Bulgaria has taken the surprise decision to put its analogue switch off date by two years to the beginning of 2015.
Quoted in Novinite, government minister Alexander Tsvetkov said that the reasons for it doing so were “the considerable financial resources that the government needs to allot for freeing up airwaves, the broad information campaign that needs to be rolled out and the procurement of decoders for the socially disadvantaged.”
A working group will now be set up with the task of drafting a DTT plan by the end of January 2011. Significantly, there will no reissuing of licences.
News of the delay comes only days after the latest announcement in what has until now seemed a relatively smooth process, with Towercom Bulgaria having signed a transmitter deal with Thomson Broadcast.
Bulgaria has followed Romania to become the second country in the CEE region put back its switch off date.
