The Licensing Regime Under The New Broadcasting Law

Law No. 3984 on the Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and their Broadcasts, dated 13 April 1994 (the "Old Law"), was replaced with new Law No. 6112 on the Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises that was enacted and came into force on 15 February 2011 (the "New Law").

While in our previous articles, we have generally focused on comparing the Old Law and the New Law (in draft form¹ at the time), in terms of the foreign shareholding restrictions being relaxed to provide media pluralism and content diversity under the New Law, this article discusses the revised licensing regime – one of the New Law's most important aspects. This regime foresees a ranking tender for the allocation of multiplex capacity to media service providers, and imposes on media service providers the obligation to pay an annual fee for multiplex capacity usage.