Race To Handle Bulgaria's Digital TV Switchover Awareness Campaign Down To One Bidder
Bulgaria's IT and transport ministry said local tie-up TCTV is the sole qualified bidder in a tender to award a contract to run the awareness campaign for the country's planned switchover from analogue to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting.
TCTV, comprising local companies Archer Ideas, Piero 97 MA and Sova 5, offered a price of 8.31 million levs ($5.5 million/4.2 million euro), excluding Value Added Tax, the ministry said in a statement after the bid was unsealed on Thursday.
The other two candidates, local consortia Max Inform and DVB-T Consult, will not be allowed to advance in the competition as the tender documents they filed did not meet the mandatory requirements, the statement added.
The tender winner must offer accessible information about the deadlines for the switch-off of analogue terrestrial TV broadcasting in Bulgaria and the choice of decoders necessary for the free reception of up to 14 digital TV channels.
In March, Bulgaria announced it will discontinue analogue TV broadcasting on September 1, 2013. There will be a six-month overlap when digital and analogue broadcasting will be used simultaneously, starting from March 1, 2013.