The Competition Tribunal authorized participation of GLR Chile’s related and subsidiary companies –who operate the radio stations “Imagina”, “Rock and Pop”, “Concierto”, “Futuro”, “FM Dos”, “Corazón”, “pudahuel”, “Hit 40”, “ADN Radio Chile”, “Radioactiva” and “Radio Uno”– in the public contests for radio broadcasting concession renewals that Subtel will carry out this year (2009), regarding their FM concessions, which expire in 2010.
The inquiry to this Tribunal was presented in compliance to one of the conditions under which the concentration operation between the radio groups GLR-Prisa and Iberoamerican Radio.
The ruling takes into account two recent modifications to the Chilean Telecommunications Act, from September 2008 and February 2009, which altered the contests’ rules and established restrictions both to the participation of related companies –which cannot “present more than one application for one locality, in the same contest” and to their transferability for the two years following its assignation. These new rules, according to the Competition Tribunal, do not generate ex-ante competitive conditions for assigning the spectrum; on the contrary, they limit participation of enterprise groups in contests that renew two or more of their frequencies in one locality.
The Tribunal also considered that the short time that has passed since GLR Chile took control of Iberoamerican Radio’s stations does not allow the evaluation of the existence of contrary to free competition conducts. At the same time, efficiencies of the operation have been proven. Nonetheless, it is not possible to verify that said efficiencies are being transferred to the market at this time, via better programming or via a decrease of the price of radio publicity.