Colombia. To strengthen and develop public television in the country, the National Television Authority, ANTV, allocated 48 billion Colombian pesos for the investment of the eight regional public channels this year.
These resources, from the Fund for the Development of Television and Content (Fontv), are intended to finance educational and cultural programming and the generation and dissemination of content of public interest.
Each regional channel has six billion pesos available for the improvement of its technological infrastructure, the conservation of the audiovisual archive, the transmission of regional sports or cultural events and the promotion of content aimed at children, youth, family, ethnic and social minorities in its programming.
Of the total resources, the channels may allocate up to 25% for the financing of opinion programs or their own newscasts and, in order to encourage the regional television industry, they must execute at least 20% of the investment in programming through calls for content production giving priority to producers in the region itself.
To follow up on the different investment plans of the channels and design the strategies to strengthen public television, the ANTV convened a working table with the managers of the eight regional channels Canal Capital, Telecaribe, Teleantioquia, Telepacífico, Telecafé, Canal TRO, Canal Trece and Teleislas.
In this meeting, they also reviewed the possibility of financing special projects and the application of access systems to television service by the deaf and hard of hearing population.
Thus, the regulatory body responds to the complaint of the regional channels, who since the creation of the ANTV assured that the resources for its operation had decreased.
