“Telecom operators are interested in the planned auction to award digital terrestrial television licenses, which, I personally think, won’t have a significant impact on the local television broadcasting market, because of the current market structure,” Robert Redeleanu, marketing manager at UPC Romania, said Wednesday at ZF Digital ’13, an event organized by Ziarul Financiar.
Redeleanu said over 90% of households in Romania have access to 70, 80 or even 100 quality TV programs at less than EUR10 per month, adding it is highly unlikely that Romanians will forgo the current offers in favor of only 16-20 TV programs.
Orange Romania Chief Commercial Officer Julien Ducarroz agreed with Redeleanu and said Orange is looking into participating in the auction. He concluded saying it all goes down to prices and the access to services that will be available via digital terrestrial television licenses implies acquiring additional equipment.
End-June this year, Romania’s Communications Ministry said telecom regulator ANCOM will run a selection procedure to grant five digital terrestrial television licenses by June 2015. The ministry also said that analog terrestrial television is expected to be eliminated completely by June 17, 2015, in line with international obligations.
The licensing procedure is part of Romania’s strategy to switch from analog terrestrial to digital terrestrial television. Romania will have to implement countrywide four digital television licenses (multiplexes) in the UHF band and one in the VHF band.