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Karl Schembri
The Broadcasting Authority is awaiting a report on the situation of television and radio broadcasting commissioned to Grant Thornton so that it can decide how many and what kind of new stations should be given the green light to start transmitting later this year.
The Authority will be presenting the main findings of the report on 26 July in a press conference, upon which it will base its upcoming decision on new licenses.
The report will look at the financial situation of television and radio stations, the programmes on offer as well as their advertising share and whether there is space for new stations, BA Chief Executive Kevin Aquilina told MaltaToday.
He said the BA was required by law to hold such a feasibility study before issuing any new licenses, as it had to make sure that every new station had to be commercially viable.
Asked whether the BA considered the current television and radio stations commercially viable, Aquilina said this had to be established in the Grant Thornton report.
Seven applicants had expressed an interest and submitted applications to open new TV stations last year. These are Alternattiva Demokratika, Techinvest, Allied Newspaper (publishers of The Times), Where’s Everybody? (producers of Xarabank and BondiPlus), Front Maltin Inqumu (Dom Mintoff’s anti-EU movement), Joe Grima (owner of XFM radio), and a Gozitan priest.
BA Chairman Joseph Said Pullicino had said last April that new licenses had to be issued by the end of May but the report was evidently not concluded on time.
karl@newsworksltd.com
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