The Government approves the aid for public broadcasters affected by the Second Digital Dividend

The Council of Ministers has today approved a royal decree that regulates the direct granting of subsidies to providers of the public service of television audiovisual communication at state and regional level. This aid will have a total amount of 10 million euros and will be aimed at compensating the costs derived from the process of liberation of the Second Digital Dividend.

The Second Digital Dividend is a key process to enable the deployment of ultra-fast 5G networks in Spain. It consists of the decommissioning of the 694-790 MHz band (hereinafter, 700 MHz band) from the radio spectrum, which is currently partially occupied by digital terrestrial television (DTT). This means that many of the multiple broadcasters’ broadcasters will have to move to a lower band of the spectrum. In order to facilitate the transition and minimize the impact for citizens, for several months television channels will broadcast simultaneously through the new and old frequencies (simulcast), before proceeding to the shutdown of the latter. The aid approved today by the Council of Ministers will be intended to offset the cost to public broadcasters of maintaining this transitory double emission.

The liberation of the Second Digital Dividend is taking place in a staggered manner in most of the national territory since last July. The process will have been completed by June 30, 2020. From that date, the 700 MHz band will be fully available in Spain for the deployment of 5G mobile networks.

Information channels

All information about the Second Digital Dividend is available on the website www.televisiondigital.es/ and by telephone call numbers 901 20 10 04 and 91 088 98 79.