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23. 04. 2014

RBA DID NOT ALLOCATE NATIONAL FREQUENCY

23.4.2014 (Tanjug, Beta, Blic) - The Council of the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RBA) did not allocate national frequency today for which TV Nova and TV Kopernikus competed because it did not adopt the two televisions' complaints, said Goran Karadžić, deputy president of the RBA Council.

The decision is such that the complaints of the competing televisions were not adopted, which ended the competition procedure, said Karadžić to Beta news agency.

He stated that RBA will soon request from the Republic Agency for Electronic Communications (RATEL) and the Ministry for Telecommunications an explanation whether there are enough conditions for calling a new competition for the allocation of national frequency.

- Had we adopted a complaint by a television, we would have voted again on the issuing of licence. After we submit today's decision to the televisions, we will address RATEL to see if there will be conditions for calling a new competition, Karadžić added.

In today's session the Council should have discussed the complaints by TV Nova and TV Kopernikus, submitted after the previous session of the Council in which the decision on the allocation of frequency was not passed.

The decision was not passed in the above said session because the Council's opinions were divided - Kopernikus and Nova received each four votes, while one voting ballot was blank. For the decision on the allocation of frequency to be passed it was necessary that one of the televisions receives five votes considering that the RBA Council has nine members.

Karadžić said earlier that voting for the allocation of frequency would be repeated if one or both complaints are adopted in the session.

If the frequency is not allocated next time, Karadžić said that the RBA representatives will talk to other state bodies, among these RATEL and the Ministry of Foreign and Internal Trade and Telecommunications, in order to see if the third calling of the competition is purposeful.

The competition for national broadcaster was called in October 2013 and it was open till December 30. Tomorrow legal deadline expires for the response to complaints which TV Nova and TV Kopernikus submitted after the previous session of the Council in which the decision on the allocation of frequency was not passed.

Previous session of the RBA Council was to be held on April 14, but it was postponed due to the illness of the Council's president bishop Porfirije.