes at least for the time being as Istrabenz sold it’s Mercator shares, enabling Laško to control the company and by extention own Delo completely. Shortly before that, in an attempt at keeping his job, Danilo Slivnik, CEO of Delo (an ardent Janša supporter whose assuming the position was part of the deal) fired the criminally incompetent Editor-in-Chief Peter Jančič and replaced him with Janez Markeš, Editor-in-Chief of a centre-right magazine Mag (acquired by Delo some years ago via political pressure as well). But of course Slivnik did not keep his job and Delo as a whole embarked on a path much more critical to the government than before - one must note that after the August 2005 deal Delo was purged of its more popular journalists and became very pro-government. Politicaly, this thing culminated for the first time with the vote of confidence to Janša’s government, which the PM abused for a massive reckoning with the media. But it did not end there… In the dwindling days of 2007 Boško Šrot (who turned out to be a member of Pahor’s Social Democrats but left the party soon after the disclosure) gave an interview to his Delo, where he blatantly attacked the Prime Minister of meddling with the media but claimed that it was Zoran Janković who wanted to deal with Janša in the first place and that he (Šrot) was defending himself anyway he could. Zoran Janković replied early in 2008 (Tuesday last) and said that Boško Šrot is a liar and that he (Janković) never offered to deal with Janša. […]
April 15th, 2008 at 9:54 am
[…] since Janša & Co. lost control of the largest Slovene newspaper and are faced with increasingly independent state media (a […]
May 13th, 2008 at 9:03 am
[…] remember him from events surrounding Delo newspaper, subsequent anti-media drive by the government of PM Janša and his pre-dawn anti-tycoon raids […]