On the Third

author Dean Šoša
interviewed by Željko Luketić

 

Interviewed in Zagreb on 15 September 2015

 

Back in 1988 the then called Zagreb Television started an interesting experiment with basic technical equipment in a small space of the Chinese Pavilion of the Zagreb Fair. At first Z3 or the Zagreb Third programme screened only two hours a day, but it was soon recognized by the audience and the expert public. With new faces, enthusiastic young people with no previous television experience, it became the first channel of the kind in former Yugoslavia. The concept of the third programme as a more flexible and experimental form than the usual and rigid division of the Yugoslav Radio Television (JRT) into the first and the second television programmes has brought the programme closer to the media trends in Europe and the growing diversification of television channels, supported by the strong technical development of programmes broadcast via satellites. When the JRT Television disintegrated and the new state was formed, Z3 became the Third programme of the Croatian Radio Television. Financial problems appeared, but it kept the relaxed structure of the programme scheme until it was cancelled in 2004, when its denationalised frequency was taken over by RTL Television in a public tender.