Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Poland’s telecommunication authorities URTiP will this month give the national council of radio and tv KRRiT frequencies for the first digital tv channels. ‘Next week, we are talking to the Germans, the last neighbouring country’, Jacek Strzalkowski, URTiP spokesman said. In the second half of the year, KRRiT will have to decide, which broadcasting companies will receive the frequencies for the first two multiplexes (each of them consists of 4-5 channels of digital tv).
According to TP Emitel, one of these multiplexes will enable to broadcast programmes to 55 percent of the Poles, while the second – to only 33 percent of population. KRRiT may admit the ‘better’ multiplex to TVP, Poland’s public tv, without any tender. Another option is to give those frequencies to telecommunication companies, which are not connected with broadcasters. ‘Both ideas are possible. The decision will be made till July-end’, Robert Kroplewski from KRRiT said.
‘Admitting frequencies without any tender will cause conflicts. If the council does it, we will consider filing a suit to EU institutions’, Tomasz Berezowski from POT, a company founded by Polsat and TVN private broadcasters promoting development of digital TV. ‘If they do that, it may start a war between broadcasters with results adversely affecting the whole market’, Wieslaw Walendziak, POT CEO warned. POT was created in April. Before, private broadcasting companies, had been unsuccessfully trying to convince TVP to joint their project.
Poland/Enterprises/Media