The upcoming award of an operator’s licence for Poland’s first DTT multiplex is to be overseen by the Public Procurement Office.
According to Rzeczpospolita, it comes amid concerns that the public broadcaster TVP would like to award the licence to the national transmission company Emitel without holding a contest.
Although Poland’s second and third multiplexes – allocated to commercial stations and TVP respectively – were both launched late last year, the first has yet to make its full debut.
TVP has already been allocated frequencies for three of the seven channels it will carry, with the remaining four currently being contested by 17 interested parties.
TVP has a multi-year agreement witeh Emitel worth PLN615.7 million (€155 million) for the operation of the third multiplex and would like to see a similar one struck for the first multiplex.
However, this has raised objections from NFI Magna Polonia, the owner of Info-TV-FM, which is also interested in operating the first multiplex.
TVP argues that if Emitel was awarded a licence for the first multiplex it could be launched as soon as this June.
