Navarra puts seven local DTT licenses out to tender

The competition is intended to award the demarcations that have not yet been designated: Estella-Lizarra, Sangüesa, Tafalla and Tudela. The deadline for submitting applications will end on December 29.

The Navarrese Government has just called a competition to grant the seven audiovisual service licenses for local DTT broadcasting in Navarra that do not have an assignment. The licenses that are up for grabs are located in Estella-Lizarra (two licenses on channel 24), Sangüesa (two licenses on channel 45) and Tudela (two licenses on channel 39), with two licenses available in each of these districts; and seventh license in the Tafalla demarcation. The fifth local multiplex in Navarra, the one located in Pamplona, already has its four channels occupied.

It is worth remembering that in Navarra there are currently three private operators licensed to broadcast in the local DTT district of Pamplona (Xaloa TB, Hamaika TB and Abian Komunikazioa) and a fourth (Zona Media TV) to broadcast from Tafalla; In addition, in July 2016, the Government of Navarra reserved the fourth channel of the capital's multiplex for the broadcast of the ETB-2 signal; and two more channels in each of the remaining four districts, so that the contents of ETB-2 and ETB-3 could be accessed from the areas of influence of these Merindad capitals.

The application submission period will open at the end of November, once the call is published in the BON, remaining open until December 29, inclusive. The proposals will be evaluated by an evaluation table, made up exclusively of technical staff, out of a total of 100 points (90 in the case of licenses from Tudela, which is located in a non-Basque-speaking area): 70 points for the evaluation of the programming offer (60 in the case of Tudela); 20 points for the economic offer and job creation; and 10 points for the quality of the project's technical report.

Assessment of the television offer

The main novelty with respect to the last public call called to grant local DTT licenses (dated from 2013) is the increase of up to 40% in the weight of the assessment of the television offer (a total of 70 points that is subdivided into 40 points for their own local programming; 10 for programming about Navarra; and up to 20 points for the promotion of Basque) of local operators in their entire offer. The greater weight of the television offer is mainly explained because the value of the bidders' own programming offer has quadrupled, with a maximum score that is achieved with a schedule adjusted to the current market, of ten hours of new weekly local broadcast: those who opt for the license will be able to complete this maximum score in this section with another ten points if they guarantee ten additional weekly hours of content about Navarra, which may be produced by others.

In the evaluations of the television offer, the weight of programming in Basque is also updated, which will be voluntary on the part of the operators, with a weight of up to 20% of the score in the case of channels whose header is located in a mixed zone (Estella – Lizarra, Sangüesa and Tafalla) and whose maximum rating is achieved by broadcasting a quarter of their programming in Basque); and up to 10% of the score for operators in the Tudela district, where the maximum score would be achieved with an offer of 10% of their grill in this language.

Finally, it is worth highlighting that as measures to guarantee plurality in the television offering, the Government of Navarra has limited the number of applications that the same operator can submit in this contest to a single one; and that natural or legal persons that already operate in the area of local DTT in Navarra cannot present new local DTT channels again.