UTECA trusts that the liberalization of the digital dividend will be completed without costs

Commercial television stations hope that the plan the Government is working on to release the digital dividend will not entail “additional costs” for the sector.

The president of the Union of Associated Commercial Televisions (UTECA), Antonio Fernández-Galiano, opened this Tuesday the Annual Conference of the private television employers' association, recognizing the Government's willingness to dialogue in the process of releasing the digital dividend. However, he highlighted that this dialogue is not free of sacrifices for the sector, although he expects from the Executive the “fair correspondence to the unequivocal willingness to collaborate” of the private broadcasters.

Fernández-Galiano has been convinced that finally the migration process will be completed without costs for commercial television stations, which according to the president of UTECA are already going through a "critical situation" and without technological problems for citizens.

In line with this situation, he has estimated the drop in advertising investment at 50% compared to 2007, which, in his opinion, "sets back all conventional media a few decades in raw numbers."

The Vice President of the Government, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, assured at this Annual Conference that “the Government is aware of the need to work with the support of all those affected in the process of implementing the digital dividend” in the face of the rejection of the digital dividend plan by private companies at the national level.

In another vein, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría has announced that the executive has created a mixed working commission headed by the Secretary of State for Culture, José María Lassalle, to review the mandatory 5% investment in cinema and develop “a new model for cinematography and audiovisuals that lasts over time.”