Post
by pjeva » Tue Sep 15, 2015 8:46 pm
Until 2006. you could get a licence with just request. This led to 200+ stations with some sort of licence in a city with 2.000.000 people. Then, new law come into force and there was major shut down with raids. Only 11 stations left. So after that, government was dedicated to shut down pirates until last year. Meanwhile with government changes, law has changed and became inefficient. Now you cannot be charged for pirate radio. You can be charged for crimes commited with use of pirate radio (like voting frauds, tax frauds...). Anyhow, we were turned off because of complain from legal station.
Currently, most of legals are struggling with finances, so there is no enough income to the agency. Agency is under government hat, but they finance themselves from licences and penalties to legal stations. I think it is the main reason for loosened process of licencing. Also, on country basis, there is maybe 10 pirate stations, so it is not a big deal.
To get a long story short, here is how this area is regulated here.
1. Ministry - regulates broadcast law and provides action requests to RATEL (finding of broadcast sites, measurements of rf fields). When they come to you, there is one inspector from ministry and one technician from RATEL.
2. RATEL - agency similar to your OFCOM but they cannot act by themselves. They perform band scans, measurements, make frequency plans, issue licences and report to ministry.
3. REM - Regulatory agency for Electronic Media, provides control of broadcaster behaviour, issues their opinion to RATEL should somebody get a licence and removes licences as necessary.
2. and 3. have their own financing (as described above) but both are under government.
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