The Norwegian Norkring As has informed the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications that it will relinguish the licences granted to it for antenna network operations.
On 12 November 2015, the Finnish Government granted network licences for antenna television operations for the licence period beginning in 2017. Norkring was granted licences for multiplexes B, C and D in the UHF band.
As Norkring relinguished its licences, the only operators with a valid licence for the next period are Digita (A, E and F), DNA (VHF A, VHF B and VHF C) and Anvia (regional multiplex in Ostrobothnia). All channels that applied for a licence in the UHF band do not fit in Digita's multiplexes.
The Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority issued a call for programme licence applications in January 2016. Due to the limited broadcasting capacity, a part of the licence applications were referred to the Government for decision. The decision should be reached by 18 July 2016. Under certain conditions, the Government may extend the deadline by eight months at the most.
Decisions about the programme licences pending in the Government and in the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority must be made at the same time. Therefore, the programme licence round is discontinued until further notice. A decision has been made to extend the expiry date of the licences transferred for the consideration of the Government until 31 January 2017.
It is the aim of the Ministry of Transport and Communications to extend the period of Digita's, DNA's and Anvia's network licences that were to end on 9 January 2017 and the programme licences granted for these networks with the same expiry date until the licences are issued again and enter into force.
Inquiries: Mr Mikael Nyberg, Director-General, tel. +358 40 837 8794 Ms Laura Eiro, Director of the Markets Unit, tel. +358 40 096 9293
