The broadcasting war these days entered a new phase – the last, and therefore perhaps the most fierce one.
On January 21 the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) has announced a competition for the seventh TV multiplex and three applications have been submitted by the deadline. By a strange coincidence, a few days earlier the European Commission released information that lawsuit has been brought against the country because of previous competitions for distribution of multiplexes. At a press conference on January 24, Minister of Transport and Communications Ivaylo Moscovski declared that Bulgaria has fulfilled all that was asked from Brussels, and we have not received any official notification yet. Henceforth the state has enough time to prove this, but some people did not wait for them.
On January 28 with a letter to the media some of the candidates for the seventh multiplex – DVBT threw the bomb that Bulgaria will be ordered to pay hefty fines for the previous contests. The same letter states that the new contest is only to deceive the Commission that the network will not be created by September 1, and thereafter the seventh multiplex becomes redundant.
In response to this opinion CRC defined it as grossly incompetent, and a one behind which lied the sole purpose to push one’s corporate interests. And it is quite odd – if one states that the competition has been organised only to gloss things over and in the same time to take part in it.
DVBT is a company registered on 3 June 2010 with a capital of 50 000 levs, of which only 12,500 levs have been paid in. But the law does not prohibit companies with modest experience and little financial resources to participate in large projects. More interesting is that the registration of DVBT was made days before the deadline for buying shares in the competition for public multiplexes. This is not prohibited by law, though it raises questions. Either way, the company failed to win, and naturally tried to raise a lot of noise.
Major shareholder in it is lawyer Dimcho Neshev. The financial statement of the company for 2011 showed that it had no income, no staff, except maybe a cleaner and spent on only 3,000 levs throughout the whole year. However, its liabilities come to 75,000 levs.
If there is no other investor the company cannot carry out such a large-scale investment project, for over 30 million (according to experts), and build a national broadcasting network. Perhaps it may be relying on a credit? But what can it pledge as collateral? DVBT is hardly likely to rank well in the competition for the seventh multiplex. A speculation remains that it might raise all that noise only if it is waiting for someone to offer them benefits to end it.
The BANKER
