The Estonian Technical Surveillance Authority (TSA) has announced a public competition for two new licenses for the provision of public television services with free access. Responsive tenders and other statutory documents should be submitted to the TSA by 10 February 2015. Based on the tenders submitted, the two best tenderers will be established, who will receive operating licenses valid for ten years.

The validity of the new licenses will be ten years as opposed to previous five years. Longer validity gives greater assurance for the broadcasting companies as regards the future, and allows for better planning and long-term development of their programs and any additional services.

For the purpose of program diversity, the competition sets out several subsidiary conditions to be taken account of in tender applications: the talk programs must be in Estonian; the daily TV program must be at least 15 hours long, and consist of cultural, social, sports, youth and children’s programs. In addition, at least two hours of audiovisual works funded by the state or made by students of audiovisual studies at Estonian universities in the past five years must be shown every month.

Licenses for the provision of media services are issued jointly by the TSA and the Estonian Ministry of Culture.