The Rama government is planning to compensate private media companies for the sum of €5 million for their investment into digitalization.
The Ministry Finance and the Ministry of State for Innovation have proposed a draft law that foresees the government covering the additional current or future costs of private companies in transforming their infrastructure from analog to digital.
The fund of €5 million will be managed by the Audiovisual Media Authority (AMA), which will also determine the sums granted to individual companies.
The draft law excludes companies that have suspended their activities, lost their license, or are behind on taxes or social security contributions.
It also specifies the following broad parameters:
- Around €1 million will be given to local and regional licensed operators. According to AMA’s website, these include about 70 companies.
- Around €2 million will be used to compensate the investment into digitalization made by operators with experience in digital transmissions: Digitalb, Tring TV, Vizion Plus, and Supersport.
- Around €2 million will be given to “historical” national TV stations for the necessary investments for the transformation in transmission infrastructure from analog to digital: RTSh, Top Channel, TV Klan, Media Vizion, and ADNT. The last two companies are new market players.
Top Channel and TV Klan don’t have any “additional costs” as they switched to digital years ago. It is unclear why the Rama Government suddenly decided to give this “assistance” to all major Albanian media channels three months before the elections.
Since November 2014 AMA is directed by Gentian Sala. In January 2017, the High Inspectorate for the Declaration of Wealth (ILDKPKI) started an investigation of Sala, who is accused of greatly enriching himself during his tenure as director of AMA.
