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Two major Latvian commercial broadcasters have approached the Latvian Competition Authority with complaints that SIA Lattelecom, the introducer of the digital terrestrial television, is abusing its dominant position. As reported before (see IRIS 2010-2: 1/27) SIA Lattelecom (Lattelecom), the incumbent fixed telephony operator of Latvia, has been selected to carry out the implementation of digital broadcasting. Lattelecom's task has been approved by the Cabinet of Ministers as well as by the National Broadcasting Council. Lattelecom acquired the rights to use the relevant frequencies until the end...

The launch of digital terrestrial television shall be implemented finally during the year 2010, but not all issues of the implementation are clear yet. At the end of 2008 the Ministry of Transport organised a tender during which it had to select a provider of digital broadcasting in accordance with the Regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers (see IRIS 2008-10: 15). The rules of the tender provided that the winner will have to carry out a complete transfer to digital terrestrial broadcasting by 1 December 2011. The provider has to ensure that public and commercial broadcasters have the opportunity...

On 1 October 2009 the Department of Administrative Cases of the Supreme Court Senate issued a judgment in a dispute between a private person and the National Broadcasting Council (NBC). The underlying facts concern a private person, R., who requested from the private TV broadcaster LNT a copy of a broadcast that allegedly contained defamatory information on R. LNT offered a copy for a certain fee, which R. considered too high. Consequently, R. complained to the NBC, asking it inter alia to penalise LNT. The NBC denied the request and R. appealed this denial in the administrative court. The court...

The Saeima has again adopted amendments to the Latvian Radio and TV Law. The Radio and TV Law is one of the laws experiencing the most frequent changes in the Latvian legal environment. It has already been amended 15 times since its adoption in 1995. The Law itself now should approach its demise due to the planned adoption of the new Electronic Media Law which is intended to transpose the AVMSD. However, the new Electronic Media Law is not likely to be adopted without lengthy discussions; it was submitted to the Saeima for review on 16 June 2009, but since then has not been adopted even in the...

In recent months Latvian politicians have initiated active discussions on the necessity to merge the Latvian public broadcasting companies, Latvijas Radio and Latvijas televīzija. Currently, both public broadcasters are legally independent entities with their own budgets and management. Now, the Prime Minister has requested the National Broadcasting Council, the Latvian media regulator, to draft a merger plan before 1 July 2009 and submit it to the government for discussion. The merger proposal has its roots in the sad fact that both public broadcasters are in a serious financial situation and...