Project title: “Supporting and Monitoring of the Transition to Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting in Georgia”

Project Financing:Open Society - Georgia Foundation

Project Budget:$38 574, 24

Project Duration: 2013 March-December

Project Description:

June 17^th, 2015 is the final deadline of transferring to digital terrestrial broadcasting, a commitment taken by Georgia on an international level (ITU). Georgia took the abovementioned commitment in 2006; however, for a number of reasons, no activities to this end had been done, except for the last year. In case if Georgia does not develop a strategy and action plan of digital broadcasting, and does not make a fast and right decision regarding digital terrestrial broadcasting in general and implement it as soon as possible, then, unlike neighboring countries, its analogue broadcasting stations will no longer be legally protected from interference by the stations of neighboring countries. This will create significant problems for end users and companies working in the telecommunication and media sectors of the country.

The process of the transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting of Georgia is guided by the relevant department of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, which does not pay due attention to those issues that are vital for the successful implementation of the transition. Problematic directions include raising the awareness and subsidizing of the end users, taking into account the problems of small, regional and local broadcasters that are very important for the pluralism of the media of the country, between broadcasting technology Platform and inter-platform competition regulation, determining and taking into account the conditions for supporting investments and other important issues.

The main purpose of the project for supporting the strategy of transitioning of Georgia to digital terrestrial broadcasting is that the strategy should include all the problems that are directly related to the digitalization process in Georgia according to the recommendations and experience of other countries and while taking account the current situation in Georgia. Te policy document and the changes to be implemented should create conditions and opportunities for diversifying the programs of the digital terrestrial television and TV content. In order to facilitate the abovementioned, particular emphasis should be placed on the side of the end users of the service, since, without relevant and universal informational provision and regulation, the population might be left without free public and commercial content, in other words, television, after the transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting or, in other words, the shutdown of analog broadcasting.

The goal of the project is to support the formation of guiding principles acceptable to all groups of society. These principles, apart from other issues, should encompass the following directions:

• Creating conditions and guaranteeing free, universal and Public Broadcaster’s programs, as well as spreading and availability of the service of commercial broadcasters on a national, regional and local level;
• Guaranteeing concrete conditions of access to digital terrestrial broadcasting networks of independent content providers, also guaranteeing openness of the market and the diversity of TV content.

Before the end of 2013, the development of a document outlining the policy of the transition of Georgia to digital terrestrial broadcasting and the formation of an action plan while taking into account the activities to be implemented by the involved parties are planned.

Our organization will be working in five main directions of the process in the frameworks of this project:

• Active participation in the formation of the strategy for transition of Georgia to digital broadcasting.
• Preparation of legislative amendments;
• Evaluation of the legislative act adopted by the state in regards to existing challenges. Monitoring of the activities to be implemented in 2013, with the purpose of revelaing the weak points of the policy of the strategy and the plan of transition to digital broadcasting.
• Supporting the informational campaign for the general population;
• Analysis of the factual data in the document of the policy of digitalization, as well as in the action plan, and presentation of the recommendations.

The activities of the organization will be carried out from March 2013 to December 2013.

Implementation Strategy of the Project:

• Participation in the task groups of the Council for Transitioning to Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting;
• Defining the problematic points of the strategy for transitioning to digital terrestrial broadcasting;
• Publishing the document of the policy for the transition of the organization to digital terrestrial broadcasting;
• Participation in the task groups of the “Media Advocacy Coalition” and discussion of the issues of the transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting;
• Monitoring of the plan of transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting and publishing interim reports on the process on the website of the organization;
• Preparing preventive measures against the problematic points of the strategy and supporting the users and the business sector.

Activities planned in the frameworks of the project:

• Preparing and presenting the project of the strategy of transitioning to digital terrestrial broadcasting;
• Researching economically and non-economically vulnerable categories;
• Study of the internal competition of the platform and recommendations for its support
• Study and evaluation with regards to challenges of the working plan of transitioning to digital terrestrial broadcasting;
• Publishing articles;
• Presentation of the strategy for state aid;
• Preparing and presenting a video for providing end users with information;
• Evaluating the information campaign for the end users;
• Study of the concentration of digital receivers in the population and the retail market;
• Studying and presenting the legal basis (changes) of the transition to digital broadcasting;
• Evaluating the strategy for transitioning to digital broadcasting in the light of the interests of regional and local broadcasters;
• Evaluation of the business model for transitioning to digital broadcasting suggested by the Government;
• Implementation of the transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting in the frameworks of the advertising campaign.