On September 8, the state Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting made significant changes to the licence of the Košice city television station, TV Naša. The TV station, which so far has broadcasted in the area of Košice, will now be able to broadcast nation-wide through satellite.
According to the new licence conditions, TV Naša will be moving to digital, coded broadcasting, and the distributors of its programs will be the 12 cable television stations in Slovakia. These regional cable stations will at the same time be co-creators of TV Naša's programming. The new enterprise will bear the name TV Naša Global.
"We changed the licenses of all 12 companies that take part in the TV Naša project," said Jarmila Grujbárová, head of the council office. "Most of the changes concerned the program structure, because all companies will now be contributing elements to programming."
It is expected that TV Naša Global will enjoy a wider coverage of Slovak territory than its satellite competitor, VTV. Naša will be part of cable companies' offers, and will also be broadcast by regional terrestrial TV stations. "We will prepare most of the programmes ourselves, but the regional companies will have a chance to throw in their own regional input," said the director and co-owner of TV Naša, Marcel Dekanovský.
Dekanovský's vision is that local televisions stations will prepare their own news bulletins and will also contribute to broadcasting and news on the state level. Sports and entertainment programs will be prepared in the same way. There will also be programs for children, music programs and evening films.
"We calculated that when we joined forces, a market would be created which has the potential for a TV station with coverage of the entire state," said Dekanovský. "We want to fight for viewers with our programming and revive the Slovak television market, where TV Markíza today has a dominant position. However, we have a different philosophy, which takes advantage of the specific features of regions."
The owner of the TV Naša Global licence for satellite broadcasting is MAC TV s.r.o. Košice. An investor company named Global Television Network New York, hailing from the US, is in the process of acquiring 44% of MAC TV shares, while a 5% block is owned by the Czech company Gema RTV Hradec Králové.
The new television is to start broadcasting at the end of this year. Advertising companies and purchasors of advertising time will be addressed only after the first survey of popularity is carried out.
