Eight candidates bid for four licenses of television in Greece – Yahoo Finance Spain

Athens, Aug 30 (EFE) .- The auction of licenses private television in Greece began today with last minute changes that reduced to eight the number of candidates for operate the four channels can operate from now on.

Loaded with suitcases, representatives of the eight participating firms were you coming from early morning to the General Secretariat of Media and Communication, hosting auction and the doors of the television cameras crowded.

Late on Monday was excluded the candidacy of Epsilon chain to present a bank guarantee did not meet the requirements to be only valid for 36 days rather than the 365 days required.

Another setback occurred with the application of the company’s builder Yannis Kalogritsas submitted the necessary signatures 40 minutes outside the permitted time.

Finally his application was approved because the table in charge of collecting the credentials was still open, except that was met with criticism from other candidates.

Since yesterday afternoon, the Department of Media and Communication is surrounded by a wide deployment police and from six in the morning until the same time on Thursday only have permission to access the building the people involved in the auction process.

it is estimated that each of the four auctions can last up twelve hours so the results will be announced as soon late on Wednesday or Thursday.

During the auction participants must remain in specific areas, who can not leave unless accompanied by a guard, as they can not communicate with each other.

also, do not use personal computers or wireless devices, or the presence of media is allowed.

the initial price the auction, which will take place in two phases, is 3 million euros.

from that amount, the amount will rise in steps of half a million.

When only two participants for the license in question is passed to the second phase, in which candidates will be invited to submit their final bid in a sealed envelope.

Among those who will participate in the auction include all private channels nationals currently issue and include in their programming content information, except Mega, the oldest canal in Greece, which was excluded because of financial problems.

This is the first organized competition since the birth of channels private in Greece in 1989.

the Greek private channels work since then with provisional licenses that expired 27 years ago, and all of them are heavily indebted to banks, Treasury and Social Security.