Cable companies will have freedom to set the content of the programming grid

By Enacom

This is an automated translation of the press release issued in Spanish

The National Communications Entity (ENACOM) eliminated the obligation to include certain informative content signals in the programming grids of subscription television services, whether by physical link (cable) or satellite, in order to comply with Decree No. 70/2023, approved by the National Government, which proposes "to grant the communications system greater freedom for its development."

Resolution 1094/2024 published this Wednesday in the Official Gazette repealed the “General Regulation of subscription television services by physical and/or radioelectric and satellite link” (Resolution 1491/2020), by which it had been arranged “to replace the existing regulations regarding the inclusion of signals, marketing and grid ordering, applicable to subscription services”, and other resolutions by which the mandatory inclusion of certain signals with eminently federal information content in their respective programming grids had been imposed.

According to the Resolution's recitals, Decree No. 70/2023 amended the Information and Communications Technology Law (Law No. 27,078), which incorporated the subscription broadcasting service as an ICT service. Therefore, the provisions of the Media Law (Law No. 26,522) are no longer applicable to cable or satellite television.

In this sense, as provided by the ICT Law, the content provided by these companies can no longer be regulated, so the charges relating to payroll and the organisational modality of the channels that make up the grids of cable companies, imposed in article 65 of the Media Law, are no longer in effect. In this way, ENACOM corrects an asymmetry between the different telecommunications services that was detrimental to cable companies.

The regulations include signals from Radio Televisión Argentina Sociedad del Estado, all public broadcasters and signals of the National State and all those in which the National State has a stake; signals from the provincial states and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, from the Argentine Catholic Church, from National Universities and open television licensees of origin, whose coverage area coincides with the coverage area of the service.