The allocation of the 19 vacant local terrestrial TV frequencies in Bulgaria has pitted the nation’s top terrestial broadcasters against some of the cable operators. Bulgaria’s telecom and media regulators have also found themselves in opposing camps. The decision of the Council on Electronic Media (CEM) to award the frequencies, including 4 in the capital Sofia, on a competitive basis was cheered by the Association of TV Broadcasters in Bulgaria, created by cable operators Diema+, TV7, BBT and Televizia Evropa, and slammed by bTV and Nova TV, the two private national terrestrial broadcasters.
Although the key argument against the frequency competitions is the alleged need to keep some of the analogue frequencies vacant for the purposes of the future adoption of an all-digital platform, the hidden agenda of the opponents has to do with the fact that award of the vacant frequencies will dilute advertising revenues. Georgi Alexandrov, chairman of the Communications Regulation Commission, has advised CEM not to allocate all of the vacant frequencies in view of the digital conversion of television broadcasting that Bulgaria must complete by 2012.
At the moment, bTV and Nova TV and the state-owned BNT, which also broadcasts nationally, attract the bulk of the domestic advertising revenues.
(Source: Dnevnik)
