HDZ [ruling party in Croatia] candidates, led by Franjo Tudman, who lost in the most recent local elections in Zagreb, recognized in Radio 101 one of the important causes of their falling popularity among the Zagreb voters. Because of that, for more than a year they've been spinning a web of intrigue around Radio 101, trying to bring it to their side. After several unsuccessful attempts to "convince", and even bribe several key people in Radio 101, the last chance for those whose task was to neutralize Radio 101 was the public tender for radio frequencies.
Judging by the session of the Telecommunications council on which local radio frequencies were awarded, President Tudman's office had decided to try two approaches. Since Radio 101 was the only one among the three candidates for a radio concession with people and long term experience in radio broadcasting, the only choice was between a hidden and an open ban of Radio 101.
Apparently, Ivic Pasalic believed that the radio concession should openly be taken from Radio 101 and given to Zagrebacki Krugoval, whose owners are probably his good friends. Another approach, which was championed by previous-current Tudman's office manager Hrvoje Sarinic was to also abolish Radio 101 but to try to avoid an open confrontation with its listeners.
The award of the concession to Globus 101, actually Ninoslav Pavic , the owner of Europapress holding and the publisher of the weekly Globus shouldn't have been a controversial move: in a fair competition, the concession was awarded to the party which made the best offer - the owner of the independent weekly with the largest circulation in Croatia. Even if we disregard a fierce reaction by Rikardo Gumzej, another Tudman's advisor, currently at work on the consolidation of the Croatian television, one couldn't be blamed for smelling a dirty game in this whole business. "We've seen the establishment of several dynasties, for example Kutle, Rajic, and in this case Ninoslav Pavic and Globus, supposedly a democratic paper. However, they, based on somebody's orders, always present certain individuals in good light while they attack and try to discredit some people from the ruling party, perhaps the most honest people in HDZ," stated Gumzej; his words were just another indication that the award of the concession was the result of a special arrangement between one of the factions in HDZ and the newspaper magnate Pavic.
However, when a concession is awarded to someone who admits that in the realization of his radio project he mostly counts on the people who had submitted a competing project, and also states that he would not interfere with the programming scheme of the competing project, the logical conclusion is that a new owner was imposed on Radio 101; naturally this new owner must somehow return the favor, either by sharing the profits or by directing the program in accordance with the wishes of those who had awarded him a concession.
There are no other convincing reasons which could rationally explain the decision that a concession be taken from the people who had for the last ten years built Radio 101 and who can in the new conditions, now as majority owners and creators of the station's program, continue to do so. Citizens of Zagreb realised that someone was trying to fool them and reacted by giving support to Radio 101; the whole protest turned into a civic resistance movement.
Ninoslav Pavic realized the magnitude of the dissatisfaction and that in the attempt to broaden his media empire and increase profits he threatened his basic project - Globus. By giving up the awarded radio concession he desperately tried to prove that there had been no arrangement with one of the HDZ factions and to preserve high circulation of his paper.