The need to establish a clear and fair licensing framework for regional media is referred to by Pavlos Marinakis, in a Facebook post today.

In his post, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis presents the main directions of the new bill for regional channels, noting that it is an important institutional intervention that comes to end a anarchic regime of decades in the media sector.

For 28 yearsand up to today, regional channels have operated under the temporary status of “legal operation”, broadcasting and participating in advertising (private or public) without being subject to strict controls, operating in a mostly unregulated landscape.

This is changing.

Final licensing, apart from being an institutional and constitutional imperative, will upgrade TV stations, the product they provide to the TV audience, their very property as they will be licensees and, most importantly, will bring about the application of clear conditions and rules, compliance with which will be systematically monitored.

This also brings order to the television landscape at regional level, as was done by the Government for the print and electronic press with the operation of the Print and Electronic Press Registers, ensuring transparency, accountability and sustainability.

Now, specific rules and clear conditions are set for regional TV stations to be licensed and for their operation thereafter, and strong penalties are established for non-compliance, up to the revocation of the licence.

A comprehensive licensing procedure is established on the basis of modern, transparent, objective and purely qualitative conditions and evaluation criteria.

The relevant provisions of Law 4339/2015 of the SYRIZA government are abolished and the failed model of the auction, whereby a license was secured by whoever would pay the most money, is cancelled in practice.

The framework is created so that the licensing of regional TV stations is accompanied by the broadcasting of programmes exclusively in high definition (HD).

The provisions of the draft law protect the jobs of journalists and all employees of regional channels, while the conditions for the opening of additional jobs are created since the law sets a minimum number of employees (journalists and non-journalists) in each channel.

Legitimate TV stations are protected from unfair competition from “ghost” stations or stations that do not meet minimum requirements and criteria, but nevertheless make use of the “scarce resource” of frequencies.

Competent for the implementation of the licensing and subsequent supervision process is the National Broadcasting Council, whose supervisory role is significantly strengthened. The whole process is implemented with the competence and in close cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Governance, the National Telecommunications and Postal Commission (EETT) for the precise definition of the technical characteristics.

To be licensed, interested parties will not participate in a process based on the failed auction model, but will have to meet specific requirements such as:

-Tax and insurance compliance

-Transparency in ownership, with disclosure of any shareholder owning at least 1 percent of the business

-Criminal records check

-Minimum number of employees, journalists and non-journalists

-Minimum necessary premises and basic equipment

-Programme integrity

Moreover, television stations in their operation will be required to comply with:

-The physiognomy of the station for which they are licensed (informative or not).

-Limitations and specific rules for the “networking” of regional stations, so that they cannot rebroadcast the same programme between stations, implying nationwide broadcasting.

-The existing broadcasting legislation.

Those who receive a definitive licence will pay an annual supervision fee in favour of the FCC, which is purely symbolic and will be proportional to the costs required to carry out the FCC’s supervisory task, as well as population criteria per Regional Zone.