Advanced Television

Airplus TV challenges Portuguese DTT decision

July 17, 2008

From Branislav Pekic in Rome Acting on the deadline for appeals, Swedish company Airplus TV has requested that Portuguese telecommunications regulator Anacom names "a new [independent] and capable" jury for the public tender that will award the licence to run Portugal's Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform.Speaking at a press conference in Lisbon, the president of Airplus TV Portugal, Luís Nazaré, stressed that the existing jury "made crude technical mistakes, which would incomprehensible for a [fair] jury ". He claims that Airplus TV was only informed of the evaluation criteria after the bids were submitted, adding that the jury "did not show it had the qualities of [expertise] necessary for evaluating such a process". In the jury's preliminary report, according to Nazaré, Airplus's bid was judged as best in four out of the seven criteria, which are "effectively the most important criteria". The company has made clear it will "go to the end" in its challenge, including court action in order to prevent Portugal Telecom being awarded the licence to manage the pay-TV DTT multiplexes (

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, DTT/DSO