RTS was established in 1992 with the merger of RTB and regional networks Radio-Television Novi Sad and Radio-Television Priština into a true national network. All transmitters, relay stations, antennas and other television equipment once owned by these broadcasters were inherited by RTS. As Yugoslavia disintegrated, RTS's journalistic standards plummeted. During the Siege of Dubrovnik, RTS claimed that smoke rising from the city's Old Town was the result of automobile tires set on fire by locals. During the Siege of Sarajevo, RTS newscasts showed an image of Sarajevo from the 1980s, untouched, thereby downplaying the severity of the siege. As the wars dragged on, the Yugoslav government began terminating the employment of many dissenting journalists. By January 1993, nearly 1,300 RTS employees – amounting to one-third of the broadcaster's pre-war workforce – had been fired.