25. 03. 2014

TV KOPERNIKUS FILES A COMPLAINT AGAINST THE RBA COUNCIL DECISION

25.03.2014 (Politika; by D. Ivanovic ) - The complaints to the decision not to award a national frequency for broadcasting will be considered shortly by the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RBA) Council.

TV Kopernikus filed a complaint to the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RBA) Council because it was not granted a license on the competition for the allocation of national frequency. Dragan Lukic, the RBA Executive Director, expects that today, when the complaint period ends, TV Nova will also submit a complaint. In late February, the RBA Council decided not to grant a license for a national operator to either of the two mentioned television stations, which were the only ones to participate in the RBA competition. At the meeting of the Council, four members voted for TV Nova, four for TV Kopernikus, while the ninth member annulled their ballot. The vote, just like the first RBA competition, was anonymous.

- The RBA administration will have several days to examine the complaint by TV Kopernikus and, of course, a possible complaint by TV Nova, if it arrives today. Then the nine members of the RBA Council will, based on the report issued by the administration, decide whether to accept the complaints. If the RBA Council decides to accept one complaint, this would automatically mean that the broadcasting license is granted to the candidate whose complaint was accepted - explains Dragan Lukic for Politika.

The RBA Council cannot accept both complaints, says our source, but both can be refused if the Council considers them unfounded.

- This finally concludes the competition for the national frequency license - said Lukic.

This is the second competition by the RBA for the license intended for a new national broadcaster. During the first competition, organized last summer, the same candidates - TV Nova and TV Kopernikus - applied as in the second contest, announced in October of the last year. The RBA Council will, if it decides not to accept the complaints, decide if it is purpuseful to call the third competition, says Lukic.

The license in question is for the national frequency of former TV Avala. One part of the frequency was given a few months ago to the Public Company "Broadcasting Equipment and Communications" for the digitization of television, which must be completed by June next year. Consequently, in the second competition the candidates were offered 21, instead of 33 frequencies which belonged to TV Avala. This caused a doubt with some experts whether the future national broadcaster would have the coverage of the entire territory of Serbia.