The national, regional and local audiovisual operators affected by the transition from analog to digital broadcasting will be partially compensated.
The Law No. 34/2017, dated 30.03.2017, on “Digital Dividend”, provides for a partial coverage of additional net costs incurred during the switchover from analog to digital broadcasting.
The financial compensation will be at EUR 5,000,000 and it will be funded by the revenues cashed in by the individual authorizations issued for the use of frequency band of Digital Dividend 1.
According to this Law, the beneficiaries of supporting fee shall receive:
- 1/5 (i.e. EUR 1,000,000) of the aid to cover partially the supporting fee of existing local/regional operators in ARTV digital network or other digital networks licensed under the Law on Audiovisual Media;
The Law provides for a detailed procedure of compensation to this category of beneficiaries. It defines that the beneficiary of financial compensation should at first pay, on a monthly basis, a supporting fee in the account of ARTV or of other digital networks operators, and then present the respective payment receipt to AMA. Only after this process, AMA is disbursing the amount of supporting fee to the beneficiary’s account.
- Investments of experienced operators in digital broadcasting that come out of function due to the technological changes imposed by the Law on Audiovisual Media;
2/5 (i.e. EUR 2,000,000) of the above-mentioned amount will be used to cover partially the experienced operators’ investments in digital broadcasting that come out of function due to the technological changes imposed by the Law No. 97/2013, “On Audiovisual Media in the Republic of Albania”, as amended.
- Setting up a switchover infrastructure from analog to digital broadcasting, as required by the Law No. 97/2013 “On Audiovisual Media in the Republic of Albania”, as amended;
2/5 (i.e. EUR 2,000,000) will be used to cover partially the investments of national historic private operators to change the transmission infrastructure from analog to digital.
For the second and third categories of beneficiaries, AMA proposed to the Council of Ministers a detailed scheme to disburse compensation to experienced and national historic analog companies. The distribution of financial compensation to experienced operators in digital broadcasting is made on the basis of a tax liability report.
AMA find this decision to be reasonable, for as long as the State has taken assumed to change the broadcasting technology. The decision to allocate funds to big operators is made on the basis of detailed tax reports, while taking into consideration the fact that we are dealing with operators that are paying millions of Euros to the State Budget for years.
Audiovisual Media Authority
April 24, 2019
