During the last three years, the National Television Authority, ANTV, and its Board, began a process of strengthening the sector that includes DTT, public TV, subscription TV and community TV, in order to increase the offer of quality content that ends up benefiting the sector and the viewer.
Ángela Mora Soto, director of the ANTV, shared her satisfaction with the results achieved so far, while recognizing that in some sectors efforts must be increased to improve.
To massify DTT
Today, 85% of Colombia's territory is covered by digital TV, both public and private channels. But beyond the availability of the network, the entity is making a strong campaign of knowledge and appropriation, because people do not know DTT or its advantages. 3 years ago surveys marked 2% of knowledge and today it is at 13%.
In order to draw up the strategies to reach 50% of knowledge, at the end of January 2018 a contract began with Ibope to measure the DTT rating. It is expected that the World Cup will be an opportunity to massify the knowledge of the service.
But in this process there is a disagreement. Some public TV operators have stated that the power of the DTT transmission network is not good. In this regard, the director of the ANTV said that at the beginning of the year they allocated 4 billion pesos for this purpose. "The ANTV will execute a network harmonization project, so that public and private TV transmitters have the same power and both signals can be seen with the same ease."
The analog blackout date for December 31, 2019 has not been changed.
Expanding the competition
During 2017, ANTV worked to modify the regimes for the 60 subscription TV operators and the nearly 500 community TV operators. Both regimes emphasize the promotion of competition.
Ángela Mora Soto explained that In subscription TV they worked to alleviate the burdens and reduce underreporting:
1 Became national licenses.
2 The compensation for cable and satellite TV was unified as a percentage of the bill.
3 They removed quarterly reports that operators had to send to the entity, similar to those requested by the CRC.
As for community TV, they will broadcast a new regime that reduces the procedures from 42 to 7 and authorizes that there is more than one system operating in the same place. They also modified the grounds for cancellation, because they were very rigid and it was in the imagination that the ANTV wanted to end the regime. Community TV operators will be allowed to participate in the tender for new subscription TV operators.
Recognition of public TV
In 2016 the ANTV made an important bet with public TV to test other types of content. The bet went very well because public TV received 90 nominations for the India Catalina awards, of which it was left with 30.
"It's proof that the work is being done well. We had the vision that public television was boring, half political, with magazines that nobody saw, but this has changed We are analyzing the possibility of an OTT that links all public television, with a great business potentiality. We will continue with this momentum in 2018," said the director of the entity.
Towards a convergent regulator
Four bills are currently being passed in the Colombian Congress that seek to modify the regulation that television currently has in Colombia. Three projects are individual initiatives and one is submitted by the Government.
"The country needs a convergent regulator. Operators cannot be flipping between multiple entities, regulatory compliance must be facilitated. The ANTV has shown that it is doing well, that there were things to do. The only thing I would like is for the new entity to collect all this good exercise that we have been doing, "concluded Ángela Mora Soto.
