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Following the early termination of the digital broadcasting licences of two television channels - bTV Lady+1 and RING.BG+1 - in May 2014 (see IRIS 2014-6/8), the Council for Electronic Media received a similar request to cancel the licence of another channel in September. The two media services withdrawn earlier in the year were both provided by the bTV Media Group and are now only available via cable and satellite. The third channel that now wants to stop broadcasting digitally, Diema Family+1, is owned by Bulgaria’s second largest TV group, the Nova Broadcasting Group. Following the early termination...

In an unexpected judgment, the European Court of Human Rights found a violation of the right to respect for private life, as it considered that the confiscation of computers containing illegal software was not “in accordance with the law”, as required by Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Rumen Trifonov Prezhdarov and Anna Aleksandrovna Prezhdarova had started a business in their garage renting computers to clients, without having the necessary software licence for reproduction and distribution of the software and games that were installed on the computers....

In a decision of 20 May 2014 (Решение № ЗОП-01-10/20.05.2014), the Competition Commission rejected a complaint by Mediaresearch Bulgaria EAD (“Mediaresearch”), which is part of the Nielsen Group, concerning the public invitation to tender issued by the BNT director-general for the supply of information on BNT’s audience share and the use of radio and print media. Two rival companies essentially dominate market research in the Bulgarian media sector: the complainant, Mediaresearch, and GfK Audience Research Bulgaria (“GARB”). Whereas one of the two largest commercial TV companies (Nova TV) and the...

On 10 June 2014, the Council of Electronic Media (“CEM”) published its report on the 2014 European Parliament elections. The Election Code of Bulgaria for the first time requires the identification of both the free of charge political campaigning and the paid forms of political campaigning (Article 179 of the Election Code). The monitoring has demonstrated, as regards TV programmes, that there is a trend to distinguish in a clearer manner paid content from non-paid content. Part of the media service providers (Nova television, bTV, TV 7, Bulgaria on air, Eurocom Tsarevets, bTV Action, TV Plus)...

On 1 July 2014, the prohibition for offshore companies to own media or to take part in the ownership of media entered into force. The prohibition refers to periodical, radio and/or television (for more details see IRIS 2014-3/9). The ban is applicable to companies, who are registered in countries with a preferential tax regime and applies to any person related to them as well as their beneficial owners. On 14 July 2014, the Council for Electronic Media (“CEM”) presented an expert report, in which the owners of the television companies, that are offshore companies, are listed as follows: bTV Media...