Background information

The Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia introduced numerous anti-pandemic measures aimed at protecting the health and lives of citizens following the COVID-19 outbreak. These measures include, among other things, ban on holding all public events and gatherings, suspension of trade activities, suspension of all sports competitions, and so forth. As a result, advertising in electronic media has been significantly reduced, in particluar in televison. The decline in advertising revenue led to a significant reduction in the available financial resources of television broadcasters and significantly disrupted their economic activity. Therefore, television broadcasters experienced difficulties to meet payment obligations for transmission fee, based on existing contracts with the network and infrastructure operator i.e. the company Odašiljači i veze d.o.o.

Content of measure

The company Odašiljači i veze d.o.o. will reduce the amount of broadcasting fees for broadcasters (television publishers) who can prove that their economic activity has been disrupted  for the period from 1 April 2020 until the day of switching to DVB-T2 (transition from terrestrial TV signal to the latest DVB-T2 standard), as follows:

• for broadcasting programmes in MUX A and MUX B the amount of the fee is reduced by 20%
• for programme transmission in MUX D, the amount of the fee is reduced by 30%.

Television broadcasters will pay a reduced amount of the monthly fee by paying 50% of the amount upon deadline, and the remaining 50% of the monthly fee by non-interest-free repayment in equal monthly installments, starting from the first month following the deadline and until 31 March 2022 at the latest.

Reduction of the amount of fees and installment payment do not apply to television broadcasters whose founders or holders of shares or stakes are the Republic of Croatia and/or local and regional self-government units, and/or the Center for Restructuring and Sales (Centar za restrukturiranje i prodaju - CERP), and/or legal entities on the basis of a special regulation which are financed mainly or entirely from the state budget or from the budgets of local and regional self-government units, or from public funds, as well as from their subsidiaries, regardless of the size of the share.

Use of measure

Currently unknown.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	Sector specific set of companies	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government Company / Companies	No special funding required

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	No involvement as case not in social partner domain	No involvement as case not in social partner domain
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• No involvement
• Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

No involvement.

Views and reactions

Due to the nature of the measure, social partners were not involved.

Sectors and occupations

This case is not occupation-specific.

Sources

• 29 May 2020: Odluka o privremenoj mjeri pomoći nakladnicima televizije s problemima u poslovanju uzrokovanim epidemijom bolesti COVID-19 umanjenjem plaćanja davanja trgovačkom društvu Odašiljači i veze d.o.o. (narodne-novine.nn.hr)
• 29 May 2020: Decision on temporary measure to help television broadcasters with business problems caused by the COVID-19 (narodne-novine.nn.hr)