The Spanish public broadcaster RTVE and Cellnex’s Retevisión have signed a €301.6 million contract valid for the next five years.
It formalises the award of broadcasting rights of RTVE’s radio and television signals to the telecommunications and broadcasting infrastructure operator: €32.6 million for the integrated radio signal distribution and broadcasting service and €269 million for the integrated television signal transmission, distribution and broadcasting service. RTVE put out the provision of these services to public tender in September.
According to RTVE’s technical plan, in DTT its goal is to migrate to Ultra HD starting with the shutdown of SD channels in 2024.
Commenting on the development, Albert Cuatrecasas, general manager of Cellnex Spain, highlighted “the importance of RTVE once again trusting Cellnex to provide these services that we have provided since its inception and that require a very high availability which we can offer thanks to the Cellnex team of professionals in Spain and the ensemble of infrastructures that we have deployed throughout the territory to ensure radio and television signal transmission 24 hours a day, seven days a week”.
He added: “together with the joint commitment to innovation and cutting-edge technology that has allowed us to develop throughout these years of collaboration with RTVE innovative DDT solutions like the LOVEStv interactive platform based on hybrid DTT (HbbTV), and the most recent, open-DTT and HDR-quality broadcasting of the Qatar World Cup in UHD-4K. It was the first worldwide broadcast of its kind of an event of this complexity and duration, and a technological milestone that was a great success”.
