The number of licenses granted to television retransmitters in recent weeks has multiplied as fast as the end of the ?Cardoso Era? is approaching. For example, on Friday, December 13, the Federal Register (Diário Oficial da União) lists no fewer than 46 new TV retransmission licenses. This is just a small sample of the chaos that has reigned in broadcasting policy during the last three years. A few recent cases are emblematic. The first is the granting of the channel 14 license in São Paulo to Cable Link TV a Cabo Ltda., owned by João Carlos Di Genio, a former teacher turned entrepreneur and now one of the biggest players in the private education sector (he controls a chain of secondary schools, Colégio Objetivo, and Universidade Paulista).
Questions
São Paulo?s channel 14 was included in a public consultation announced by the Communications Ministry in the Federal Register on October 10. Contributions were accepted until October 25. Only six days later, on October 31, the ministry gave Mr Di Genio?s Cable Link a license to retransmit Brasília?s channel 17 in São Paulo. The striking part is the speed with which this decision was taken, given that the ministry has yet to decide on retransmission license applications submitted in 1999. It?s worth noting that the broadcast power of Cable Link?s station in Brasília is only 160 kW, compared with 1 MW for its retransmitter in São Paulo. The first question is why a 1 MW channel was allocated to retransmission; after all, most broadcast stations in the city are 1 MW or thereabouts.
Lost revenue
Next question: Mr Di Genio?s retransmitter was included in the Basic Television Retransmission Plan (Portuguese-language acronym PBRTV) by Anatel Act no. 29185, dated September 13, 2002. If the same channel with the same power had been tendered as a broadcast license, it could have commanded a considerable fee, meaning more government revenue. Surely this would be in the public interest? For the sake of illustration, we might mention some of the fees paid recently for TV broadcast licenses elsewhere in São Paulo State: 24.4 million Brazilian Reals in Campinas, 16.75m BRL in Jundiaí, 12.88m BRL in Piracicaba, 3.125m BRL in tiny Águas da Prata… (1 US Dollar is currently worth about 3.50 BRL.) Indeed, the Águas da Prata and Piracicaba licenses went to two companies controlled by the selfsame Mr Di Genio, SPDR and CDIN.
?Not illegal?
Another striking fact is that Mr Di Genio already controls a TV broadcast station in the city of São Paulo: CBI on channel 16, currently leased out by day-parts to Shoptour, which also has a retransmitting station in metropolitan São Paulo and a small broadcast station in the South of Brazil. Communications Minister Juarez Quadros says nothing in the law prevents an entity (or two entities with the same owner) from having a broadcast station and retransmitting station in the same city, provided they broadcast different programming. Rumor has it that Mr Di Genio?s strategy is to retransmit ?excess? content from TV Globo and Globosat, giving the Marinho family a second signal in São Paulo. Bandeirantes does something similar with Canal 21.
