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11. 04. 2014

CABLE OPERATORS COULD LEAVE SERBIA

11.4.2014 (Danas; By B.Cvejić) - Yearly fee for a licence for cable broadcasting in Serbia is 2.5 million dinars or 21.550 EUR, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina the same fee is 35 times smaller and is around 622 EUR. This data was obtained by ‘Danas' from the Republic Broadcasting Agency of Serbia (RBA) and the Communications Regulatory Agency (CRA) of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After ‘Pink' gave up on broadcasting in the Serbian cable system and obtained licences in BiH that will enable it to distribute program via Serbian operators again, domestic media market fears that other cable broadcasters could do the same.

Television ‘Pink' recently informed RBA that it no longer intends to broadcast its 68 channels in the cable system of Serbia and submitted a request for broadcasting licences in BiH, where the fees for program distribution are lower.

Registered in the neighboring country and paying fees in it, ‘Pink' will, as a "free to air" channel, be able to feature in the offer of cable operators in Serbia without the need for a licence by the local regulator.

CRA points out to ‘Danas' that licences for 40 cable channels of Pink BH Company were issued on 14 March 2014 and they are valid for another ten years. According to CRA, yearly fee for the licence was 1.212,33 convertible marks for each licence, which is a total of 48.493,20 convertible marks or almost 25.000 EUR.

The executive director of RBA Dragan Lukuć explains for ‘Danas' that the fee for cable broadcasting in Serbia is 5% of the fee for terrestrial broadcasting. The latter is almost 60 million dinars per year for the whole territory of Serbia. A cable operator which obtained the licence for distributing program on the whole territory of the country is to pay around 2.5 million dinars or 21.550 EUR.

"We submitted a proposition to the Government of Serbia last year that 20% discount be allowed to those who pay the fee regularly, but we have not obtained approval for such a move yet", said Lukić. Asked whether it is possible that, after ‘Pink', other cable televisions request licences in BiH due to lower fees, he said that "there is always this possibility and RBA can not influence it".

With its 68 channels in Serbia, TV Pink had to pay a yearly fee per channel of 21.550 EUR or a total of almost 1.5 million EUR. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Željko Mitrović's TV Pink paid a fee of almost 25.000 EUR for 40 channels for the next year. However, Dragan Lukić from RBA said that ‘Pink' has a "small debt" for unpaid fees, and that the fee will have to be settled in a regular procedure.