For nine months, the streets of Belgrade and other Serbian cities have been filled with protesters demanding an end to corruption, authoritarianism, and the stifling grip of President Aleksandar Vučić’s government. Students, journalists, and ordinary citizens have marched, often facing riot police and organized pro-government thugs. Yet for most Serbians, the version of these events they see on television is carefully filtered: the demonstrators are painted as “terrorists,” their grievances dismissed as foreign-inspired plots to destabilize the country.

Against this tide of state-aligned media coverage, one broadcaster has stood apart: N1, the flagship Serbian channel of United Media, which is the media arm of United Group, a Dutch telecommunications and media conglomerate. N1 has livestreamed protests, exposed corruption, and given opposition voices airtime when few other outlets dared to do so. In Serbia’s shrinking media landscape, it has been a rare voice of independence.

But leaked correspondence and insider accounts suggest that even N1’s future may now be at risk, as political pressure, corporate reshuffling, and backroom negotiations threaten to bring Serbia’s last independent broadcaster into line.

The turning point appears to have come earlier this month, when Stan Miller, the newly appointed CEO of United Group, flew to Belgrade for a private meeting with Vladimir Lučić, the CEO of Telekom Srbija – a state-owned giant and one of Vučić’s most loyal corporate allies. According to a source familiar with the talks, as well as leaked correspondence reviewed by investigative journalists, Miller promised Lučić that he would soon fire Aleksandra Subotić, the CEO of United Media and a staunch defender of editorial independence.

For years, Subotić had been the bulwark ensuring that N1 and its sister channels resisted political interference, despite mounting regulatory and financial pressure from the state. But now, it seemed, she had become a bargaining chip. Miller, appointed in June by United Group’s majority owner, British private equity firm BC Partners,........

© Blitz