The transition to digital broadcasting was never going to be an easy process in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and so it has proved.
Progress is nevertheless now being made throughout the region, and come the EU target date of 2012 most countries will probably have switched off their analogue transmitters.
Slovakia, a small market that is rarely in the spotlight, has become the latest one to take a major step on the road to digitalisation by announcing a tender.
Although DTT trials in the country got under way as far back as 1999, there was no real urgency shown to launch a full service until the government passed a piece of legislation known as the Digital Broadcasting Act in 2007.
One of the most important elements of the new legislation was that it clearly defined the responsibilities of the two industry regulators. The Council for Broadcasting and Retransmission (‘Rada’) was effectively given the role of awarding content licences and the Telecom Office (TU SR) multiplex ones.
Since then, the TU SR has swung into action, firstly by setting out the conditions for, and now announcing, a tender. If all goes according to plan, the first multiplex could be up and running by this time next year, if not sooner.
In the general scheme of things, Slovakia will be neither at the forefront nor at the back of the digitalisation process in CEE. While it is most advanced in countries such as the Czech Republic, Estonia and Lithuania, some of the larger markets, including Poland and Ukraine, are proving to be laggards.
For Slovakia, though, launching a DTT tender comes only days after the launch of the public broadcaster’s third channel, which is offering viewers coverage of the Beijing Olympics in HD. Both are important milestones for the country as it moves to an all-digital environment.
DTT in Central and Eastern Europe, the latest report in the Broadband TV News Briefing, is now available. For further details, please go to:
https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/dttcee
