Lithuanian pay-TV subscribers face the prospect of paying more for their services from the beginning of next year.
Quoted by Verslo Zinios, Pauliaus Zivatkausko, the general director of Init, says that its customers have been informed that retransmission agreements with the TV3 group of channels – TV3, TV8 and TV6 – end on December 31.
Although TV3 wants to increase the fees by 30%, Init is negotiating for a new contract and hopes to avoid passing on any increases to its customers.
However, if it fails to reach an agreement it may replace the channels or place them in digital packages.
Juozas Jurelionis, the director of the Lithuanian Cable TV Association (LKTA), meanwhile said that a 1.5-year agreement with TV3 was in place until 2014.
The problem was that the association had so far not received a new commercial offer and so did not know what lies ahead.
On the other hand, Vaida Vinceviciute, the communications manager at Tele-3, said that price increases are in line with general rises and that retransmission fees for Russian channels are already several times higher than for Lithuanian ones.
