Levira continues to present Estonia’s opportunities to international broadcasters in the post-Brexit media landscape.
This Thursday (May 2) it is due to hold a seminar in London on the subject, with presentations provided by Mati Kaalep from the Estonian Ministry of Culture, Simon Spanswick from the Association for International Broadcasting and Tiit Tammiste, chairman of the management board of Levira.
According to Martti Kinkar, head of media services development at Levira, “Brexit concerns 1,200 UK TV channels who have to obtain an EU-compatible licence for the free movement of their services. Estonia’s advantages are low bureaucracy, a good digital environment and competitive licence fees, another plus being Levira’s state-of-the-art play-out centre and pan-European Media Distribution Network. With all these circumstances Estonia presents a favourable operating environment”.
Levira notes that it held a similar seminar last year. In it, the interest of local companies was charted, as in addition to Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have offered broadcasters cooperation opportunities. For the sake of the project’s success, Levira has been cooperating with the Estonian government throughout the year, with the aim of offering licence agreements for international companies by Estonia.
Tiit Tammiste added that a successful project is not only in Levira’s interest but it would help to promote the whole Estonian economy. “Successful cooperation with top-level TV channels would help create new jobs and open up new opportunities for the Estonian film and media sector”.
Levira concludes by saying that the UK’s exit from the EU would affect the licences of companies that transmit local TV channels to EU countries with an UK licence from Ofcom.
Ofcom is currently the leading provider of EU’s TV licences and analysts estimate that a total of more than 1,000 TV channels will have to acquire a new EU licence due to Brexit.
