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LATVIA
I.
Broadcasting council approves subscription plan.
Although the National Radio and Television Council is due
to take a final decision [on 8th April] on whether to
submit to the Saeima [parliament] commissions the plan it
has drawn up for collecting subscriptions for public
broadcasting organizations, the council’s session
[on 7th April] approved a business and budget plan for
setting the subscription payments, ‘Neatkariga’
has been informed by Baldurs Apinis, a member of the
council.
‘Neatkariga’ has already written that the
Council has called on the government to determine
subscription payments to finance TV and radio
stations. “The bill prepared by the council
was due to be submitted in April to the Saeima and the
Cabinet of Ministers for review and discussion,” the
chairman of the council, Ojars Rubenis, noted earlier,
adding that it will also decide whether the model for the
plan is feasible and when it will be
implemented.
The current plan, 100 pages thick, envisages a payment of
60 santims a month for each household for using radio,
and one and a half lats a month for use of both radio and
television. Moreover, Apinis says, people whose
family income for each family member is less than the
subsistence minimum set by the government will be subject
to a subscription of only 60 santims. Apinis
pointed out that this is not a payment for radio or
television but for the opportunity to make use of public
broadcasting services.
The document also provides that the subscription is to be
paid by residents every six months, but those subscribers
who pay for the whole year at the beginning of a year
will receive concession rates.
‘Neatkariga Rita Avize,’ Riga,
April 8, 1999
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