Digital terrestrial network for television broadcasting: Renewed invitation to tender

Today, the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs have renewed an invitation to tender for a licence to operate and build a digital terrestrial television network in Norway.

The original invitation to tender for the licence was made public in 2002. The only applicant was NTV – a joint venture between NRK (state owned public service broadcaster) and TV2 (privately owned, commercial public service broadcaster). In the subsequent process to determine the final conditions of the licence, NTV in February this year applied for an extension of the licence period from twelve to fifteen years. Consequently, on 7 March this year, other interested parties were invited to notify their interest to tender for the licence under the altered licence conditions. Telenor Broadcast Holding notified the Ministry of Transport and Communications of their interest by the set deadline of 2 May. The Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs thus decided that the licence tender must be issued anew.

DTT – universal coverage

A DTT network enables reception of digital broadcasting via ordinary antennas without having to connect to a cable or broadband network or purchase a satellite dish.

It is the Government’s objective to enable the entire population to access fundamental digital TV services. The future licence holder will therefore be obliged to a nationwide rollout with respect to the distribution of NRK1, NRK2 and TV2.

The licence holder will be allocated frequency resources that enable approximately 15-36 digital television channels, depending on the chosen technology solutions and applications. Through must-carry obligations, the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs will reserve distribution capacity for the public service broadcasters distributed in the analogue network today as well as local television broadcasters and non-commercial broadcasters. In addition the must-carry obligations could also be applied to the distribution of other broadcasters and/or channels which meet clearly defined general interest objectives. After analogue shut-off the future licence holder will be allocated the main part of the frequency resources in the 470-790 MHz band.

The network capacity shall primarily be used for television distribution, but parts of the capacity may also be used for other electronic communication services.

Selection criteria when assessing applications

The licence will be allocated by means of a so-called beauty contest, in which various criteria will be given particular importance, i.a:

• Coverage and roll-out plans
• Financing
• Planned network content
• Set-top box accessibility strategy
• Viewer costs
• Technical solutions
• Effects on competition

The deadline for applications is fixed at Friday, 30 September 2005 at 14.00 (GMT + 1). The licence period is 15 years.

The complete set of invitation papers (i.e. including all annexes) is available at the website of the Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority, www.npt.no

The legal bases for the licence are the Act on Broadcasting and the Electronic Communications Act.

For further information, please contact:

At the Ministry of Transport and Communications,
Mr Haakon Gjesdahl, tel (+47) 22 24 82 17 or (+47) 93 43 34 26, e-mail haakon.gjesdahl@sd.dep.no

At the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs,
Mr Øyvind Christensen, tel (+47) 22 24 80 02 or (+47) 90 79 51 92, e-mail oyvind.christensen@kkd.dep.no

Invitation to tender for a frequency licence and a licence for electronic communications network based on DTT technology