Update CMT backs combined media/telco regulation

CMT backs combined media/telco regulation

Iñaki Ferreras

With telecommunications now in close relation to the audiovisual world, particularly since the arrival of new ways of distributing content, it seems logical that telco activity is regulated in the same way as audiovisual. Or so thinks the Telecommunications Market Comission (CMT in Spanish), the association regulating this market in Spain.

The association's president Reinaldo Rodríguez said: "It makes a lot of sense to have a regulation that converges telecommunications and the audiovisual."

The fact is that the telco market more and more asks the CMT to not only regulate the telecommunications sector but also the audiovisual. And even more now that the national government is preparing the new General Audiovisual Law.

This forthcoming law establishes that telcos will be taxed 0.9% of their income in order to finance the national public broadcaster Radio Television Española which will soon run without advertisements.

Spain's audiovisual sector generated €5,526 million last year, 4.2% less than in the previous year. This situation had repercussions for the in-the-clear broadcasters which saw their income fall 9.6% over the year. Pay-TV registered an advance in its income of 4%. At the end of last year the sector had 4.19 million subscribers, of whom more than 700,000 belonged to IPTV operators.


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