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- Press Release December 2014 >> ANCOM Auctions Out National, Regional and Local DTT Multiplexes
ANCOM Auctions Out National, Regional and Local DTT Multiplexes
02.12.2014
Today, 2 December 2014, the Romanian National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) published the announcement and the Terms of Reference of the auction for awarding the two national digital television multiplexes unawarded in the previous auction, as well as 40 regional and 19 local multiplexes. Thus, a new auction is launched to ensure the switchover to digital terrestrial television (DTT) and the analogue television switch-off by the provided deadline - 17 June 2015.
National multiplexes will cover the whole country with digital terrestrial television services, whereas each of the regional and local multiplexes will serve specific allotment, which may cover one county or one locality.
The multiplexes will be awarded by a competitive selection procedure, which requires that each bidder submit an initial bid, indicating the number of multiplexes it wishes to purchase. If the demand exceeds the number of available multiplexes, the auction may continue with primary rounds for the multiplexes where the demand exceeds the supply. For the remaining categories, the winners will be designated based on the initial bid. Once the winners and the prices of all the wanted multiplexes established, the auction will continue with an allocation round in which the multiplexes will be awarded to the winning bidders based on the additional amounts they are willing to pay in order to acquire a certain frequency allocation.
All the multiplexes will be granted for a 10-year period and the winners will be able to start the provision of commercial television broadcasting services as of 17 June 2015. By 1 May 2017, the winners of the two national multiplexes will have to put into operation at least 36 transmitters, whereas the winners of the regional or local multiplexes will have to launch into operation at least one transmitter in each assignment area.
The minimum licence fee, i.e. the starting price within the auction, for each of the two national multiplexes, is EUR300,000, whereas the one for the regional and the local multiplexes ranges between EUR12,000 for a regional multiplex in Bucharest and EUR1,000 for a multiplex allotted within a locality that is not a county capital. The licence fees have been established by the Government in February 2014.
The first winning offers will be announced at the end of January 2015. Then, ANCOM will announce whether the auction stage needs to be organised for certain categories.
“This auction is expected to be attended by the current holders of local analogue television broadcasting licences who wish to continue operation after 17 June 2015”, declared Cătălin Marinescu, President of ANCOM.
Only applicants who have bought the Terms of Reference, amounting to RON4,000, can participate in the selection procedure. In order to qualify for the auction, an applicant must meet a series of criteria, as laid down in the Terms of Reference, such as: it must be a Romanian or foreign legal person (company); it must submit all the documents provided, completely and accurately, within the deadline; the life duration of the applicant company provided in its constitutive act must exceed 17 June 2025; the average turnover for the last 3 years or from the date of establishment of the applicants for national multiplexes must be of minimum EUR2,000,000. Companies belonging to the same group cannot apply.
After the application submission deadline, the Commission will assess all the applications and will notify the qualified applicants based on the criteria in the Terms of Reference, by 20 January 2015.
A digital multiplex is a group of radio broadcasting and television programmes, additional multimedia services and other associated identification data transmitted from the emission stations to the end-users by terrestrial radio means, using digital modulation within the limits of a standard television channel/frequency block.
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