Chile. With the aim of increasing visibility and thus promoting the development of regional, local and local-community channels, the National Television Council, CNTV, approved a series of rules that allow these signals to appear on the programmatic grid of pay television operators present in the respective region or locality where they operate, mechanism called "Must carry".
"As the National Television Council we want to increase the diversity of content available to the public on the different television platforms, also being a boost for the development of digital television at the regional, local and local community level," said the president of the institution, Catalina Parot.
This change benefits 71 regional, local and local - community digital concessions throughout the country, among which are signals linked to universities (UFRO TV, UTALCA, UC Temuco, UMagallanes, ULagos), channels linked to journalistic companies (Bío Bío Television; El Centro TV), to communities (Oveja TV) or religious creeds (Nuevo Tiempo-Chile), among others.
Currently of the 71 existing concessions, 33 are receiving works approved by Subtel, so they could be added in the short term.
The right of "Must Carry" exists since the enactment in 2014 of the Law that allowed the introduction of the Digital Television Law (Law 20,750), however, for its implementation, it was necessary to have a sufficient number of digital concessions in operation and at the same time adopt a public procedure to implement it.
How to be on the cable
The approved rules establish that the concessionaire (owner of a regional, local or local-community channel) must apply to be on the programmatic grid of the area in which it operates. The Undersecretariat of Telecommunications (Subtel) must pronounce on the technical feasibility of pay-TV operators to incorporate them into their grid and the connections that are needed in each case.
When the available places technically reported by Subtel exceed the number of applicants in each region or locality, the allocation will be direct and, otherwise, to settle the procedure, the approved rules contemplate the call for public competition. In both cases, an allocation of the right for 5 years is foreseen.
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