Spain

[ES] Support for Pay DTT Services

IRIS 2009-6:1/17

Trinidad García Leiva

Universidad Carlos III, Madrid

In April the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce issued a press release announcing the possibility for those national commercial broadcasters interested in offering pay-DTT services to simply apply for a change in their licensing conditions entitling them to do so from that point onwards. Nevertheless, the document goes on to explain that final authorisation will depend on the Cabinet of Ministers approving a previous report of its advisory council, the Consejo de Estado .

The announcement has been quite controversial, since the Government is supposed to be working on the presentation of a General Audiovisual Law to the Parliament. In any case, the Ministry issued a reminder that every stakeholder affected by the introduction and implementation of these new services will have to comply with the conditional access provisions established by Royal Decree 2296/2004, a regulation that elaborates on the Telecommunications Bill that in 2003 implemented into Spanish Law the new EC Electronic Communications Framework (see IRIS 2003-6: 12), and Law 21/1997 relating to the broadcasting of sports and other events of national interest (see IRIS 1997-8: 12).

The press release also suggests that pay-DTT services will benefit citizens, as well as private television operators and consumer equipment manufacturers. While citizens will have access to better content, and broadcasters to additional revenue resources besides advertising, the electronic industry will be able to take advantage of the need for new conversion equipment. Finally, the press release mentions that by this decision Spain joins those countries that have already authorised pay DTT, amongst which France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Sweden and Finland are listed.