RTVE awards Cellnex five-year TV and radio broadcasting contract

RTVE awards Cellnex the right to broadcast its radio and television signals for the next five years

MADRID — The RTVE Corporation and Retevisión, of the Cellnex group, signed a €301.6 million contract for the next five years to formalise the award of broadcasting rights of their 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.

In radio, Cellnex will provide RNE with FM services in all the autonomous communities.

For TVE, Cellnex will renew and operate the DTT and radio headends, RGE1 (including Channel 1, Channel 2, Canal 24 h and RNE) and RGE2 (including Clan, Tdp and RNE) and will provide the integrated DTT transmission, distribution and broadcasting service throughout the country, including the Canary Islands.

In DTT, the goal is to migrate to Ultra High Definition (UHD) starting with the shutdown of SD channels in 2024, according to the technical plan foreseen by RTVE.

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.”

“All this”, adds Cuatrecasas, “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.”