Hungary - Four bidders are competing for the operating rights of digital broadcasting networks

All applicants that have submitted bids to the invitation to tender for the operating rights of the digital terrestrial television (DTT) and terrestrial digital radio networks have met the formal requirements of the tender, therefore, the National Communications Authority of Hungary (NHH) has registered the applicants as bidders–said NHH on Friday.

Before NHH could effectively make a decision to register the applicants, it had to check whether they comply with the contents of the Government Decree on the rules of the auction to be held for the acquisition of rights to use the frequencies and the rules of the invitation to tender, and whether the applicants fall under the scope of the provisions that lead to exclusion from the tender; and whether all required documents have been received.

NHH has established that all four applications comply with the requirements, therefore, the authority decided to register all four applicants as bidders, in agreement with the Ad-Hoc Parliamentary Committee in charge of supervising the tendering procedure as well as the Tendering Committee set up pursuant to the relevant Government Decree.

NHH had 15 days to review the applications with regard to their compliance with formal requirements. Content related review of registered applications will start now. A winner will be announced after approval by the Parliamentary Committee in August 2008.

A total of four tender applications have been received by the April 24 deadline of the invitation to tender that was announced by NHH on March 25. Antenna Hungária Zrt. and Digital Broadcasting Kft. are competing for the operating rights of the five terrestrial digital television networks, announced in one tendering package, while Antenna Hungária Zrt. and Magyar Rádió Zrt. are competing for the operating rights of the terrestrial digital radio broadcasting network operating in the VHF band.

If the tendering procedure is successful, then the winner of the television and radio tenders will have the opportunity to start digital terrestrial television and radio broadcasting this year, thereby providing customers with a number of new state-of-the-art services and contents.

NHH expects that digital terrestrial television broadcasting will intensify competition on the television market and allow the 20-25% of Hungarian households that receive television signals via only a room, or roof antenna to have access to a much wider selection of television programs than they have access to today.