He has been an entrepreneur for a long time and remains until today one of the few "media tycoons" who readily admit that his radio station would go bankrupt if it were not for a bakery and a butcher's shop whose profits finance Milesevic's enthusiasm for "spreading of the truth about Serbia".
"Simply, there is no chance that any of my associates gets no fee. If I cannot pay a journalist in cash, I pay in kind in meat and bread from my stores," Milesevic tells Glas Javnosti in the local "opposition" pizza restaurant named "Konti", after a contentious session of the local council. By the way, Milesevic is an independent councilor in the local council.
His interpretation of the term independent is a pretty loose one. Therefore, he prefers to call his radio the only "non-aligned" station in Serbia.
His radio station has been closed down six times. The last ban was imposed at the onset of the NATO air raids, but in June he nevertheless resumed his broadcasts.
"All the closings were a part of the well known regime's dirty game. They say that we lack a broadcasting license. However, bills for the use of our frequency and warning about late payments reach us regularly. I suppose it's normal that even pirates are supposed to pay in an abnormal state. Who knows, maybe these guys who smuggle cigarettes and gasoline also pay some sort of a tax. They call that gray economy, but I do not like that term because everywhere a state tries to suppress the so-called gray economy while here the government tries to use and control it. Thus, it is really a 'red' economy. Of course, it does not matter that the state has broken all legal deadlines for the issuing of broadcasting licenses and that they failed to open a new tender for the broadcasting permits. The only good thing in the whole story is that this ugly stuff is coming from the people who are about to leave," says our interlocutor.
The last time his station, VK Radio, was closed down, two Telecommunications Ministry inspectors and their driver broke in to station's premises, while 15-odd policeman were stationed outside. "The whole scene resembled the 'good old times' of the former secret service. The motive, I suppose, was my refusal to re-broadcast the state-run TV's prime time newscasts, at least not in the prime time slots. I voiced my refusal at a meeting at which an information coordinator (a chief of the local RTS bureau, by the way) lectured us about patriotic journalism. That lady was telling us how to label NATO and what epithets to use for the Yugoslav Army. I've already had the opportunity to see how it all looked on Tirana and Harare's TV stations and so refused to follow the pattern. Our slogan is 'Don't tap our phones, listen to us!'" Milesevic says.
He did not get overtly excited during the war when he received a mobilization notice. He refused to accept it and was taken into custody.
Now he has also frozen the membership of his station in the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) because of, as he says, privileged status of three out of 33 stations that make up this association.
"We shall keep our status frozen at lest until the regular meeting of the governing council of the association, re-registration and establishment of democratic principles for governing and decision making in the association," explains Milesevic.
He adds that he is not afraid of the regime since that's a part of his family's tradition. "When they closed down Dnevni Telegraf, I said in a letter to (now late) Slavko Curuvija, 'Don't be afraid, Slavko. I've sorted it out: Serbs are nine years less brave than Romanians.' Now I see I was wrong. The calculation should have been ten years." After the enactment of the Public Information Law, he wrote to the information minister, Vucic, "Since besides my interest in the media I also breed dogs, I would like to know if breeding of German shepherd dogs is permitted. My interest in dogs has helped me to easily identify mongrels as well as those dogs that bark all the time."
"If I hadn't been honest in business for almost 16 years I would not dare criticize Sloba [Slobodan Milosevic] and Mira [Markovic, his wife and leader of the United Yugoslav Left or JUL], nor anyone else. I even criticized my teacher in the first grade and in high school I forced the math teacher to leave the room. Now, I'm trying to chase away this regime. I've never lacked a reply to anyone's criticism. And when all verbal possibilities are used up, I gladly switch to fists, which has earned me a certain reputation in this region," concludes Milesevic.