Romania

[RO] ANCOM launches the fourth digital terrestrial television auction

IRIS 2017-2:1/28

Eugen Cojocariu

Radio Romania International

On 15 December 2016, the Autoritatea Națională pentru Administrare și Reglementare în Comunicații (National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications - ANCOM) has launched a new auction for awarding the two national, 26 regional and 18 local digital terrestrial television multiplexes not awarded in the previous three selection procedures (see IRIS 2010-3/34, IRIS 2010-7/32, IRIS 2010-9/35, IRIS 2013-6/30, IRIS 2014-4/26, IRIS 2014-5/29, IRIS 2014-9/27, IRIS 2015-5/33, and IRIS 2015-7/28).

An applicant must be a Romanian or foreign legal person (company), it must accurately submit all the required documents, and the operation period provided in the articles of incorporation should be at least 10 years from the entry into force of the radio frequencies usage rights. A bidder for the national multiplexes must have a minimum average turnover of EUR 2,000,000 for the past 3 years, or for the period since its establishment if the company is younger than 3 years. Companies belonging to the same group cannot take part in the auction separately.

As established by the strategy approved by the Government on the transition from analogue terrestrial television to digital terrestrial television, the multiplexes shall be awarded by a competitive selection procedure. Each bidder should submit an initial offer indicating the categories and the number of multiplexes they wish to acquire.

Where the demand exceeds the number of multiplexes available, supplementary auction rounds will be organised. In those cases the multiplexes will be awarded to the bidders depending on the additional amounts they are willing to pay. For the rest of the categories, the multiplexes will be awarded based on the initial offer of the bidders.

The minimum licence fee (the starting price for each national multiplex) is EUR 300,000, whereas for the regional and local multiplexes it ranges from EUR 1,000 for a multiplex awarded within a locality that is not a county capital, to EUR 10,000. The Government established the licence fees in February 2014.

All the multiplexes will be awarded for a 10-year period. The winners can start the provision of commercial television broadcasting services immediately after obtaining the licence from ANCOM, and will have to put into operation at least 36 transmitters within 2 years from the licence issuance for the national multiplexes, and at least one transmitter within one year in each assigned area, for regional or local multiplexes.

The interested applicants could submit an offer until 27 January 2017. By mid-February 2017, ANCOM will announce the first winning offers and whether the auction stage needs to be organised for certain categories of multiplexes.

Following the 3 auctions organized so far, between March 2014 and March 2015, 3 national multiplexes have been awarded to the Societatea Națională de Radiocomunicații (National Broadcasting Company - RADIOCOM). This company was awarded the free-to-air multiplex and two other multiplexes in the UHF band for a EUR 1,020,002 licence fee. Moreover, 12 regional multiplexes and one local multiplex have been awarded.