According to an unconfirmed report in the Napi Gazdasag business daily, the Hungarian government could be mounting a bid to acquire terrestrial broadcaster Antenna Hungaria – should the unit split from its French parent TDF. No sources for the plan have been divulged but the paper says that TDF’s owner, US private equity group TPG, is considering the break-up of the company which has operations across Germany, Poland, Spain, Estonia and of course, France.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database Antenna Hungaria won the Block 3 (3,445MHz-3,459MHz, 3,545MHz-3,559MHz) spectrum licence at auction in 2001. The company’s main focus is on national terrestrial television and radio broadcasting and distribution, although in March 2013 it said it was augmenting its mobile TV offer with the launch of four new public TV channels, three radio channels and a new Euronews service. The service provider intends to offer the service via its AH MinDig TV mobile application, which is free to download for Google Android, Apple iOS and Windows Phone devices, for MinDig TV digital-terrestrial pay-TV customers. Further, Antenna Hungaria has also unveiled plans to improve upon its new media services business, AH ConnectMedia, and as such, has already launched a 100Gbps content delivery network (CDN) to serve the central and eastern European market. Antenna Hungaria has invested around HUF25 billion (USD111 million) to introduce digital terrestrial television (DTT) in Hungary since 2008. The rollout of the service is currently underway.