The Slovak bureau of Novy Sad Television (TVNS) was completely destroyed during a May 3 NATO rocket attack against the Novy Sad administrative center, Matica Slovenská in Yugoslavia (a cultural heritage organization) secretary Svetozár Majer reported.
Three rockets hit the Serb TV building where the Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Ruthenian, and Romany minorities living in Vojvodina also had their television broadcasting sections. No one was killed in the attack.
The Slovak bureau started broadcasting on the Novy Sad television in 1974, and since then it has been broadcasting its programs for the 64,000 strong community of Vojvodina Slovaks. The bureau would have celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. The Slovak bureau prepared ten-minute blocks of daily news in Slovak, and it broadcast a one-hour program devoted to culture and agriculture four times a week. It also broadcast a thirty-minute news program once a week, and once a month it offered a two-hour family magazine called "Touches."
The attack, according to Majer, destroyed the entire archive of the TVNS Slovak bureau. In Vojvodina, Petrovec TV in Bacsky Petrovec, which has been on the air since September 1997, is still broadcasting in Slovak.
